So on Saturday night at St.Olave’s CE I finally managed to catch a concert in the Apocryphonia series. It was titled Brews, Beauties and Brawlers and was billed as “classical” meets “punk”. It was a collection of pieces for piano, solo voice and/or choir and organiser Alexander Capellazzo had recruited four voices of each type with soloists coming from the group. Narmina Afaniyeva was at the piano. Everybody (and some of the audience) had dressed for the occasion!
Apocryphonia has been around for three years or so but Sunday evening at Heliconian Hall was the first time I managed to catch one of their concerts. I like that they don’t do mainstream repertory, rather seeking out much less well known works, and Sunday was no exception. It was actually a collaboration with Syrinx Concerts and the show was in two parts. The first part featured baritone John Holland and tenor Alexander Cappellazzo with pianist Ivan Estey Jovanovic performing 20th century songs mostly from Eastern Europe and the Caucasus while the second featured works from the same area arranged for oboe (Caitlin Broms-Jacob) and piano (Madeline Hildebrand). I say “mostly” because each half included a piece by Toronto’s Srul Irving Glick.
operaramblings 