Steve Reich turned 90 on Saturday and on Tuesday evening Soundstreams staged a celebratory concert at Koerner Hall. It began with an unusual performance of Clapping Music. Steve Reich had been filmed in New York playing one part. That was screened while Russell Hartenberger played the other part live on stage. It was simple, effective and very apt.
Music – concerts and opera
The last Soundstreams concert of the season took place at the Jane Mallett Theatre on Saturday evening. In Terra Pax: Lamenting the losses of war was curated by Anna Pidgorna. While by no means only about the Russian invasion of Ukraine that was a strong thread running through the concert.
Soundstreams’ penultimate concert of the season at the Jane Mallett Theatre on Thursday evening featured “love songs” from a range of (more or less) contemporary Canadian composers under the overall direction of David Fallis.
The final concert in this years Soundstreams TD Encounters series took place at Hugh’s Room on Monday evening. It was themed around the work of Arvo Pärt with two of his works and two connected pieces featured. It begun wit his Es sang vor langen Jahren; a setting of Clemens Brentano’s poem “Der Spinnerin Nachtlied”. It was sung by soprano Xin Wang accompanied by Erika Raum on violin and Sheila Jaffe on viola. It’s quite a lyrical piece with an almost Schubertian vocal line and characteristically minimalist instrumentals. Nicely done. Continue reading
Here’s a few things to look forward to next month. Weirdly everything I know about so far is in the first half of the month so I’ll maybe do a supplemental for the back half in a couple of weeks time. Continue reading
This year’s New Voices concert from Soundstreams, curated by Haotian Yu, played at Hugh’s Room on Monday evening. It set out to explore some of the issues around human migration through three works by diasporic Canadian composers. It also explored the use of technology in the creation and performance of musical works. Sio pretty ambitious.
Here’s some of what January has to offer…
Toronto Operetta Theatre is doing Imre Kalman’s The Czardas Princess over the New Year holiday. It’s st the Jane Mallett Theatre and there are shows on December 30th and January 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
Soundstreams’ opening concert of the season at Trinity St. Paul’s on Saturday evening featured Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered and an intriguing selection of 20th and 21st century music on related ecological themes.
The first concert in Soundstreams’ Encounters series took place at Hugh’s Room on Tuesday evening. It was a presentation of Andrew Balfour’s L’Empire Étrange which is a sort of meditation on the idea of Louis Riel. It begins “Comment chanter Louis Riel, Do you know me?” and that’s the only time his name appears so it’s not, in any way, a narrative of Riel’s life and it’s not hagiographic.
