There are a couple of events of interest in the coming week. On Tuesday the free concert in the RBA has been switched from the originally announced chamber concert to a vocal concert featuring the Rebanks fellows at the Glenn Gould School. It’s a very varied programme including Barber’s Dover Beach with string quartet accompaniment. The full line up is here. It’s free and at noon of course.
Yesterday’s free concert in the RBA featured mezzo Marion Newman with pianist Adam Sherkin and violinist Kathleen Kajioka in a programme of contemporary Canadian works (all the composers were in the room!) mostly connected in some way with Canada’s First Nations and Inuit peoples. First up was Ian Cusson’s setting of E. Pauline Johnson‘s A Cry from an Indian Wife. It’s a long, highly emotional but not, I think, especially well crafted, text about an Indian woman sending her husband off to war (the language reflects the usage of its day) and the words are not easy to set or sing. Cusson’s setting is appropriately intense with a blistering piano part and a tough vocal line. It’s deeply affecting but hardly comfortable especially when sung in a manner that clearly (and rightly) privileged text and emotion over beauty of sound.
Well the holidays are over and the music scene is coming back to life from its seasonal diet of musical plum pudding. There’s not a lot on this week but there is the first vocal concert of the year in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. Mezzo-soprano Marion Newman will be joined by Kathleen Kajioka (violin) and Adam Sherkin (piano)in a programme of Canadian works exploring First Nations themes. It includes Dustin Peters’ song cycle, Echo|Sap’a, which explores the journey of The Echo (or Sap’a in Kwakwala), a para-natural entity that mimics the sounds and movements she encounters throughout the woods and waters, as well as Kinanu, a lullaby composed by Newman for her baby sister. Noon, of course, and free.
Later on Thursday, at 9pm to be precise, there’s AtG’s first Opera Pub Night of the year featuring beer, singers and a Craig’s list piano. It’s at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club on the Esplanade and I strongly recommend arriving early.
Chelsea Rus is a recent graduate of the Schulich Scool of Music at McGill University and winner of the Wirth Vocal prize. Today, along with pianist Marie-Ève Scarfone, she gave a recital in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. I like that it was all song bar the opening number; “Je veux vivre” from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Hearing young singers belt out the same few Mozart and bel canto standards gets a bit tedious. Anyway this was one of those recitals that started quite well and just got better as things progressed. Poulenc’s Fiançailles pour rire are, I suppose, a bit of fluff but they allowed Chelsea to show off a rather lovely middle voice and good French diction, though the registers are still not fully integrated. Even better was Liszt’s Oh! quand je dors. Here she showed just how expressive she can be.
Next week is a bit quiet. The lull before Messiah madness perhaps There are though three shows on Thursday December 1st. You can see soprano Chelsea Rus in recital with Marie-Ève Scarfone at lunchtime in the RBA. She will be performing the program that won her the inaugural Wirth Vocal Prize at the Schulich School of Music at McGill.
In the evening FAWN Chamber Creative has a “drop in style event” and fundraiser where they will be announcing their plans for Synesthesia IV. There will also be performances by Jenn Nicholls, Adam Scime and Adanya Dunn among others. It’s at Electric Perfume on the Danforth at 7.30pm and 9pm. PWYC. Details.
Also, as the 1st is the first Thursday of the month it will be Pub Night with Against the Grain at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club. That doesn’t start until 9pm so one could just about catch the first set at Electric Perfume and then head down to The Esplanade.
As has become the norm, UoT Opera opened their concert season with a free “preview” of their spring show in the RBA at noon today. It was a series of Mozart scenes which were given semi-staged today but will, in the fullness of time, form a staged and costumed performance. It’s always an interesting event because it’s so early in the academic year. It’s the first chance to try and talent spot and see how things develop over the rest of the cycle. As such, it’s often a bit rough but today really wasn’t. It was a surprisingly high quality across the board effort which augurs well. That said, it was all ensembles and nobody was asked to pull out vocal fireworks so maybe not the sternest test imaginable which makes star picking that bit trickier.
The Mazzoleni Songmasters series opens this afternoon at 2pm in, surprise, Mazzoleni Hall at the conservatory. Nathalie Paulin and Monica Whicher present Welcome and Adieu; a program of English and French songs and duets. Collaborative pianists are Robert Kortgaard and Peter Tiefenbach.
Tuesday at noon in the RBA sees the students of UoT Opera present an all Mozart program. It’s semi staged and the program is duets and ensemble numbers so not your usual fare. Free of course but probably one one will need to arrive early for.
Norma and Ariodante continue at the COC as does Dido and Aeneas at Opera Atelier.
Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is a work of astonishing power and unique provenance. It was written after Messiaen’s capture in June 1940 at the POW camp Stalag VIII-A in Görlitz in what is now Poland. First performed for POWs and guards in 1941 it is, most unusually, scored for piano, clarinet, cello and violin because that’s what the professional musicians among the POWs played. What always strikes me about this work, familiar since my early teens, is how it combines Messiaen’s transcendent and deeply optimistic faith with a kind of passionate statement about the state of the world rooted in Revelations. The contrasts are there throughout the work’s eight movements but nowhere more clearly than at the end when the power and even fury of Danse de la fureur pour les sept trompettes and the Fouillis des arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps dissolve into the lyrical serenity of Louange à l’immortalité de Jésus. And, of course, there is birdsong in the haunting clarinet movement Abime des oiseaux.
The lunchtime concert series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre kicks off on Tuesday with the traditional opener; a concert by the members of the COC Ensemble Studio. It’s always a good opportunity to level set for the season ahead. Noon in the RBA. Then on Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm the TSO are doing Mahler 3 with Jamie Barton as soloist. I was tremendously impressed with Jamie’s Koerner Hall recital and am quite excited to see what she can do singing with an orchestra.
The COC has just released the line up for the free lunchtime concert series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. It’s the usual rich and eclectic mix of vocal, chamber and piano music with world music, jazz and dance thrown in for good measure. Here are the highlights from my point of view:
operaramblings 