Browsing: Classical Music

Triggered by the brutal death of a Black man last spring, a wave of articles about discrimination and inequity swept through blogs and newspapers over the summer. The classical music field has not been spared. One article in particular, written by New York Times chief music critic Anthony Tommasini, and titled “To make orchestras more diverse, end blind auditions,” generated much discussion within the classical music community.  Tommasini characterizes the blind audition process as a restrictive practice. He argues that removing the screen would be a crucial step toward change and help to redress racial inequities in orchestra rosters. According…

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I met Ezinma as Meredith Ramsay almost 10 years ago, when we were violin students at the Mannes School of Music in New York. One day after school we were on the sidewalk, talking about the future. She told me she was not going to audition for orchestras. Rather, she was going to become a pop star of the violin. I remember thinking, “How is she going to do that? You cannot train as a classical musician and have a career in pop music.” But she did. The proof? Ezinma is featured on the cover of the January/February issue of…

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 . . THE BELGIAN COMPOSER BOUDEWIJN BUCKINX (B. 1945) WROTE NINE UNFINISHED SYMPHONIES?All were composed in a single year, 1992. . . .  PLUTO HADN’T BEEN DISCOVERED YET WHEN HOLST WROTE HIS PLANETS (1914-1917)? However, later composers helped him out with a Pluto movement. In 1997 the American composer Margaret Brouwer wrote Pluto: A Sequel to Holst’s ‘Planets,’ and three years later the British composer Colin Matthews finished Holst’s cycle with Pluto, the Renewer, composed at the request of Kent Nagano. . . . THE LONGEST SYMPHONY IN THE STANDARD REPERTORY IS GUSTAV MAHLER’S THIRD?  This runs about an hour and…

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Ensembl’arts was founded in 2013. It all started with the visual artist Avery Zhao and her husband, violinist Marc Djokic. They counted many dancers and choreographers among their friends. Bringing them together creatively was only natural. Originally called Art Crush (which remains  the name of the main concert series), the organization changed to Ensembl’arts upon its registration as a nonprofit organization with charity status in 2020. It is a multidisciplinary group that specializes in performances that bring together dance, visual art and classical music – with classical music playing a special role. “Definitely, music is the time factor between everything,”…

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Soprano Suzanne Taffot’s journey to the stage has been somewhat unconventional. A lawyer by trade, she studied in Cameroon, France and Quebec before embarking on a second career in music, something she never thought would be possible. “When I was growing up in Cameroon, becoming a classical musician wasn’t even a possibility,” she said. “After high school, I had three options: try to find a position as a government employee, continue my studies in literature or pursue law studies.” Taffot was struck by the beauty and harmony of the voices of a parish choir after arriving too early for a…

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The death of George Floyd incited a series of protests across the United States, including in the world of opera. Mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges was invited by the Los Angeles Opera to give a virtual recital shortly after the events. Instead she offered to moderate a panel with fellow Black singers on the issue of race and inequality in their milieu. The company agreed. Among the participants were tenor Lawrence Brownlee, soprano Karen Slash and bass Morris Robinson, all of whom experienced at least casual or implied racism from the beginning of their careers. Much has changed for the better, of…

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The history of music, like history as a whole, is often cruel. It raises a limited number of individuals to the rank of immortals while others, famous in their day, are forgotten. We sometimes see unexpected reversals. Even before his death in 1750, Johann Sebastian Bach saw his fame eclipsed by that of his sons Carl Phillip Emanuel and Johann Christian. History, as it turns out, does not hold in high esteem the Bachs that the men and women of the 18th century would have thought of first. In that era, the risk of being forgotten by subsequent generations was…

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Much has been written, and rightly so, about musicians who have lost months of work because of the pandemic. What about those who, by some miracle, have had the opportunity to get back on stage? Magali Simard-Galdès was in Ireland when the pandemic forced the world to close up shop. After she arrived in Montreal on March 13, she found herself facing an almost empty calendar for the next year or so, as did the majority of the entertainment industry. She took advantage of the free time to prepare for a recording of Massenet’s complete mélodies to be released the…

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The Prix d’Europe will celebrate its 110th anniversary this year. Since its beginning, the scholarship offered by the Prix d’Europe has enabled winners to study abroad. The competition offers what might be called a sabbatical year for further development after musical studies and before embarking on a professional career. “We are always transformed by studying abroad,” comments Vincent Boucher, vice-president of the Académie de musique du Québec and organist at St. Joseph’s Oratory. “I think that the Prix d’Europe was an important cultural driving force in Quebec in the sense that a Quebec musician who went to Vienna or Paris…

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Perryn who? This was the consensus in the hours following the ­announcement by the Canadian Opera Company that Perryn Leech, a British-born resident of Houston, would succeed Alexander Neef as general director in March. I include in this informal survey a critic who lived for decades in Texas. Perryn who? Not that someone of whom we have never heard is disqualified by his or her anonymity from leading the biggest opera company in the land. The pantheon of Canadian arts management includes many people of whom, when they were first appointed, we had never heard. Alexander Neef, the COC general…

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