Orchestral - my/maSCENA

Bernard Labadie conducts Mozart’s Requiem

By Justin Bernard on 4 April 2022 Baroque and Early, Classical, Orchestral

Les Violons du Roy can once again spread their wings as they please after more than 1½ months of a lockdown reinstatement and a few small-scale concerts at Bourgie Hall. Nicolas Altstaedt will be the guest artist in the Un violoncelle par-delà des frontières concert series on May 6 and 7. On May 26 and 28, Les Violons du Roy will join forces with I Musici de Montréal, under the baton of Jean-François Rivest. This concert will bring back collaborations with orchestras and musicians. Before these concerts take place, former conductor Bernard Labadie, whose triumphant return has long been expected,…

2012 KSO Gala

Kristian Alexander: Kindred Spirits Orchestra’s Intrepid Founder

By Denise Lai on 3 April 2022 Orchestral

Although mostly known for his inspired programming as founding Music Director and Principal Conductor of Toronto’s Kindred Spirits Orchestra, conductor Kristian Alexander’s talents run much deeper. Builder, pedagogue, innovator, and polymath are just a few words to describe the man with a multinational career, and an empire of organizations he single-handedly built over the years. He’s also multilingual, fluent in English, French, Bulgarian and Russian, with a good working knowledge of German and Italian to boot. Born in Bulgaria in 1969 to an engineer father and architect mother, Alexander grew up surrounded by music. His parents frequently hosted dinners…

Letter: Russia’s Cultural War Against Ukraine – A Montreal Story

By Letters Lettres on 18 March 2022 Arts Industry, Orchestral, Piano

Letter to the Editor by Nadia Demko Congratulations to Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM) and the Montreal Ukrainian community for standing up for the oppressed in Ukraine. Simon Brault, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts said it best. “The real victims are in Ukraine, not on our stages.” Although it may be “inconvenient” for the 20-year-old Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev to have his OSM shows cancelled, it does not compare to what Ukrainians are facing right now. What about the 20-year-old Ukrainians fighting in trenches right now to defend their lives and their homes? It is…

Curation: Montreal Symphony Replaces Russian Pianist Alexander Malofeev

By Wah Keung Chan on 9 March 2022 Arts Industry, Orchestral, Piano

Yesterday, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra announced the cancellation of Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev after several days of controversy and coverage in national TV and radio surrounding his upcoming appearance in scheduled concerts for March 9, 10 and 13. Last weekend, the Vancouver Recital Society cancelled Malofeev’s recital. Below is the official press release from the orchestra. The Montreal Gazette had good coverage of the controversy including an interview with Simon Brault, CEO of the Canada Council. On March 7, Malofeev had distanced himself from the Russian invasion of Ukraine on his Facebook page. What the audience missed: Here is Peter…

Interview: GFN Productions: French composers in the spotlight, April 9

By Justin Bernard on 9 March 2022 Orchestral

GFN Productions continue to unfold their agenda. Several concerts are scheduled for March and April, starting with a tour by Trio Lyrico with Francis Choinière on piano. The three tenors Marco Bocchicchio, Sam Champagne and Matthew Adam made a stop in Quebec City (February 26) before continuing on to Sorel-Tracy (March 3) and Gatineau (March 5). On March 18, their tour ends in Montreal, at the Maison symphonique. A “dream evening” and a highlight of the season for GFN. Francis Choinière will be back in his usual conductor’s garb and will lead the 50 musicians of the FILMharmonic Orchestra,…

Photo: Marc Giguère

Upcoming concerts (November-January): Montreal

By Justin Bernard on 14 November 2021 Baroque and Early, Canadian Music, Indigenous, Opera, Orchestral, Piano

27th JAL Gala After the 2020 edition was cancelled because of the pandemic, the 27th Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques Gala is back in full force this year with no less than 30 singers. For the occasion, two dancers will accompany them in arias and ensemble numbers from the great operatic repertoire. Among the works on the programme, the public will find excerpts from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Puccini’s La Bohème, Rossini’s La Cenerentola and Verdi’s La Traviata and Rigoletto. In order to reach a larger audience, ticket prices have been reduced compared to previous editions ($12 for students and $35 for the…

Cleveland Orchestra, Michael Sachs, trumpet. Photo By Roger Mastroianni.

Review: Cross-border trek to Cleveland proves picture perfect

By Paul E. Robinson on 13 November 2021 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic

CLEVELAND – On Nov. 8, the American authorities decided it was safe to let Canadians enter their country by car. The next day I drove down from Toronto and crossed the border at Lewiston, New York and continued on to Cleveland. A few days later I attended a memorable concert by the Cleveland Orchestra. For someone who had been driving to Cleveland regularly since his teenage years to hear the likes of George Szell, Robert Shaw, Lorin Maazel, Pierre Boulez and Christoph von Dohnanyi leading this great orchestra, it was a welcome and overdue return to normalcy. For the record,…

Bach Festival: An oratorio, just in time for Christmas

By Arthur Kaptainis on 12 November 2021 Baroque and Early, Orchestral

The Nov. 21 performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in the Maison symphonique is not a Montreal premiere. The series of six cantatas – written to be performed in as many services from Christmas to Epiphany – has been given repeatedly in the 21st century, sometimes complete, sometimes in a package of three or four. It is no coincidence that Alexandra Scheibler, artistic and general director of the Festival Bach Montréal, moved from Germany to Canada in 2001. Nice town, she thought, but where is the Christmas Oratorio? “You have plenty in Hamburg,” the musicologist and violist told the Montreal Gazette…

Bach Festival back, live and sitting

By Arthur Kaptainis on 12 November 2021 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Orchestral

Forewarned is forearmed. “There will be no interval,” reads the audience advisory for the Festival Bach Montréal presentation in Bourgie Hall of The Art of Fugue.   Montrealers, of course, are now accustomed to pandemic protocols that require sitting for 80 minutes without a break. But sitting through the 14 movements (each known formidably as a “contrapunctus”) of Bach’s valedictory composition is a special kind of sitting, even when the performers on Nov. 25 are Les Violons du Roy under their founding conductor Bernard Labadie, who supplies the arrangement. “No doubt a rigorous work, but also one equally touching and…

The Azrieli Foundation Announces 2022 Azrieli Music Prize Laureates

By Newswire on 4 November 2021 Music Competition, Newswire, Orchestral, Vocal

Montréal, QC, Canada, November 4, 2021 – The Azrieli Foundation proudly announces the three laureates of their 2022 Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) – the Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music to Iman Habibi, the Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music to Aharon Harlap and the second edition of the Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music to Rita Ueda. Established in 2014, the biennial Azrieli Music Prizes advance the Azrieli Foundation’s commitment to discovering, elevating and amplifying artistic voices that exhibit excellence and embodies its belief in music as a vital human endeavour that allows us to express our creativity; to expand our worldview; and…

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