To Walter Hall on Saturday evening to hear a recital by tenor Marcel d’Entremont. I was intrigued by the programme; English song; art and otherwise, with the resources of a piano quintet for accompaniment. It’s quite rare for an art song recital to have more than just piano accompaniment so this looked promising. I wasn’t disappointed.
Proceedings began with three of Beethoven’s Irish Songs scored for voice and string trio (Here Aaron Schwebel – violin, Rory McLeod – viola and Guillaume Artus – cello). I wasn’t familiar with these songs and they are really rather jolly and were nicely done. Two Irish ballads of the sort that people mistake (sometimes) for “traditional” (but no Tom Lehrer) followed. Marcel has the style down pat (or Pat) for these. Think all those best selling recordings of Irish tenors from the 78 era. Continue reading
Soundstreams Electric Messiah 3 opened last night at the Drake Underground. Some things have changed from last year. There’s no chorus, the soloists are new, the instrumentation has changed. There’s now a harpsichord (Christopher Bagan) and an electric organ (Jeff McLeod) for instance. Some things are the same. There’s still extensive use of electric guitar (John Gzowski). Dancer Lybido and DJ SlowPitchSound are still there, as is Adam Scime as music director and electro-acoustical wizard. There’s still a mobile phone schtick. It feels both familiar and quite different.
hymns of heaven and earth is a Centrediscs CD featuring three works by Halifax based Peter-Anthony Togni. I have limited experience with Togni. I thought his Responsio (reviewed for Opera Canada) was inspired but was less impressed with his 
operaramblings 