My review of last night’s concert at Roy Thomson Hall featuring the TSO, Anna Prohaska and the Spanish ambassador is now up at La Scena Musicale.
Photo credit: Jae Yang
Mahler and more at the TSO
Reply
Tag Archives: tso
Carried by the River
Diana Tso’s Carried by the River is currently playing in the Extraspace at Tarragon Theatre in a production directed by William Yong for the Red Snow Collective. It’s the story of a Chinese girl, Kai, who is abandoned by her birth mother because of the “one child policy”, adopted by a Hong Kong mother and brought to Canada as a baby. When she’s about twenty her mother dies unexpectedly leaving her with many unanswered questions. She travels to the province of her birth in search of.. do we ever know what we “are in search of”?
March 2025
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.
Stravinsky with the TSO
The latest CD from the Toronto Symphony and Gustavo Gimeno features two works by Stravinsky and a Glenn Gould inspired piece by Kelly-Marie Murphy. The first piece is the 24 minute long suite from the ballet Le baiser de la fée which is a sort of pastiche of what Tchaikovsky might sound like if Tchaikovsky could orchestrate as well as Stravinsky! It’s well played but I don’t find it terribly exciting.
Murphy’s piece is another story. There’s a running joke about short pieces by contemporary composers at the TSO. They get called “garage pieces” because they get played at the beginning of concerts when half the patrons are still on their way up from parking. Murphy’s Curiosity, Genius and the Search for Petula Clark absolutely does not deserve the label. It was inspired by a road trip Glenn Gould took up north one time and it’s fascinating. There’s a restless energy to it and a kind of flirting with atonality coupled with lyricism and a lot of percussion. It’s kind of like a feral love child of Holst’s Mars; Bringer of War and a Shostakovich symphony crammed into ten minutes. Continue reading
Coming up in December
Here’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.
Another conducting masterclass
Jennifer Tung
About a year ago I attended the Women in Musical Leadership‘s conducting masterclass with the TSO and Gustavo Gimeno at Roy Thomson Hall. Last night I went back for this year’s version. Three of last year’s participants; Jennifer Tung, Juliane Gallant and Naomi Woo were back. Last year’s fourth participant, Maria Fuller, was off in Poland conducting Hänsel and Gretel which I think says a lot for the programme. There were two new conductors; Monica Chen and Kelly Lin. Continue reading
TSO pay tribute to Sir Andrew Davis
My review of Wednesday’s concert at the TSO with Emily D’Angelo is now up at Bachtrack.
Photo credit: Allan Cabral
@bachtrack
Verdi Requiem with The TMC
I caught the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s second performance of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at Koerner Hall on Tuesday evening. It’s a piece that’s deservedly famous but I think that this was my first time seeing it live. It’s an interesting piece. It’s not a conventional requiem but nor would I call it “operatic”. It’s far more dramatic than any other mass setting I can think of (even Britten’s War Requiem) but in its own way. Part of it is structural. Verdi keeps bringing back the “Dies Irae” text and music; even right down to. the final “Libera Me”. As his setting for the “Dies Irae” is extremely dramatic (I want to say gonzo but that doesn’t seem very ecclesiastical!) it injects a degree of drama where the core text doesn’t really call for it. FWIW the setting is very loud with choir and orchestra going full out and the timpani being almost scary. It’s particularly so first up where it segues straight into the “Tuba Mirum” with trumpets up on either side of the choir loft.
May listings
It’s coming towards the end of the traditional “season” but there’s sill plenty happening. Here’s how I see may shaping up at present (I expect more theatre listings will come in. They tend to be somewhat less notice!):
- May 1st and 2nd: The TSO are coupling Brahms’ First Symphony with Emily D’Angelo and material from her enargeia CD.
- Also on May 2nd the Women’s Musical Club are hosting Joyce El-Khoury in recital at Walter Hall.
TSO and VOICEBOX 2024/25
The Toronto Symphony’s 2024/25 season is the usual mix of mainstream symphony/concerto rep, Pops, film music, kids’ concerts etc. My sense is that it has got more “popular” since the pandemic and that therefore there’s been less that’s caught my eye. That’s my story anyway!
There are some concerts of interest to me though in the 2024/24 season though; curiously mostly in November. The four that caught my eye were the following: Continue reading
operaramblings 