Canadian Music - my/maSCENA

Historic music comes alive via new “Sounds Like History” podcast

By Newswire on 7 July 2016 Arts Industry, Canadian Music, Newswire

Canada’s History Society and Library and Archives Canada team up to explore Canada’s musical legacy WINNIPEG, 7 July 2016 – From wartime marches to turn-of-the-century love songs, they are the sonic treasures of Canada — decades-old songs that captured the stories and sentiments of past generations of Canadians. Now, thanks to a collaboration between Canada’s History Society and Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Canadians everywhere will be able to explore the soundscapes of the past via a new podcast called Sounds Like History. “Canada has a rich musical legacy, and we’re proud and excited to share this with Canadians,” said Mark Collin Reid,…

Daily News Roundup: 7 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 7 July 2016 Canadian Music, Circus, Daily News Roundup, Opera, Orchestral, Scena Jazz, Strings

+ The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble is coming to Cinéma du Parc on July 29. The movie will be shown in its original English with French subtitles. (French) + Canada’s History Society and Library and Archives Canada team up to explore Canada’s musical legacy with “Sounds Like History” podcast. + Should we cut the classics? The New York Times’ Michael Cooper weighs in about shortening operas. “After several decades in which the trend has been toward longer, uncut operas — drawing on the work of scholars to restore rarely performed passages, and putting a…

Rufus Wainwright on Prima Donna

Rufus Wainwright: Prima Donna

By Caroline Rodgers on 1 June 2016 Contemporary, Interviews, Opera, Popular Music, Quebec Music

Better late than never: Rufus Wainwright’s first opera, which premiered in 2009, will at last be performed in Montreal this summer in a concert version as part of the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Born into a family of musicians, Rufus Wainwright was surely destined to follow in the footsteps of his parents, folk singer Kate McGarrigle and singer Loudon Wainwright III. At the age of 13 he was already touring alongside his mother, aunt Anna McGarrigle, and sister Martha, as part of The McGarrigle Sisters and Family, an expanded version of the famous Kate and Anna duo. Nothing in this…

Anne Sofie von Otter, photo Ewa-Marie Rundquist

This Week in Montreal (May 16–22)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 16 May 2016 Baroque and Early, Contemporary, Orchestral, Quebec Music, This Week in Montreal

Final concerts in the SMCQ’s John Rea series Directed by Denis Marleau, Walter Boudreau and Plasirs du clavecin perform Le petit livre des Ravalet, an atypical opera composed by Rea. Period instruments, audio, singers, and actors take the stage. Usine C, May 16, 7 pm. www.smcq.qc.ca The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and countertenor Andreas Scholl join San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra to celebrate 30 years at the podium for Nicholas McGegan, the orchestra’s conductor and artistic director. On the program: opera arias and duos and Handel oratorios, as well as a work written by Arvo Pärt…

Emily d'Angelo au COC

Industry News: April 2016

By Shira Gilbert on 1 April 2016 Arts Industry, Choral, Circus, Contemporary, Opera, Orchestral, Quebec Music

Big Wins Toronto-based mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo has been named the winner of the prestigious Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. The 21-year-old D’Angelo, one of five winners from a pool of nine finalists, performed two arias with the Met Orchestra under the baton of Antony Walker at the Grand Finals Concert on the Met stage. Previous winners of the Met Auditions include many of the world’s great opera stars, such as Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, and Frederica von Stade. In 2015, D’Angelo won both First Prize and the Audience Choice Award at the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio Competition. Soprano Chelsea…

Review: R Murray Schafer’s Apocalypsis

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 April 2016 Canadian Music, CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary

David Fallis, conductor; A Luminato Festival Production Analekta AN 2 8784-5. 1 hr 53 min 24 s. For its 10th Anniversary last June, Toronto’s Luminato Festival staged its most ambitious work to date, R. Murray Schafer’s Apocalypsis. Over 1000 performers from across Canada, both professional and amateur, united to realize this historic music-theatre work, which was performed and recorded in the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts. Due to the massive scale of the work, this is only the second time it was performed (the first was in London, Ontario in 1980), and the first time it had been recorded…

André Gagnon Baroque (ATMA)

CD Review: André Gagnon Baroque (ATMA)

By Michèle-Andrée Lanoue on 1 February 2016 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary, Quebec Music

André Gagnon Baroque Mes Quatre saisons – Les Turluteries Jean-Willy Kunz, harpsichord Orchestre symphonique Vallée du Haut-Saint-Laurent, Daniel Constantineau ATMA Classique. 2015. ACD22715. 65 min 17 s André Gagnon’s Mes quatre saisons (1969) and Les turluteries (1972) are infused with a new breath of life with this new disc on which baroque and popular music blend joyfully. With a style approaching that of Bach and Vivaldi, Jean-Willy Kunz on harpsichord interprets and transforms the melodies of Léveillée, Vigneault, Leclerc and la Bolduc’s “turlutes”, along with the Orchestre symphonique de la Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent directed by Daniel Constantineau. Its unique character comes across…

Industry News: February 2016

By Shira Gilbert on 1 February 2016 Canadian Music, Classical Music, Opera, Quebec Music

Bernard Labadie The Canadian Opera Company has announced that its 2016-17 season will include a new production of Harry Somers’ Louis Riel, in conjunction with the National Arts Centre. The Canadian Opera was premiered in 1967 for the Canadian centennial. Seven performances, featuring a largely Canadian cast, will take place from April 20 to May 13, 2017. The company also announced the contract extension of Music Director Johannes Debus through to the 2020-21 season. Canada’s longest running full-time classical music critic has retired. Claude Gingras, age 84, has capped a 63-year career, most of which was spent at Montréal’s French-language…

Women on Strings: Julie Triquet and Yukari Cousineau

By Michèle-Andrée Lanoue on 1 February 2016 Quebec Music, Strings

Julie Triquet Wherever she goes, Julie Triquet has the desire to meet others and to share that which animates her every day: music. A look at a journey that has been both classic and extraordinary by the woman who became concertmaster with I Musici de Montréal in 2012. A native of Québec City, Julie Triquet began studying violin at the age of 3 with teacher Claude Létourneau. “My mother had seen an interview with him on television, and she had become sort of convinced.” Triquet fell in love with the violin from the moment she started playing. She subsequently…

collectif9: On the Edge

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 February 2016 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Interviews, Quebec Music, Strings

Known for pushing the boundaries in their music, Montréal-based classical string band collectif9 is forging into uncharted territory with the release of their debut album (see review here), featuring the world premiere recording of Volksmobiles by Canadian composer Geof Holbrook. Formed in 2011 by Thibault Bertin-Maghit, collectif9 is a group of nine classically trained string players who aren’t shy about shaking things up. The members, who met at McGill University and the Université de Montréal, are violinists Yubin Kim, Frédéric Moisan, Grégor Monlun, and Roland Arnassalon; violists Scott Chancey and Xavier Lepage-Brault; cellists Andrea Stewart and Jérémie Cloutier; and bassist…

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