Contemporary - my/maSCENA

The SMCQ announces the 10th edition of its Montreal/New Musics festival

By Newswire on 14 January 2021 Contemporary

Montreal, January 14, 2021 – The Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) outlines the 10th edition of its Montreal/New Musics festival (MNM), to be held from February 18 to 28, 2021. The MNM festival is reinventing itself to offer an unprecedented online sound odyssey with the theme Au-delà des frontières (Beyond Borders). MNM 2021 will stand out for the global aspect that webcast now offers, and through its programming, tinged with openness and discovery. Thus for 10 days musical and artistic frontiers will open up to reveal new and unprecedented sounds with universal accents. “I have always wanted to…

Sébastien Ricard at the Salle Ludger-Duvernay

Prélude à l’opéra: When absence haunts us

By Newswire on 12 January 2021 Contemporary, Opera

WHEN ABSENCE HAUNTS US The postponement of the creation of L’orangeraie gave an opportunity for Chants Libres to film Prélude à l’opéra in the deserted Monument-National. This digital event, inspired by excerpts from the opera and coloured by constraints imposed on the performing arts milieu, will be webcast on January 21, 2021. “After four years of work, I received the last notes of the score in March of 2020 just before the lockdown,” explains Pauline Vaillancourt. “We were ready for what was to come (costumes, rehearsals, set design, etc.), everything that is requires for the months leading up to a…

Canadian Art Song Project announces Chung-Wai Chow and John Wright Art Song Mentorship Program for Composers

By Newswire on 7 January 2021 Art Song, Canadian Music, Classical Music, Contemporary, Vocal

Steven Philcox and Lawrence Wiliford, the Co-artistic Directors of CASP, announce a series of grants to support new and emerging composers during this difficult time of COVID-19 isolation. Two grants of $2000 will be awarded in each of the next three years. The successful applicants will be expected to create three Art Songs (free-standing poems set to music), roughly 10 to 12 minutes in total, within 8 months of the agreed start date. As part of the programme the applicant will be paired with a recognized Canadian Art Song composer who will act as Mentor throughout the process. The Mentors will provide…

Today’s Streams: Dec. 21st

By La Scena Musicale Team on 21 December 2020 Choral, Classical Music, Contemporary, Opera

Here are today’s streamed concerts you shouldn’t miss! Enjoy. This new feature will until January 1, 2021. To submit your event, please email [email protected]. Bayerische Staatsoper presents Camille Saint-Saëns’ Oratorio de Noël Ailyn Pérez, Tara Erraught, Okka von der Damerau, Benjamin Bernheim and Etienne Dupuis sing Camille Saint-Saëns’s rarely performed Oratorio de Noël. Antonello Manacorda conducts. For more information, click here. Stile Antico at Wigmore Hall A seasonal programme in which the acclaimed vocal ensemble Stile Antico performs Christmas music from the Spanish Golden Age. For more information, click here. Essential Opera presents December Essential Opera presents December, a new opera by Monica Pearce.…

Montreal/New Musics Festival’s 10th Edition: “Beyond Borders”

By Newswire on 16 December 2020 Contemporary

Montreal, December 15, 2020 – With a few months to go before the start of its Montreal/New Musics festival (MNM), the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) announces the theme of its 10th edition, to be held from February 18 to 28, 2021. The MNM festival is reinventing itself to offer an unprecedented sound odyssey with the theme Au-delà des frontières (Beyond Borders). MNM 2021 will stand out for the global aspect that webcast now offers, and through its programming, tinged with openness and discovery. Thus for 10 days musical and artistic frontiers will open up to reveal new and unprecedented sounds with universal accents. “I have always…

The OCM co-commissions Maxime Goulet’s first symphony

By Newswire on 9 December 2020 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Orchestral

Montreal, December 9, 2020 – The Orchestre classique de Montréal, under Artistic Director Boris Brott, is spearheading the commissioning of long-time OCM collaborator Maxime Goulet, who will compose his first symphonic work: the Ice Storm Symphony Five North American orchestras are joining forces to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Great Ice Storm of 1998with this new Québec composition. Celebrated for his inventive works such as Symphonic Chocolates and the Micro Météo song cycle, Goulet will create a moving musical portrait of the storm, one of the worst natural disasters in the province’s history. The symphony will evoke various aspects of…

Marjan Mozetich

Sinfonia Toronto in Affairs of the Heart

By Newswire on 8 December 2020 Contemporary

Toronto, ON – Sinfonia Toronto and Toronto filmmaker Jamie Day Fleck will present an online screening of Fleck’s bio-doc Affairs of the Heart, The Life and Music of Marjan Mozetich on Sunday, December 20 at 7 pm. The film will be followed by a live chat session with Marjan Mozetich, Fleck, Sinfonia Toronto Music Director Nurhan Arman and Toronto violinist Conrad Chow. Excerpts from Chow’s performance of the Affairs of the Heart violin concerto with Sinfonia Toronto are included in the documentary. The documentary explores the challenges and triumphs of famed Canadian composer, Marjan Mozetich, with glimpses into his interior…

Photo: Annette B. Woloshen

As One is a surprisingly subtle success

By Arthur Kaptainis on 21 November 2020 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Opera

As One might not be the only opera written for two vocal manifestations of the same character, but there cannot be many others. The risk involved in the undertaking lies not necessarily in the subject matter – the phenomenon of trans identity has been headline material for a while – as in the need to create drama without supporting characters. It says something about the virtues of this work of 2014 and the quality of its online Quebec premiere Friday under the auspices of the Orchestre classique de Montréal that two singers and a string quartet could hold the stage successfully…

Alastair Boyd

Alastair Boyd wins TMC Choral Composition Competition

By Newswire on 17 November 2020 Classical Music, Contemporary

The TMC’s Choral Composition Competition is in its sixth year. Each year, the Choir receives entries from emerging composers from across Canada. For 2020, the competition was for an a capella work for the Christmas season. The winner is Alastair Boyd from Toronto, Ontario for his piece A Hymn on the Nativity. Alastair Boyd studied music at the University of Toronto and at the Guildhall School of Music in London (England). His principal composition teachers were Lothar Klein and Derek Holman (Toronto) and Francis Shaw (London). He lives in Toronto, where for 10 years he served as head of the…

Opéra de Montréal drives into the digital future

By Arthur Kaptainis on 10 November 2020 Classical, Classical Music, Contemporary, Opera

The future of performance is looking digital, at least in the short term. Last week the Opéra de Montréal unveiled an online double bill with piano accompaniment that made a good case for the viability of the format while leaving us less than fully convinced of the merits of the works themselves. First up was Francis Poulenc’s well-known La voix humaine, a solo opera of 1958 based on Jean Cocteau’s 1928 play of the same name. A jilted woman engages in a telephone conversation with her former lover. There are frequent interruptions caused by the (then) notoriously unreliable French telephone system. Whether…

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