It’s coming towards the end of the traditional “season” but there’s sill plenty happening. Here’s how I see may shaping up at present (I expect more theatre listings will come in. They tend to be somewhat less notice!):
Tuesday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA consisted of works by Cecilia Livingston chosen and performed by members of the COC’s Ensemble Studio. It was a fairly varied programme considering it was all works by one composer.
Quieen Hezumuryango and Mattia Senesi kicked things off with Give Me Your Hand which sets a Duncan McFarlane text exploring aspects of Lady Macbeth. It uses extended piano technique and suits the dark colours of Queen’s voice. It was followed by Moon; an evocative solo piano piece played by Brian Cho. Not the only time the moon would figure in the programme.
Soundstreams’ concert on Friday evening in the new TD Music Hall at Massey Hall was inspired by the Rothko Chapel in Houstion, Texas. It featured two works; Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, commissioned for the opening of the chapel, and Cecilia Livingston’s mark, commissioned for Friday’s concert. Both featured chorus (Soundstreams Choir 21), viola (Steven Dann), celesta (Gregory Oh) and percussion (Ryan Scott). mark also featured baritone Alex Samaras). Both were staged by Tim Albery with lighting by Siobhán Sleath and projections by Cameron Davis.
Saturday afternoon at 27 North Sherbourne Rachel Krehm and Janelle Fung presented an art song recital entitled The Enticing Sky. The material chosen was interesting with a heavy bias to women composers, living composers and Canadian composers; sometimes all three at once.
We got extracts from Come Closer; settings of the poetry of Elizabeth Krehm by Ryan Trew, Ethel Smyth’s Three Songs of the Sea, Dorothy Chang’s Songs of Wood and Water, Anna Pidgorna’s Amphráin Eibhlín (the only non English language text) and Cecilia Livingston’s luna premit. Continue reading
Soundstreams has announced the line up for the 2023/24 season. First up, and very exciting, is The Bright Divide, which will play Nov 10th and 11th at the TD Music Hall (the new performance space at Massey Hall). It’s a staged show, directed by Tim Albery and featuring two works inspired by the work of Mark Rothko. There’s Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel for viola, timpani and choir and a new work by Cecilia Livingston; mark for viola and voice.
Electric Messiah is back. This time it’s at Theatre Passe Muraille from December 14th to 17th. Adam Scime is in charge again for the Messiah where you don’t know what to expect.
There was never a chance that Emily D’Angelo’s solo recital at Koerner Hall was going to be a steady procession of German lieder and French chansons with the odd Broadway number thrown in and it wasn’t. It was what D’Angelo fans would expect and (some of us at least) crave; lots of women composers and lots of contemporary music. There were five sets.
The first linked Hildegard von Bingen, Arnold Schoenberg and Missy Mazzoli. I’m going to focus on the Mazzoli. There was “Hello Lord” from Vespers for a New Dark Age and “You Are the Dust” from Songs from the Uproar. Both of these are stage works scored for chamber ensemble and electronics so they sound very different in piano score. Emily sang the with great purity and clarity and Sophia accompanied beautifully though there’s just no way one can capture the synth pop inflections of Mazzoli on piano. That said, it was a great advert for two works a I really admire. Continue reading
Toronto Summer Music opened on Thursday night at Koerner Hall with a concert called Inspirations featuring chamber and vocal music drawn from folk influences. It began with Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style Op. 102 for piano and cello played by Rachael Kerr and Matthew Zalkind. The folk roots are pretty clear here and since the pieces were written with amateur performance in mind those roots aren’t over elaborated and the result is satisfying. Not that they got an amateurish performance. Quite the opposite.
Last night was the last performance at Heliconian Hall of Loose Tea Music Theatre’s double bill of Anne Frank operas. The first half of the show centred on Grigori Frid’s monodrama for soprano and chamber ensemble (given here in piano score) The Diary of Anne Frank. It’s a work in 21 scenes of which 15 were performed last night. For a Soviet work of the 1970s it’s surprisingly modern in style with some interesting music for the piano. The vocal part though is pretty unsympathetic and although Gillian Grossman managed it pretty well a lot of it lies too high for comfort or even comprehension.
Last night, at the Ernest Balmer Studio, we got to see somewhat more developed versions of the works presented earlier in the week in the RBA but this time in staged format. I’m not sure my opinions changed much as a result though I think I’m even more convinced that here we have five pieces of substance that deserve to be seen in fully realised form. So, some brief thoughts on each. Note that, except for Book of Faces we only saw extracts from pieces that are still WIP. Continue reading
Last night’s late, late concert at the Conservatory was basically a preview of Bicycle Opera Project’s 2015 season. It’s a bit hard to say what the final show will be like as we got mainly excerpts last night and it just feels really different to be in a formal concert hall compared with the usual venues for BOP. 
operaramblings 