The Enduring Power of Beethoven’s String Quartets
“After this, what is left for us to write?” —Franz Schubert after hearing Beethoven’s late String Quartet No. 14, Op. 131 This year at the…
Yearly Archives: 2017
The metamorphoses of race, sex, violence, and hypocrisy
Montreal’s Centaur Theatre presents two new plays that question our assumptions, challenge our complacencies, and mock our politically correct, self-congratulatory smugness. Morgan Freeman, the iconic,…
Philippe Bourque’s Mendelssohn Elijah
In 1846, when Felix Mendelssohn conducted the commissioned premiere of his oratorio Elijah for the Birmingham Festival he presided over an orchestra of one hundred…
Stronger Acoustics for Salle André-Mathieu
“The great problem of the concert hall is that the shoebox is the ideal shape for acoustics, but no architect worth their name wants to…
La Balade pour la paix, an Open-Air Museum at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
The museum walks forth “I believe that everyone, whether they want to or not, will find their own Treasure there.” — Malraux We might well…
CMIM 2017
“The cynical and tender spirit, a modern and unique thought, a characteristically Quebecois music, the star of this popular concert of the Orchestre symphonique de…
Glenn Gould and the Metaphysics of Music
When listening to or performing music, many people have experienced the “oceanic feeling,” variously described as an altered state of consciousness, a sensation of limitlessness,…
Cultural Rendez-Vous: Five Films to See This Spring
Window Horses Now in select theatres Ann Marie Fleming returns with her animated avatar Stick Girl as the title character in Window Horses: The Poetic…
The Jerusalem Opera Festival: Lyrical adventure in the Middle East
When we think of opera, cities like Vienna, Milan, Paris or New York spring to mind, rather than Jerusalem. But the holy city has been…
Dang Thai Son: The Finer Things in Life
Dang Thai Son is a man of discriminating taste. After a swirl and a sniff and a sip, he sent back a glass of red…
