Tag Archives: toronto summer music festival

Artsong reGENERATION

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The Academy Program is an important part of the Toronto Summer Music Festival.  It allows selected young artists; singers, collaborative pianists and chamber/orchestral musicians, to work with experienced professionals in an intensive series of coachings, masterclasses etc culminating in a concert series.  This year the mentors for the vocal/collaborative piano component were pianist Craig Rutenberg, who has worked everywhere and with everybody, and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke; a last minute replacement for an indisposed Anne Schwannewilms.  I didn’t make it to any of the masterclasses, though word on the street is that they were exceptional, but I did make it to yesterday’s lunchtime concert in Walter Hall.

regen

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Strings and things

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The Toronto Summer Music Festival opened last night with a predominantly strings concert.  The theme this year is “London Calling” so we got a programme of iconic 20th century English works.  Things got off to a good start with the Festival Strings under conductor Joseph Swensen giving a lively and witty account of Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite with some excellent solo work by concert master Shane Kim.

English Music-46

 

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Habe Dank

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The last major concert of this year’s Toronto Summer Music Festival was a recital by Finnish soprano Karita Mattila and pianist Bryan Wagorn.  Talk about ending on a high note.  This was an exceptional performance by a mature artist at the height of her powers. In her mid-fifties, she is starting to transition to older roles.  For example she will sing Kostelnička, rather than the title role, in her next Jenůfa.  She has really acquired an ability to darken her voice which she used to great effect, especially in the set of Sallinen songs she sang after the interval but she hasn’t lost the vocal qualities that made her a star.

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TSMF begins

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Emerson-Quartet-300x200The Toronto Summer Music Festival kicked off last night with a concert by the venerable and renowned Emerson Quartet.  The theme for the festival is “The Modern Age”; explained to us by the festival director as meaning the many threads and styles that emerged in the opening years of the 20th century.  It might seem a bit odd then that the Emersons chose a programme of Beethoven, Britten and Schubert but in fact the rest of the programming doesn’t seem much closer to the tree with Bach, Haydn and Brahms all featured in upcoming concerts.

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Summer in the city

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toronto-summer-ferryThis year’s Toronto Summer Music Festival reported a 28% increase in attendance over the previous year with the under 35 segment up 11%.  Obviously this is a good thing but I’m also interested because it tends to reinforce my view that the assumption that there’s no market for classical music in the summer months is based on a very outdated view of behaviour.  Most of us don’t decamp to the cottage for the summer.  The  model of the non-working wife taking the children to the cottage for the summer where father joins them on the weekend is right up there with the idea that schools should close for the summer because the kids are needed on the farm.

I think there’s a real opportunity for a summer opera venture in Toronto.  Maybe it’s where we could slot in our (missing) equivalent of Chicago Opera Theatre that does more obscure and/or edgier stuff than the big kids at the COC?  One can hope, I guess.

Philippe Sly and Julius Drake at Walter Hall

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Phillippe-SlyUp and coming Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly was joined last night by veteran collaborative pianist Julius Drake for a program of chansons and lieder at Walter Hall.  The 490 seat hall was almost full which is rather nice to see for a song recital in Toronto.  The first half was devoted to chansons by Duparc, Ropartz and Ravel.  I was struck by the restraint of Sly’s singing.  It was conversational and not operatic at all but very expressive.  I think that takes a lot of guts in a young singer.  He let the words and music do the talking and didn’t exaggerate.  This was perhaps best shown in the drinking song from the Don Quichotte songs of Ravel.  He was very funny but sounded like a drunk, not somebody overacting the idea of a drunk.  Continue reading →

Toronto Summer Music Festival kicks off

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Last night saw the first concert of the Toronto Summer Music festival which runs at a variety of venues until August 3rd.  The theme for the festival is Paris La Belle Époque and this was reflected in last night’s opening concert being given by the distinguished French trio Trio Pennetier Pasquier Pidoux.  One might question though to what extent works written in 1914 and 1923 can be said to belong to the themed era.  It didn’t seem to bother a packed Koerner Hall.  The reception to all three pieces given was raucous.

Trio Pennetier Pasquier Pidoux (From left to right: Roland Pidoux, cello; Régis Pasquier, violin; and Jean-Claude Photo credit: Guy Vivien

Trio Pennetier Pasquier Pidoux (From left to right:
Roland Pidoux, cello; Régis Pasquier, violin; and Jean-Claude
Photo credit: Guy Vivien

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‘Tis the season

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Opera/concert season is pretty much done in the big smoke though there is the Toronto Summer Music Festival (see below).  Attention moves to various more rural venues and to some seriously eclectic programming.  Out in Northumberland County there’s the Westben Festival with concerts in a barn ranging fro Irish trad to Richard Margison.  The highlight, for me, here would be a recital by Suzy Leblanc and Julius Drake featuring French mélodies, Strauss lieder and English songs by Christos Hatzis.  That one is on July 30.  Westben also has the UBC Opera Ensemble doing Carmen and, for those so inclined, a programme of Broadway tunes from the ever reliable Virginia Hatfield, Brett Polegato and James Levesque.  No word on whether Brett’s cat is also performing.

Stratford Summer Music has three concerts by the Vienna Boys Choir, one including Michael Schade.  There is also the Bicycle Opera Project and a celebration of R. Murray Schafer’s 80th birthday.

Meanwhile, back in the smoke there is the Toronto Summer Music Festival which kicks off on July 16th with the Trio Pennetier Pasquier Pidoux in an all French programme.  The highlights for me are the Gryphon Trio with Bob Pomakov on the 18th and Philippe Sly with Julius Drake on the 23rd.