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Obituaries
Pianist and founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio, Menahem Pressler, died on May 6, at the age of 99. Alongside his performing career, he maintained a career as a professor of music at the Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
Austrian pianist Ingrid Haebler died on May 14, 2023, at the age of 96. She was especially known for her interpretation of works by Mozart and Schubert.
Montreal-based choral conductor Mary Jane Puiu died on May 16, at the age of 73. In honour of her life, a reprint of her 2010 interview is included in this issue.
Illustrious Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho died at the age of 70, on June 2. Among the prolific composer’s most widely known works are her operas L’Amour de Loin and Innocence.
American jazz and popular singer Tony Bennett died on July 21, at the age of 96. Born in New York City, the prolific crooner was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Renata Scotto
Internationally renowned folk/popular singer and activist, Sinéad O’Connor, died at the age of 56, on July 26. Among her most famous songs was the hit “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
American-born film composer and conductor Carl Davis has died of a brain hemorrhage, on Aug. 3. The BAFTA and Ivor Novello Award winner will be remembered for his film scores, such as that of The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981). He was 86.
Italian soprano Renata Scotto died on Aug. 16 at the age of 89. Her repertoire included countless roles, among them Mimì (La Bohème), Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), and Adina (L’Elisir d’Amore).
Awards/Competitions
Hankyeol Yoon (age 29) has won this year’s prestigious Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award at the Salzburger Festspiele. He is the first Korean to win this award.
Hankyeol Yoon (Photo by Anne-Laure Lechat)
Fifteen-year-old Seokyoung Hong, from South Korea, won the 2023 Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition, following his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
Innu soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais, recently named Radio-Canada’s classical Révélation, has won the 2023 Prix d’Europe, valued at $50,000.
Daniel Taylor, conductor, countertenor, and professor of music, has been awarded the inaugural National Medal for Music, Canada’s highest musical honour. This comes shortly after Taylor received the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honours.
Early Music Vancouver has announced the winners of its Emerging Artist Competition. Selected based on video submissions around the theme of “the next generation of early music,” British historical trombone player Emily Saville won the first prize. Second prize was awarded to historical cellist Matylda Adamus, of Poland, and third to Canadian countertenor Ian Sabourin.
Elisabeth St-Gelais
OCAD University has awarded honorary doctorates to Kat Holmes, Robert Houle, Philip B. Lind, Nancy McCain, and Rosemary Sadlier, in recognition of their impact on arts and culture in Canada, and around the world.
The 2023 Edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition celebrated vocalists, naming six winners and six laureates. Korean baritone Taehan Kim took home first prize, contralto Jasmin White second, and soprano Julia Muzychenko-Greenhalgh third. In fourth, fifth and sixth place were mezzo-soprano Floriane Hasler, bass Inho Jeong, and mezzo-soprano Juliette Mey, respectively.
Association of Opera in Canada has announced Francis Price, of the Edmonton Opera board of directors, as the recipient of the 2023-24 National Opera Directors Recognition Award.
The 2023 Musical Instrument Bank Cohort has been selected, following auditions in late July and early August. Cellists Bryan Cheng, Cameron Crozman, Daniel Hass, Christopher Hwang, Leland Ko, and Andrea Stewart, as well as violinists Eva Aronian, David Baik, Daniel Dastoor, Vivian Kukiel, Alice Lee, Shannon Lee, Gregory Lewis, Emma Meinrenken, Julia Mirzoev, Astrid Nakamura, Kumiko Sakamoto, Yu Kai Sun, Lucy Wang, Christopher Whitley, and Tiffany Yeung, have each been chosen to borrow one of the Canada Council for the Arts’s Musical Instrument Bank’s instruments—which date back to the late-17th/early-20th centuries—for three years.
Appointments/Retirements/Events
Joel Ivany, founder and artistic director of Canada’s Against the Grain Theatre, has announced that he will be stepping down from the role after 13 years. Robin Whiffen, general director, will continue to lead the organization, and AtG’s board of directors will soon announce plans about the search for a new artistic director.
Unsettled Scores, in collaboration with Native Earth Performing Arts, The Toronto Consort, and Theatre Passe Muraille, have announced that they will present Canoe, an opera in two acts, this fall. The work will première at Trinity St-Paul’s Centre in Toronto on Sept. 12.
Lydia Adams, conductor of Elora Singers, has been awarded the Order of Canada for her contributions to the growth of Canadian choral music. Among this year’s inductees are also Anishinaabe contemporary classical musician Barbara Assiginaak, and popular musician Thom Wilson.
The Calgary Philharmonic has announced that Canadian conductor Juliane Gallant has been appointed as the orchestra’s next resident conductor. She will assume this new role starting in the 2023-24 season.
Scott Thomson has been appointed the new artistic director of the Festival de musique actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV), succeeding Michel Levasseur, who announced his retirement last spring, 40 years after having founded this new music event. Thomson, a trombonist well-versed in the field of creative musics, occupied similar duties at the Guelph Jazz Festival from 2017 till this year.
Organizations
Brott Music Festival has received $1.2 million from the Government of Canada, in support of its artistic training programs. This grant comes from Canadian Heritage’s Canadian Arts Training Fund.
Montreal’s Segal Centre for the Performing Arts has received both federal and provincial support for their upcoming renovation projects. A total of nearly $6.1 million has been confirmed to undertake these important renovations, which include work on the Sylvan Adams Theatre.
The Vanier College Music School enters its second year of operation, after opening in 2022, following the closure of the McGill Conservatory. The school will run sessions in the fall, winter, and spring of the 2023-24 academic year.
The Metropolitan Opera Guild has announced that it plans to scale back this fall, moving from an independent not-for-profit organization, to a supporting organization of the Met. As part of these changes, the guild’s monthly publication, Opera News, will be amalgamated into the U.K.’s Opera magazine. Events such as the guild’s annual fall luncheon, and its spring awards, will be discontinued.
ICI Musique celebrates the Chapelle historique
by Justin Bernard
Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur
Tributes rained down on the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur as much as the fire department’s cistern after the fire that ravaged the building on May 25.
Many feared not only the loss of a cultural and musical heritage gem, but of the two musical instruments that were the pride of former director Guy Soucie: the Fazioli grand piano acquired in the late 1980s, which was in fact one of the first to be exported to North America, and the Kirckman harpsichord dating back to 1777. Caught between the flames and the ropes of water flowing into the main hall, they miraculously survived.
The accident’s causes have yet to be determined, but the investigation appears to be at a standstill.
On Sept. 20, Marie-Christine Trottier will celebrate the 1000th broadcast of Toute une musique on ICI Musique with special programming recorded at La Chapelle, shortly before the fire. On Sept. 16, Tout un magazine will be devoted to the history of this legendary venue, featuring a number of guests. Our thoughts are with Simon Blanchet, the current director, and his entire team during this trying time for the entire music community.
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