Tag Archives: soundstreams

with you and without you

Posted on by
Reply

Every year Soundstreams has a competition to find a young artist to curate a main stage concert.  This year’s lucky winner is Brad Cherwin, who will need little introduction to readers of this blog, and the concert took place at the Jane Mallett Theatre on Saturday night.

It was, in many ways, a typical Cherwin programme.  Some works were played in their entirety while others had their individual movements spread through the programme.  The overall theme was “Love and Death” and the programme was divided into four cycles with somewhat enigmatic titles.  Twelve instrumentalists, plus soprano Danika Lorèn and conductor Gregory Oh were used in various combinations.

Continue reading →

Vancouver Chamber Choir at Christ Church Deer Park

Posted on by
Reply

Thursday evening’s concert by the Vancouver Chamber Choir at Christ Church Deer Park was the culmination of Soundstreams’ RBC Bridges Emerging Composers program.  It’s an annual week long workshop that brings six young composers together with an experienced mentor and a professional resident ensemble with the resulting works being performed at the end of the week.  So the core of Thursday’s programme was the six works so created bookended by three works by the mentor; British composer Tarik O’Regan and three works chosen to give the concert a balanced opening.

Continue reading →

March 2025

Posted on by
Reply

So what looks fun in March?

  • March 1st (Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant) Apocryphonia have a “classical meets punk” concert called Brews, Beauties and Brawlers at St. Olave’s Anglican Church at 7.30pm.  PWYC.
  • March 5th Canadian Art Song Project have their annual gig at noon in the RBA.
  • Crow’s Theatre have a new adaptation of Measure for Measure in the Studio Theatre.  Previews on the 6th and 7th, opening on the 8th and running to March 16th.

Continue reading →

February 2025

Posted on by
Reply

Before looking forward to next month I want to mention a couple of things this weekend that I haven’t previously noticed.  Saturday (Jan 25th) at 12.30pm there is a Met HD broadcast of new production of Aida with a pretty interesting looking cast.  Later, at 6pm there’s a rather special concert at the Arts and letters Club to celebrate the 100th birthday of Morry Kernerman (former assistant concertmaster of both the TSO and OSM).  The concert is presented by Canzona Chamber Players and wiull feature Trio Uchida-Crozman-Chiu. Continue reading →

Coming up in December

Posted on by
Reply

december2024Here’s what’s coming down for the holiday season, as best I know:

  • December 3rd sees the Ensemble Studio performing a lunchtime concert in the RBA.
  • Soundstreams has a concert called Invocations on December 5th at the Jane Mallet Theatre.
  • Also on the 5th Oraculum opens at Buddies in Bad Times.  Previews are the 1st and 3rd and the run extends to the 15th.
  • On the 8th Opera Revue have BACH Humbug at the Redwood; the antidote to holiday music.
  • Confluence have their annual Young Associate curated gig at Heliconian on the 10th.
  • VOCES8 are appearing at Koerner Hall on the 13th.

Continue reading →

News and stuff

Posted on by
Reply
Royce_Vavrek_at_the_Kennedy_Center,_2018

Roiyce Vavrek. Photo by Ser Amantio di Nicolao

Today’s big news is that Against the Grain Theatre have announced the appointment of a new Artistic Director and it’s Royce Vavrek.  He’s probably best known to opera audiences as a librettist.  He has written the libretti for 23 operas including a bunch with Missy Mazzoli of which perhaps my favourite is Proving Up, done in Calgary recently by Ammolite Opera.  He’s also the writer for Ian Cusson’s Indians on Vacation and Luna Pearl Woolf’s Jacqueline which features in Tapestry’s recently announced season and is just out on CD.   So not dead yet then!

And talking of Tapestry, they announced their season today.  With the new space at 877 Yonge almost ready they have emerged from semi-hibernation.  As implied above the first show is Luna pearl Woolf’s Jacqueline in The Betty Oliphant Theatre in February .  I’m assuming it’s essentially the same show as five years ago (see Opera Canada Summer 2020).  There’s also a venue launch concert for the new home on March 22nd.  The first Tapestry show at the new venue will be Sanctuary Song; music by Abigail Richardson, libretto by Marjorie Chan, which, apparently, is about an elephant.  Which may be an operatic first. Continue reading →

April preview

Posted on by
Reply

april24Here are some upcoming shows for April:

Music

  • First, a late March Show.  Yu Dun and Royce Vavrek’s Pulitzer winning opera Angel’s Bone, about human trafficking, comes to Harbourfront Centre Theatre March 22nd to 24th.  More information here.
  • On the 6th the Happenstancers have a concert; Being Pascal Dusapin, at Redeemer Lutheran.  We are promised a “a portrait concert in palindromic form” featuring music by Dusapin, Kaija Saariaho and Samy Moussa.

Continue reading →

Too beautiful for words

Posted on by
Reply

The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir with their conductor Tõnu Kaljuste appeared at the rather spectacular (and very large) St. Paul’s Basilica last night as part of Sounstream’s 2023/24 season.  The programme was largely made up of works to liturgical or scriptural texts by Palestrina and Pårt.  It was gorgeous polyphony, beautifully sung but in which any sense of the text was largely lost.  It also all inhabited a very similar sound world.  Even towards the end of the concert when a little variety crept in it was surprisingly little.  One might expect a 21st century work setting H.P. Lovecraft to sound more dramatic or abrasive than a 16th century setting of “Ave Maria” but Omar Daniels new piece Antarktos Monodies, despite having a few interesting touches, was much of a piece with the music that surrounded it.

estonian-philharmonic-chamber-choir

Continue reading →

Hallelujah! x 8

Posted on by
Reply

The eighth iteration of Soundstreams’ Electric Messiah opened last night at Theatre Passe Muraille.  Like last year at Crow’s it’s staged fairly conventionally with the players facing the audience though some use was made of the galleries at TPM.  I do kind of miss the club atmosphere of the earliest versions but it still has lots to offer.

Electric Messiah 2023/ Soundstreams

Continue reading →