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Pauline Oliveros

Industry News: December 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 December 2016 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Education, La Scena Spotlight, Popular Music, Strings, Vocal

Awards and Honours In November, the Schwarz-Bournaki Duo won first prize at the annual Boulder International Chamber Music Competition’s “Art of the Duo” in Boulder, Colorado. The competition celebrates the duo with piano, an intimate chamber genre that is often overshadowed by the string quartet and piano trio. This year, the competition received over 150 applications from 25 countries, with 22 ensembles making the semi-finals. The Schwarz-Bournaki Duo is American cellist Julian Schwarz and Canadian pianist – and native Montrealer – Marika Bournaki, who made her professional debut at age 11 with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The…

Daily News Roundup: 11 November 2016

By Nicole Yeba on 11 November 2016 Classical Music, Daily News Roundup, Popular Music

Leonard Cohen passed away on Monday in Los Angeles at the age of 82. The Montreal writer, poet, composer and singer, is famous for his hit-song Hallelujah. He had released the album You Want it Darker a few weeks ago. The doorsteps of his home in Montreal has been decorated with flowers and candles. He was buried yesterday at the Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery on the slopes of Mount Royal beside his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. Harry Grodberg, solo organist of the Moscow Philharmonic for 60 years, has died at the age of 88. He re-established the art of organ…

Daily News Roundup: 20 October 2016

By Nicole Yeba on 20 October 2016 Daily News Roundup, Orchestral, Piano, Popular Music

The New York Philharmonic creates the Ronnie and Lawrence Ackman Classical Piano Prize. British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is the first recipient of the $30,000 cash prize, performances with the New York Philharmonic and education initiatives around New York as a classical music ambassador. Phil Chess, co-founder of Chess Records, died Tuesday at his home in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 95. His Chicago label released many blues records from artists such Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry and Etta James. The music records influenced many artists such as the Rolling Stones and lead to the emergence of rock’n’roll.…

Daily News Roundup: 18 October 2016

By Nicole Yeba on 18 October 2016 Classical Music, Daily News Roundup, Opera, Popular Music, Strings

Jordan de Souza, 28, gets appointed as Kapellmesiter at the Komische Oper Berlin for the 2016-2017 season. The Toronto-born conductor was named the Head of Music at Germany’s Komische Oper Berlin last year. He will conduct a new production and a symphony concert in the orchestra’s series among the approximate 45 performances this season. Rock’n’roll legend, Chuck Berry who celebrates his 90th birthday today, announced he is releasing a new album next year. The album titled Chuck comes 38 years after his last album. Pianist Yuja Wang was named the 2017 artist of the year of Musical America. The piano…

Daily News Roundup: 14 October 2016

By Nicole Yeba on 14 October 2016 Contemporary, Daily News Roundup, Literature, Orchestral, Popular Music

American singer Bob Dylan, 75, won the Nobel Prize in literature for “creating new poetic expression within the great American song tradition.” (Saria Darnius, general secretary of Nobel) He is the first musician to win a prize in the 115 years of existence of Nobel Prizes. Jonathan Cohen will be the new Music Director of Les Violons du Roy starting in the 2018-2019 season. The Orchestre Métropolitain will hold a benefit concert for the Kidney Foundation of Canada with Marie-Josée Lord on November 11, 2016. Nicolas Fortin, a collaborator of the Conseil québécois de la musique et…

Annette Peacock, Photo : Alistair Thain

Review – Annette Peacock: Nothing Ever Was Anyway

By Marc Chénard on 27 September 2016 Concert Reviews, Experimental Jazz, Popular Music, Scena Jazz

Annette Peacock Nothing Ever Was Anyway Pop Montreal Music Fest September 25, 2016 Between two numbers heard in the recent solo performance of singer-songwriter-pianist Annette Peacock, two people slipped away from their aisle seat. A short pause ensued to which the artist laconically interjected: “Only the brave stick it out to the end.” Adding: “It only gets deeper from here.” And “slower” may we add. Few musicians are as offbeat as this songstress. Nee Coleman, she has kept the name of her first partner, bassist Gary Peacock (of Keith Jarrett trio fame), their marriage lasting six years. In 1966, she…

Danish String Quartet

Daily News Roundup: 2 August 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 2 August 2016 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Daily News Roundup, Folk, Literature, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic

+ The Heckeler’s Andrew Burn takes on Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum & Jubilate with respect to the context around its creation and performance. “I’m not saying that this music shouldn’t be performed, quite the contrary. Its presentation, however, could be better geared to outlining the complex nature of its creation and allow for us to better appreciate our own history through live performance. What I am advocating for is an embrace of the whole truth to a work, even if that means acknowledging certain facts which may run contrary to the intent of its performance.” + The Danish String Quartet…

Video of the Day – Lara St. John

By Weiyu Dang on 27 July 2016 Canadian Music, Folk, Video of the day, Violin

At La Scena, we rather enjoy NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts because they’re always well curated and quite often line up with what goes on in the festival circuit. Today’s video of the day features Canadian violinist Lara St. John who will be performing later tonight at the Ottawa Chamberfest. Born in London to two educators, St. John began violin at age two and made her orchestral debut two years later. Something of a precocious talent, it could be said. Now forty-years into her career, St. John is now a powerful virtuoso performer and “owner of Ancalagon record label and the…

Xenia Rubinos

Video of the Day – NPR Tiny Desk Concert: Xenia Rubinos

By Weiyu Dang on 26 July 2016 Experimental Jazz, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, Video of the day, Vocal Jazz

For her widespread influences, Xenia Rubinos’s music defies neatly bound classifications. Now living in Brooklyn, Rubinos draws heavily on her Cuban and Pueto Rican heritage to create a personal brand of experimental soul that explores ideas of race and economic strata. The Afro-Latino jazz grooves are evident as well as indelible inspiration from neo-soul potentate Erykah Badu. Her most recent offering, Black Terry Cat, riffs off hiphop influences and the current political surround to create an exploration of how coloured women fit. The sonic texture finds its roots in the forceful pop hits of Beyonce to the cross-over success of…

Daily News Roundup: 21 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 21 July 2016 Canadian Music, Daily News Roundup, Mainstream Jazz, Musical Theatre, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, Violin

Today’s Daily News Roundup is heading to Broadway. Plus Aretha Franklin and Polaris Music Prize news. + Aretha Franklin will headline a New City Winery Festival in Queens in September. + Video of the Day – Eric Dolphy. + The big Franco snub: Polaris Music Prize voters aren’t showing much love for francophone albums. + This Day in Music – 1920: Isaac Stern was born. + Come from Away, the Canadian musical focusing on the 38 planes and their occupants who were redirected to Gander, Nfld., on Sept. 11, 2001, will be performed at a Shubert theatre on Broadway in February.

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