The main stage concert for TSM at Koerner Hall last night was given by the Art of Time Ensemble with vocalists John Southworth and Sarah Slean. It’s my first encounter with Art of Time have been around for about ten years and specialise in cross genre collaborations inspired by their founder, pianist Andrew Burashko.
Last night was classical meets singer songwriter. There was an introductory piece by Christos Hatzis, some Schubert, plenty of Gershwin and lashings of Leonard Cohen plus much more (there was no set list and I didn’t take notes). It’s rather out of my usual zone but I enjoyed. Southworth is a really quirky vocalist, exemplified by a rather weird version of The Old Folks at Home; which needed to be weird! Slean is quite a performer; good voice, very funny, great mover. The ensemble was terrific across the board. I’m sold. There are lots of reasons to stretch the boundaries of classical performance. Larry Beckwith does it very well with his Confluence series. Here’s another example.
The late show, also at Koerner, featured Jonathan Crow, Katya Poplyansky, Minkyoung Lee and Allison Rich in a performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 12 in B-flat Major Op. 130 but with a twist. They played the full original version in which the Grosse Fuge Op. 133 forms the finale. So, basically, an hour long string quartet! It was very well done though I confess late Beethoven at 10.30 pm was straining the grey matter.
Photo credit: Dale Butteril
Heimweh is a CD of Schubert songs from young German soprano Anna Richter and pianist Gerold Huber with a bit of help from clarinettist Matthias Schorn. It’s an interesting combination of the familiar and the less familiar with a bit of a leaning to the more lyrical, less dramatic end of the Schubert canon. Familiar material includes Der Hirt auf dem Felsen and the three parts of Ellens Gesang but there’s material that I’m much less familiar with too like Der Zwerg and Viola. I guess thirteen minute long songs about snowdrops just don’t get programmed that often. There’s also the slightly odd Abschied; where the piano accompanies spoken text.
