Tag Archives: martin

Innocence/Experience

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innocenceAmerican mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera, with pianist Myra Huang, has recently released a CD of songs by contemporary American composers titled Innocence/Experience.  There are four , fairly contrasting, sets of songs by different composers.  The first group are settings of texts by Garrison Keillor with music by Robert Aldridge.  The texts are predictably sentimental and the music is rather retro.  It sounds like it might have come from a musical comedy in the 1940s.  It’s not inappropriate for the texts but seems a little out of time.  It suits Rivera’s voice though.  Her strength is definitely in the lower register where there is a pleasing smokey tone.

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The Seven Deadly Sins

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yesNew kids on the block , The Friends of Gravity, presented their first show last night at St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church on Dundas East.  It was a silent film themed take on Weill’s Die Sieben Todsünden.  Stephanie Conn sang both Anna I and Anna II in front of a film screen showing black and white film clips shot by Scott Gabriel for the show, replacing the ballet of the original.  The Family, who pop up mostly to criticize the Annas were sung by Charles Fowler, Christopher Wattam, Bryan Martin and William Lewans.  Scott Gabriel conducted his own arrangement of the score for a six piece band including accordion and ukulele.

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Sing unto the Lord a new song

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Judith_Beheading_Holofernes_by_CaravaggioHubert Parry’s 1888 work Judith got its North American premiere yesterday in a performance by Pax Christi Chorale at Koerner Hall.  It’s a typical English high Victorian oratorio, commissioned by the Leeds Choral Society Birmingham Festival (Wikipedia strikes again).  It’s got some very grand choruses and some tuneful solos (one was later used for the hymn tune Repton setting the words “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”).  If one like’s that sort of thing, and Peter Simple’s Alderman Footbotham of the Bradford Tramways and Fine Arts Committee would certainly have approved, it’s very enjoyable.  And if that’s not enough, there’s human sacrifice, seduction and murder to keep one’s interest.

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All star Carmélites

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The 2013 recording of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites from the Théâtre des Champs Elysées has a cast that reads like a roll call of famous French singers; Petitbon, Piau, Gens and Koch are all there.  Throw in Rosalind Plowright and Topi Lehtipuu and one gets some idea of the star power on display.

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