Chamber Music - my/maSCENA

Ladies’ Morning Musical Club Announces 2022-23 Season

By Newswire on 4 June 2022 Arts Industry, Chamber Music

The Ladies’ Morning Musical Club is pleased to announce the 2022-23 season. The 131st season will begin on September 11th, 2022, featuring acclaimed English pianist Christian Blackshaw. The 131st season will consist of the following dates and artists: September 11, 2022: Christian Blackshaw, piano October 2, 2022: Los Angeles Piano Trio, piano trio October 23, 2022: Talich Quartet, string quartet November 13, 2022: Rachel Barton Pine, violin December 4, 2022: Calidore String Quartet, string quartet February 12, 2023: Lukas Geniušas, piano March 5, 2023: Alban Gerhardt, cello March 26, 2023: Elias String Quartet, string quartet April 16, 2023: James Ehnes,…

Elinor Frey: Musician’s Heart, Cellist’s Soul

By Justin Bernard on 3 June 2022 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music

Cellist Elinor Frey lives and breathes music. So much so that this bold and industrious performer long ago stopped counting the hours she spent at fulfilling her childhood dreams. While classical musicians vie for secure postings in symphony orchestras, Frey is constantly on the move—be it on stage, in the classroom or in some academic library. Her activities on all those fronts enable her to pursue new projects all the time, some involving an element of risk. But it would be much riskier for her to just sit back, take it easy and ride on her successes. Just Out on…

Seán Dagher. Photo: Marc-Antoine Jean

Previews (April-May 2022)

By LSM Calendar on 11 April 2022 Chamber Music, Opera, Orchestral, This Week in Montreal

Galileo presents two concerts Galileo has been based in Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent, southwest of Montreal, since its establishment in October 2010. Comprising 15 to 35 instrumentalists, this chamber orchestra bills itself as the only Canadian orchestra specializing in historically informed performance of symphonic repertoire from approximately 1730 to 1930. On April 19, at Saint-Michel Catholic Church in Vaudreuil-Dorion, the orchestra presents its first concert under the direction of Daniel Constantineau with a program resolutely turned towards modernity: Beethoven’s Great Fugue, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, Webern’s Fünf Sätze (Five Movements) and Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 2. On June 3, at the Nativity Catholic Church…

Photo : Annette Woloshen

Boris Brott (1944 – 2022)

By Wah Keung Chan on 5 April 2022 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Obituaries, Orchestral

La Scena Musicale is shocked and saddened to learn of Boris Brott’s senseless death by hit and run in Hamilton, Ontario on the morning of April 5, 2022. Boris has been featured in the pages of La Scena Musicale several times. As a tribute, below are some of the featured articles. Boris was also an LSM Ambassador every year, and we thank him for his support. Boris also wrote a tribute to his mother Lotte Brott, which we are publishing in three parts in La Scena Musicale: Part I: Lotte Brott – A Tribute (La Scena Musicale, Feb/Mar 2022) Part II: Lotte…

George Frideric Handel: Messiah (Leaf Music, 2021)

By Justin Bernard on 13 December 2021 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Choral

George Frideric Handel: MessiahEnsemble Caprice, Ensemble Vocal Arts-Québec; Matthias Maute, conductor; Karina Gauvin, sopranoLeaf Music, 2021 The new recording by Ensemble Caprice jointly with the Ensemble vocal Arts-Québec, under the direction of Matthias Maute, was released on the Leaf Music label. A work by Jaap Nico Hamburger to start, one by Matthias Maute himself to conclude and, as a main course, several excerpts from Handel’s Messiah. The voice and voluptuous timbre of Karina Gauvin are first highlighted in Rejoice greatly, a piece full of lyricism and virtuosity. It is with these same assets that the singer then approaches I know…

New Releases – November 2021

By La Scena Musicale Team on 22 November 2021 Baroque and Early, Canadian Music, Chamber Music, Classical, Classical Music, Piano

Mystic Giorgia Fumanti, soprano Velenosi entertainment VEGA2CD-2942 Release: Aug. 20 Giorgia Fumanti has established herself as one of the top female classical crossover singers in the world, having performed in five continents and in some of the most prestigious and iconic venues. Fumanti’s 12th album, Mystic, is a follow-up to her No. 1 best-selling album Amour and her No. 3 best-selling album Aimons-Nous on Canada’s ADISQ charts. (Her albums have also appeared on Billboard’s Crossover Chart.) This collection includes classical hits by Ravel (Bolero), Verdi (“Va, Pensiero”), Puccini (“Nessun Dorma”), Orff (“O Fortuna”) Albinoni (Adagio), Piazzolla (Libertango), Gino Vannelli, Michel…

Photo: Courtesy of the Royal Conservatory's Koerner Hall

Kronos Quartet: Time and Time Again

By Charles Geyer on 15 November 2021 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Toronto

Can there be anyone even casually aware of contemporary serious music who hasn’t encountered the Kronos Quartet? For 48 years, their sounds have resonated outward, along with the sonority of that mythic-sounding moniker that seems to evoke titanic energies, even the mystery of time itself. And while their music was suspended by COVID-19’s near universal freezing-over of time, a rising thaw now brings Kronos-redivivus – active again, alive as ever. Origins The Kronos origin story dates to 1972, with an adventitious encounter between a young musician named David Harrington and a certain provocative piece of music. “I heard this music…

Tara-Louise Montour and the OCM: the beauty of the revived tradition

By Nathalie de Han on 15 November 2021 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Indigenous, Violin

Have you heard Régent Levasseur’s enchanting Farewell to the Warriors? The Orchestre classique de Montréal (OCM) presents it as part of its 82nd season, titled Women of Distinction, with the remarkable 18-minute concerto for string orchestra, harp and drum, in an orchestration by the versatile melodist. Tara-Louise Montour recorded the piece with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra and the work earned the ensemble a Juno nomination (2005). “I am delighted that the OCM invited me into the program of Tales and Melodies, the first concert of its season, and I think that Farewell to the Warriors will fit in perfectly, firstly because of…

SMCQ 1970

SMCQ: From Celebration to Utopias

By Arnaud G. Veydarier on 15 November 2021 Canadian Music, Chamber Music, Classical, Contemporary

The Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ), a pillar in the Canadian contemporary music scène, will celebrate its 55th year with Merveilleuses utopies and Célébration! on Dec. 14 and 15 in Salle Pierre-Mercure. Turning toward both the past and the future, the SMCQ will pay tribute to the musical legacy of the artists who marked the history of the organization while inviting the public to discover some of the new faces of contemporary creation. In Merveilleuses utopies, presented in a diptych format, the Orchestre philharmonique des musiciens de Montréal (OPMEM) will perform some daring pieces for large ensemble by…

Photo: Ralph Mecke, Neda Navaee

Club musical de Québec opens its 130th season

By Justin Bernard on 13 November 2021 Chamber Music, Piano, Romantic

The appearance of oboist Albrecht Mayer and pianist Fabian Müller had to be rescheduled because of the pandemic. Now that health measures allow the public to attend events and make possible the return of international artists, this pair will open the concert society’s new season. “Pieces for piano solo and others specifically for oboe or wind instrument such as Schumann’s Fantasiestücke will be played in turn, and there will also be transcriptions,’ explains Marie Fortin, executive and artistic director of the Club musical de Québec since 2013. “Two sonatas for violin and piano, by Mozart and Beethoven, will be played…

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