Naomi’s Road; music by Ramona Luengen, lbretto by Anne Hodges, has been around as an opera for ten years or so and it got its Toronto premier last night at St. David’s Anglican Church in a production directed by Michael Mori for Tapestry Opera. It’s based on Joy Kogawa’s novel for children of the same name which tells the story of Naomi and her brother Stephen; Japanese-Canadian children torn from a comfortable middle class Vancouver home by the WW2 era Canadian government’s policy of interning Canadians of Japanese descent as “enemy aliens”. It’s a shameful story and one that Canadians need to know about in an era when fear of the “other” is being stoked on all sides. Perhaps we like to look down our noses at the antics of our neighbours to the south but our own history has its dark side and we need to remember.
Tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon Off Centre Music Salon opens its 2016/17 season at 3pm at Trinity St. Paul’s. It’s an all Russian show called Four Seasons or Mother Russia. It will feature songs by Prokofiev’s The Ugly Duckling and songs byTchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff, as well as Arensky’s Piano Trio in D minor (op. 32). The highlight is the Toronto premiere of Valery Gavrilin’s song cycle Seasons inspired by Northern Russian folklore and chanting traditions. Performers include cellist Igor Gefter, pianists Inna Perkis and Boris Zarankin, violinist Mark Skazinetky and singers Joni Henson and Ryan Harper.
November 14th will see the fourth annual Elizabeth Krehm Memorial Concert. The concert raises money for the St Michael’s Hospital ICU, where Liz spent the last 30 days of her life. This year the program will start with the Bach Double Violin Concerto; a piece played by Liz. It will be performed by Yosuke Kawasaki and Jessica Linnebach, who are the concert master and associate concert master of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. Rachel Krehm will be singing 2 arias and a song by Mozart, Dvorak and Strauss. Finally we will get Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Evan Mitchell will conduct a volunteer orchestra. As well as being in aid of a good cause these memorial concerts have featured exceptionally good performances and are definitely worth going to. It’s at Metropolitan United Church (56 Queen St E) on Monday November 14th at 7:30pm. Admission is by donation to St. Mike’s with a suggested minimum of $20.
Jordan de Souza, late of the COC and Tapestry, continues to make news. Having recently joined the Komische Oper Berlin as Studienleiter, he will, from the 2017/18 season, be the Kapellmeister (but not GMD). I think (my knowledge of German musical semantics being imperfect) that this represents a step up from Assistant Conductor to Chief Conductor with a policy role but stops short of implying overall control of musical policy. Apparently the Komische is still looking for a GMD. For those who might be able to wring more out of it than I, here is the article from 
Tapestry Opera has now announced its upcoming season. There are three shows. The season begins in November with 
It’s getting a bit busier again. This afternoon there are a couple of concerts. At 2pm in Mazzoleni Hall you can catch Mireille Asselin and Brett Polegato with Peter Tiefenbach and Rachel Andrist in a painting themed program of lieder, artsongs and chansons called Le travail du peintre. At 4.30pm at Metropolitan United Church Bach’s Mass in B Minor meets German film maker Bastian Clevé’s film The Sound of Eternity. The soloists are Marjorie Maltais, Geoff Sirett, Jennifer Krabbe and Charles Sy plus the Orpheus Choir, Chorus Niagara and the Talisker Players. I suppose it would just about be possible to do both…
News just in that Jordan de Souza, currently with the COC, National Ballet of Canada and Tapestry, will be moving to Berlin later this year to take up the position of Studienleiter (Head of Music) at the 
This concert was the culmination of several days of workshops involving Wallis Giunta, Jordan de Souza and eighteen emerging artists; both singers and pianists. It’s a comparatively unusual opportunity to focus on contemporary repertoire for a while and the results were fun. As usual with these multi-participant efforts I’m not going to attempt to be exhaustive but just concentrate on my personal highlights.
operaramblings 