Recurrence is a collaboration between members of the ICOT (Iranian-Canadian Composers of Toronto) Chamber Orchestra, the New Orford String Quartet and two eminent Canadian composers.
With their new album Los Santos y Pecadores, Toronto-born band Battle of Santiago’s latest musical experiment continues to arouse the curiosity of audiences on the alternative Latin experimental scene.
I can’t remember a pre-Christmas season that started so sluggishly, without an obvious blockbuster on display. DG and Sony are leading with cultish solo pianists; Warner are dormant. Jonas Kaufmann is singing weakly about cinema. There are no big releases out there to drive a healthy economy. I turned to the continuation of the Boston Shostakovich cycle which I have reviewed before with some enthusiasm. The conductor Andris Nelsons is a Latvian who grew up in a post-Soviet country still shadowed by Shostakovich’s ghosts. The Boston Symphony Orchestra sound stronger on record than any of the original Russian performers and…
Canadian Scenes: New Works for Oboe & Piano Charles Hamann, oboe; Frédéric Lacroix, piano Leaf Music, June 2023 Five works for oboe and piano were commissioned by oboist Charles Hamann for this album, which depicts various aspects of Canadian identity. In collaboration with pianist Frédéric Lacroix (who also wrote one of the pieces on the album), Hamann sought to capture various aspects of Canada’s landscapes, and asked each composer to write a piece using nature as an inspirational starting point. Over the course of the album’s genesis, changes in climate and environment impacted the way works panned out. In the…
Archora / Aiōn Anna Thorvaldsdottir, composer; Iceland Symphony Orchestra with Eva Ollikainen, conductor Solo Luminus, 2023 Contemporary Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir doesn’t aim to simply create beautiful symphonic music, she aims to strike fear into the hearts of her listeners. The first track on her latest album, Archora / Aiōn, is a 20-minute masterwork of atmospheric tension. The violins’ long-held single notes consistently fade into deep brass notes, creating a cacophony of sounds in which instruments lose their individuality, becoming a menacing mass. The noise peters off and reasserts itself at just the right moments so as to avoid overwhelming…
Way Out East Harry Manx, guitar, sitar, Mohan Veena Dog My Cat Records, September 2023 With his new album “Way Out East”, released on Sept. 9, Harry Manx continues his musical project of exploring cross-cultural encounters between East and West, notably through fusions between traditional American blues sounds, and melodies (ragas) from the Indian classical music repertoire. In this new album, produced by his own independent label, Dog My Cat Records, Manx presents a selection of his best compositions of the last 20 years, accompanied by Samidha Joglekar (vocals), Ravi Nimpali (tablas) and Clayton Doley (keyboard). The album takes listeners…
Symphony in 18 parts / for solo electric guitar Tim Brady, electric guitar Starkland, 2023 The electric guitar, a cornerstone of the rock and metal worlds, is often overlooked as a classical instrument. On Symphony in 18 parts, Tim Brady challenges this oversight by evoking specific scenes, characters, and narratives through 18 masterful compositions. The first track, for instance, starts with an isolated, powerful, crunchy guitar strum—the sound of a rock star on stage playing to a live audience. While there’s no crowd to respond to the guitar, Brady so accurately recreates the note and its intonation that the moment…
Femmes de légende Élisabeth Pion, piano Atma Classique, May 2023 Quebec pianist Élisabeth Pion’s album opens with limpid, fluid and warm playing. A magnificent symbiosis between the pianist and the skilful writing of French composer Mélanie “Mel” Bonis (1858-1937), Femmes de légende reveals charm, colour and effervescence in both Pion’s playing and the repertoire itself. A pianist whose name has been on the Quebec and international music scene for some years now, Pion asserts her undeniable talent in this album. As its title suggests, Bonis’s work is inspired by literary and mythological heroines, and bears all the hallmarks of French…
Goldberg Variations Víkingur Ólafsson, piano Deutsche Grammophon, October 2023 This Icelandic pianist knows Johann Sebastian Bach like the back of his hand. In his latest album for Deutsche Grammophon, Víkingur Ólafsson tackles a work that is as revered as it is feared by young performers. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about for almost 25 years, which is most of my life,” he confides at the launch. It took him 10 years to tame the Goldberg Variations and finally make this giant of the piano repertoire his own. For a long time, he aimed to find his own voice, his own…
Clara et Robert Schumann: Musique de chambre pour cor Louis-Philippe Marsolais, horn; David Jalbert and Philip Chiu, piano; Cameron Crozman and Stéphane Tétreault, cello Atma Classique, June 2023 The gentleness of the Schumanns’ romantic compositions is not lost on the Orchestre Métropolitain’s principal horn player, Louis-Philippe Marsolais. He demonstrates a great deal of restraint on this album through his muted performance. Marsolais’s soft notes drift along peacefully above an enthusiastic piano, played by David Jalbert. When Marsolais is prompted to play with more force, Jalbert is careful to maintain a similar volume and intensity, creating a gentle synergy between the…
