La Scena Spotlight - my/maSCENA

Lang Lang Receives RCM Honorary Fellowship - Chancellor Michael M. Koerner, President Dr. Peter Simon, and Lang Lang (Christina Gapick photo)

Industry News: November 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 November 2016 Arts Industry, Classical Music, La Scena Spotlight, Opera, Orchestral

Big Canadian Debut Many are abuzz after the mid-October announcement that Russian soprano Ana Netrebko, one of the world’s biggest opera stars, will make her Canadian debut on April 25, 2017 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto. Netrebko will be joined on stage by her husband, Yusif Eyazov, as well as baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky – otherwise known as Trio Magnifico. They will be accompanied by the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra conducted by Jader Bignamini in a concert of opera arias, duets, and trios. Tickets to the event are bound to be expensive, some estimate they…

20th Anniversary: Gala La Relève Artists

By Nicole Yeba on 1 November 2016 Classical Music, Interviews, La Scena Spotlight, Piano, Violin, Vocal

In honour of our 20th anniversary, we are proud to introduce the seven artists who will perform at our gala on Thursday, November 24. Each artist talked with La Scena Musicale about his or her favourite works, the pieces they will be performing at the gala, the challenges of performing them, the high points of each piece, and which artist they dream of meeting. For more information about the gala click here. David Dias Da Silva – Clarinettist Joly Braga Santos : Aria I Bella Kovacs : Hommage a Manuel de Falla Debussy: First Rhapsody I chose Debussy’s First Rhapsody…

Joshua Peters

Rising Stars – Joshua Peters: Golden Violin Competition

By An-Laurence Higgins on 1 October 2016 La Scena Spotlight, Violin

The McGill Schulich School of Music Golden Violin Competition is a yearly prestigious competition made possible by the generous donation of businessman and philanthropist, the school’s namesake, Mr. Seymour Schulich. In 2015, Joshua Peters won the First Prize. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Peters began playing violin at the early age of four. As he grew up, he moved around the continent to study with Axel Strauss at McGill, and with Jonathan Crow, Denise Lupien, and Ian Swensen at the San Francisco Conservatory. Peters’s main interests are chamber and contemporary music. He had the opportunity to collaborate with many renowned artists,…

Scott MacIsaac

Rising Stars – Scott MacIsaac: OSM Manulife Competition

By An-Laurence Higgins on 1 October 2016 La Scena Spotlight, Piano

The winner of the 2015 edition of the OSM Manulife competition was the young Scott MacIsaac. Born in 1992 in Alberta, MacIsaac is a promising pianist whose musicality and technique have been praised both nationally and internationally. He started playing piano at 6 years old and has studied with fellow Albertan Marilyn Engle since 2007. MacIsaac got his Certificate in performance from Yale University in 2014, where he studied with Boris Berman and Peter Frankl. He is currently completing his Bachelor in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Ronan O’Hora. MacIsaac is no stranger to the…

Ayana Tsuji, CMIM

Rising Stars – Ayana Tsuji: Concours musical international de montréal (CMIM)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 October 2016 La Scena Spotlight, Violin

The 2016 Concours musical international de Montréal (CMIM), and the 5th violin competition, came to a definitive conclusion in front of a sizeable live and webcast audience on Thursday, June 2 at the Maison Symphonique. For the first time in the competition’s fifteen-year history, the competitors learned the results at the same time as the audience, holding everyone in breathless suspense up until the top-three winners picked up their violins to perform their concertos one final time with the OSM under guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero. Eighteen-year-old Japanese wunderkind Ayana Tsuji emerged as the unprecedented winner, gaining the jury’s favour for…

Joshua Bell, Photo: Eric Kabik

Ottawa Previews: October 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 October 2016 Choral, La Scena Spotlight, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic, Violin

NACO Opening The NAC Orchestra opens its 2016–17 season in the newly renovated Southam Hall with a very busy October, including several soloists not to be missed. On October 6 and 7, virtuoso Joshua Bell performs the Brahms Violin Concerto in a program that includes Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. Music Director Alexander Shelley conducts after his 7PM pre-concert talk with music journalist Jean-Jacques Van Vlasselaer (Oct. 6 & 7, 8PM, NAC Southam Hall). www.nac-cna.ca Schumann and the Songwriters Angela Hewitt joins Shelley and the NACO for an evening of early Schumann and Beethoven for the first performance in the…

Wlad Marhulets

Rising Stars – Wlad Marhulets: Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music

By An-Laurence Higgins on 1 October 2016 Contemporary, La Scena Spotlight

Born in 1986 in Belarus, Wlad Marhulets is a young Polish-American composer and the winner of the inaugural Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music with his Klezmer Clarinet Concerto. He started his music studies rather late at the age of 16, when he first heard a recording of klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer. He was drawn so much to this music that he started studying the clarinet and composition. A few years later he began studying at Julliard in composition under a full scholarship with Oscar and Pulitzer Prize winner John Corigliano. Marhulets says that the klezmer recording of Krakauer changed his…

Jean-Philippe Tremblay, Photo: Alain Lefort

Industry News: October 2016

By Shira Gilbert on 1 October 2016 Arts Industry, La Scena Spotlight, Opera, Orchestral

by: Shira Gilbert and Kiersten van Vliet Orchestral Changeups Conductor Jean-Philippe Tremblay is the new Music Director of Montreal’s Orchestre de chambre Appassionata. Daniel Myssyk, also an associate professor and orchestra conductor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, has stepped down from the post after founding the orchestra 15 years ago. Tremblay also remains at the helm of Orchestre de la francophonie. Education News Tim Price is the new Chair of the Board of Directors at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Price is currently also active on two corporate boards, Canadian Tire Corporation and Fairfax Financial Holdings Inc.…

Suor Angelica, Photo: Tam Lan Truong

Quebec Previews: October 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 October 2016 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Contemporary, La Scena Spotlight, Opera, Strings

Les Caprices de la Nuit with Les Violons du Roy On October 13, join violinist and conductor Anthony Marwood and Les Violons du Roy for an evening of exceptional chamber music for strings. The concert includes the String Sextet from Richard Strauss’s final opera Capriccio, Mozart’s charming String Quintet in G minor, and Schoenberg’s late-Romantic Verklärte Nacht. October 13, 8PM, Salle Raoul-Jobin, Palais Montcalm. www.violonsduroy.com James Ehnes @ 40 Continue the celebration of James Ehnes’s 40th birthday as he stops in Quebec City on his way across Canada. With longtime collaborator Andrew Armstrong, Ehnes will play chamber music by Handel,…

Chelsea Rus

Rising Stars – Chelsea Rus: Wirth Vocal Prize

By An-Laurence Higgins on 1 October 2016 La Scena Spotlight, Vocal

British Columbian soprano Chelsea Rus’s story is straight from the movies. Already accomplished at the beginning of her international career, no one would think she had never even actually heard an opera before her first year of college. While she played piano and sang since her childhood, she did not give much attention to classical music – she was busy playing jazz and belting Ella Fitzgerald. After watching La Traviata brought her to tears, she began a whole re-education, working her voice in ways she never had before. Years of hard work have paid off: last year she won the…

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