This year’s New Voices concert from Soundstreams, curated by Haotian Yu, played at Hugh’s Room on Monday evening. It set out to explore some of the issues around human migration through three works by diasporic Canadian composers. It also explored the use of technology in the creation and performance of musical works. Sio pretty ambitious.
Regular readers will be familiar with the Happenstancers. They are a shifting group of young musicians convened by Brad Cherwin who have been presenting innovative chamber music concerts in an assortment of venues for a few years now. Last year Brad was selected to curate a concert for Soundstreams at the Jane Mallett Theatre which was very like a Happenstancers concert in many ways with the advantage of exposing the approach to a wider audience. On Friday night they were back under their own flag at Temerty Theatre as part of the 21C festival. Which is a long winded way of saying this is a very happening and innovative group who are emerging as a significant player in the Toronto chamber music scene.
Friday’s concert, as you would expect, consisted mostly of 21st century music but in line withe theme of “exploring the space between two people” and in typical Happenstancers’ style there was music from the Renaissace plus Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. The ensemble consisted of sopranos Danika Lorèn and Reilly Nelson, Julia Mirzoev, Russell iceberg and Christopher Whitley on violin, Hezekkiah Leung and Hee-See Yoon on viola, Peter Eom on cello and Brad Cherwin on clarinets with constantly changing combos across the evening. Continue reading
The latest Happenstancers gig, which took place at 918 Bathurst on Thursday evening, was an exploration of the death of Ophelia and related ideas with works for assorted chamber ensembles plus/minus voices. Ten composers; all of whom could at a stretch be considered “contemporary”, were featured in a programme that, with interval, lasted two and three quarter hours. That’s a feat of stamina for performers and audience alike as none of the music performed was “easy” and no notes or introductions were provided.
Each half of the programme started off with a piece by Linda Catlin Smith, who was in the audience. Stare at the River for piano, string bass, trumpet, clarinet, violin and percussion was quite sparse and open textured while The River was more obviously lyrical with guitar, cello and Danika Lorèn replacing piano, trumpet and bass.
Helène Berr was a student at the Sorbonne in the 1940s. She was musical, well read and kept a journal. One looks at her photograph and one sees exactly what one expects; regular features, not too much makeup, nicely cut hair. All in all a typical young middle class Parisienne of the period. But she was Jewish and, ultimately deported to Auschwitz and then Bergen-Belsen, where she was killed just days before British troops liberated the camp on 15th April 1945.
The second programme in this year’s West End Micro Music Festival had its first performance at Redeemer Lutheran on Friday night. It was a mix of contemporary instrumental and vocal works with some unusual Hildegard von Bingen and some interesting lighting (Billy Wong) and staging.
First up was a set for Lenny Ranallo on electric guitar and soprano Danika Lorèn wrapped in a sheet. It was certainly different, and surprisingly effective, to hear von Bingen on electric guitar. This was followed by Danika singing Sofia Gubaidulina’s Aus den Visionen der Hildegard von Bingen with electronic backing. This sets short fragments of german text and was presented with great precision.
Next was Cassandra Miller’s Perfect Offering. This is scored for chamber ensemble (violins – Julia Mirzoev, David Baik; viola – Hezekiah Leung, cello – Peter Eom, flutes – Sara Constant, clarinets – Brad Cherwin, piano – Joonchung Cho with Simon Rivard conducting). It’s based on a peal of bells from a convent in France and is rather beautiful in a minimalist sort of way as you might expect fro something based on bells. Continue reading
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