The first release from new record label Mnémosyne Records contains three microtonal pieces for string quartet by young Montreal based composers played by Quatuor Mémoire; Bailey Wantuch and Meggie Lacombe (violins), Marilou Lepage (viola) and Audréanne Filion (cello).
The first piece is by Florence M. Tremblay and is titled Insides. It’s slightly under twelve minutes and uses a fairly wide range of sonorities without, I think, going into any of the weirder types of extended technique. Most of what I was hearing hear were a drone like ground at varying pitch and volume on which more solid segments of both bowed and plucked notes were superimposed. The dynamics are quite complex and one section even sounded weirdly like what you hear inside a plane when it’s taking off. Plenty there to maintain interest across a fairly short piece. Continue reading
Just another Saturday in Toronto? Not really. I was at two shows/events a few blocks apart; one in the morning, one in the evening, and the experiences were very different. In the morning I was at Roy Thomson Hall for a “conducting masterclass” under the auspices of the Women in Musical Leadership programme. I don’t think such events are at all common and it was certainly a first for me. The set up was that four young women conductors (Maria Fuller, Jennifer Tung, Naomi Woo and Juliane Gallant) got to rehearse the TSO in standard repertoire with principal conductor Gustavo Gimeno providing feedback and suggestions. Two of the ladies worked on Brahms’ First Symphony and the other two on Tchaikovsky’s Fifth. 
operaramblings 