Orchestral - my/maSCENA

Banner image from the website of Jan Lisiecki, one of the Royal Conservatory concert performers

Newswire | Royal Conservatory of Music Announces 2022-23 Concert Season

By Newswire on 7 June 2022 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Newswire, Orchestral, Piano, Popular Music, Strings

Dr. Peter Simon, Michael and Sonja Koerner President & CEO of The Royal Conservatory of Music, Mervon Mehta, Executive Director of Performing Arts, and James Anagnoson, Dean of The Glenn Gould School, revealed today the details of the 14th concert season since the opening of Koerner Hall in 2009. Two Gala Concerts Jan Lisiecki with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in October “Rhapsody and the Blues” with Jens Lindemann, Jon Kimura Parker, and the Yamaha All Star Big Band in February Special event to Commemorate Truth and Reconciliation Day featuring Tomson Highway, Rebecca Cuddy, Sarain Fox, and more Jazz series pays homage…

CD Review | John Williams: Violin Concerto No. 2 & Selected Film Themes

By Justin Bernard on 4 June 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Orchestral, Violin

John Williams: Violin Concerto No. 2 & Selected Film Themes John Williams, composer and conductor; Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin; Boston Symphony Orchestra Deutsche Grammophon, 2022 Having worked together on two occasions (for recordings issued in 2019 and 2020 on Deutsche Grammophon), John Williams and Anne-Sophie Mutter are no strangers to each other. And as all good things come in threes, here they are back again on the same label and sharing top billing for Williams’s violin concerto. The work opens on a rather brooding harp solo. Mutter’s violin appears almost timidly through a sombre mass of strings, a prelude to the…

Portrait of conductor Rafael Payare (image courtesy of OSM)

Newswire | OSM Unveils Its 2022-23 Season

By Newswire on 31 May 2022 Classical Music, Newswire, Orchestral, Popular Music

Montreal, May 31, 2022 — The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal is thrilled to announce its 89th-season programming, marking the first season under the OSM’s new Music Director Rafael Payare. The accent is on dynamic programming imbued with a spirit of togetherness and focused on OSM core values, which the Maestro fully embraces: the importance of community, the mission of education and the value of artistic creation. Highlights will include 4 world premieres, 17 concerts for young audiences, and a spotlight on choral singing to emphasize connectedness. In total, musicians will give over 100 concerts at the Maison symphonique and at Bourgie Hall, joined by some 50 guest soloists and conductors. “I am touched by the kindness and…

Photo: Brent Callis

OCM: “A symphony to celebrate the memory of a great man”

By Justin Bernard on 31 May 2022 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Vocal

May 27 marked the last concert of the season by the Orchester Classique de Montréal (OCM) at the Maison symphonique de Montréal. So many concerts, so many tributes paid to “exceptional women” during these few months. The last tribute in the series went to cellist Lotte Brott (1922-1998) who co-founded the OCM, formerly the McGill Chamber Orchestra, in 1939. The tragic death of her son and conductor Boris Brott, who led the orchestra for many years, was of course on everyone’s minds. Returning from intermission, Jacques Lacombe, who exceptionally conducted the musicians, shared some memories and recalled that the OCM…

Jacques Lacombe conducting (image courtesy of the Orchestre Symphonique des Trois-Rivières website)

Newswire | Jacques Lacombe to Conduct OSM at International Aria Competition

By Newswire on 25 May 2022 Art Song, Classical Music, Newswire, Orchestral

Montréal, May 25, 2022 – Le Concours musical international de Montréal (CMIM) is proud to announce that Maestro Jacques Lacombe will conduct the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) for the semifinal and final rounds of the Aria competition on June 6-7 and 9 at Maison symphonique. The CMIM is extremely grateful to Maestro Jacques Lacombe who has agreed to step in on short notice to conduct for the Aria competition of Voice 2022. Maestro Lacombe last collaborated with the CMIM for Piano 2004. Maestro Bramwell Tovey, who was slated to conduct for Voice 2022, has been advised by his doctors…

Newswire | Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the OM Unveil Their 2022-2023 Season

By Newswire on 20 April 2022 Newswire, Orchestral

Montreal, Wednesday, April 20, 2022 – The experience of music takes on its full meaning when it is shared. That is why the Orchestre Métropolitain (OM) and its Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin are thrilled to invite you to discover and take part in the Orchestra’s 42ndmusical season. With its concerts at the Maison symphonique de Montréal and its long-awaited return to the heart of Montreal’s neighbourhoods with events supported by the Conseil des arts de Montréal en tournée (Touring Program), the OM is a leader on the path back to symphonic life. Once again, performers of great…

Photo: Curtis Perry

Review: NACO Returns to Ottawa

By Natasha Gauthier on 18 April 2022 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Ottawa

After performing in Toronto and New York, the National Arts Centre Orchestra brought its Truth in our Time program home to the NAC in Ottawa on April 13 and 14. For my third and last time listening to this concert, I decided to sample the April 14 Livestream. The NAC has significantly upped its videocasting game over the pandemic. Although this particular livestream had a charge attached, plenty of events have been available for free. For all the setbacks and hardships the performing arts have experienced over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, accessibility gains have been a silver lining.…

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 Courtesy of OM

Review | Orchestre Métropolitain’s “Symphonique Waves: Alma & La Mer” Misses the Mark

By EARL ARTHUR LOVE on 9 April 2022 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Vocal

For its April 8, 2022 program, the Orchestre Métropolitain (OM) invited guest conductor Kenosha Watanabe, a young protégé of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, to lead a program that included a world premiere and quite possibly an additional premiere for Montrealers—songs composed by Alma Mahler in the Matthews orchestration. In the now seemingly obligatory opening remarks from the stage of any conductor of this orchestra, Watanabe talked briefly about Paola Prestini’s Barcarola, then paid tribute to conductor Boris Brott, one of Canada’s iconic musical forces, who was tragically struck and killed last week by a hit-and-run driver in Hamilton. What you missed? In…

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…

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