January 27th marked the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by units of the red Army. The anniversary is commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yesterday it was recognised in Toronto by a performance by the Likht Ensemble at the Meridian Arts Centre in North York.
Here’s a look at the start of 2024 in Toronto.
On the 7th and the 9th OPUS chamber music, who feature some of Canada’s best young chamber musicians, have a pair of concerts. The first is at Trinity St. Paul’s and features music by Rebecca Clarke, Leo Weiner, Anton Webern and Robert Schumann. The second is at the Arts and Letters Club and includes music by Tcherepini, Klein, Wegener and Beethoven.
It being Holocaust Remembrance Week it was entirely appropriate that Tuesday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA was given by the Likht Ensemble of Jaclyn Grossman, soprano, and Nate Ben-Horin, piano. The material was mostly drawn from music written/collected at either Theresienstadt or in the ghettos of Lithuania.
The third instalment of the Likht Ensemble’s Shoah Songbook project features music from Poland; specifically from the Lodz ghetto and Auschwitz-Birkenau. It’s available now on the Harold Green Jewish Theatre channel on Youtube. Here’s the link. There’s about 12 minutes of useful introductory material and 25 minutes of music.
There’s a fair number of shows appearing at fairly short notice as people scramble to adapt to relaxing regulations so this post will contain events for April not previously noted plus a look forward to May.
There is news. The COC has cancelled “in person” performances of Madama Butterfly. Instead it will be “made available as a free digital presentation to current 2021/2022 COC subscription holders who are continuing to support Canadian opera through the donation, exchange, or credit of tickets.” How that works I have no idea.
Also at the COC, they are taking a rather interesting approach to land acknowledgements. You can learn more about it in this ten minute video.
operaramblings 