Why are Toronto-based Tafelmusik’s performances and recordings of early music so electrifying?
Mixing old and new repertoires has always been part of La Nef. Their 2024-25 season is another dazzling demonstration of this, with four concerts equally inspired by the exploration and meeting of cultures. Claire Gignac, co-founder of La Nef, offers a preview of the key elements of the season. To open, flutist Vincent Lauzer and percussionist Ziya Tabassian present an exceptional musical fusion project entitled Pulsations. On the evening of Oct. 9, medieval, baroque, jazz, Persian and Japanese music will freely inspire the two musicians. “Vincent is one of the members of our artistic committee, so I approached him first…
In the summer of 2022 William Christie appeared at Canada’s Festival de Lanaudière with his orchestra, Les Arts Florissants, and proteges of his youth academy, Le Jardin des voix. Bolstered by the success of those performances of Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, he won over audiences at the Quebec festival once again in 2023, with the same composer’s comic opera, Partenope. This summer, Christie is back again, this time with a production of Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, with performances at the Toronto Summer Music Festival on July 11 and two days later, back at the Festival de…
Lully – Armide Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Cyril Auvity, Tomislav Lavoie, Marie Perbost, Eva Zaïcik, Timothée Varon, David Tricou, Virgile Ancely, Anouk Defontenay and Jeanne Lefort; Le Poème Harmonique, Chœur de l’Opéra de Dijon; Vincent Dumestre, music director Château de Versailles Spectacles, 2023 Recorded in May 2023 at Versailles’s Royal Opera, Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Armide here receives a royal treatment in every sense of the word. Le Poème Harmonique, directed by its founder Vincent Dumestre, showcases its expertise in the 17th- and 18th-century repertoire thanks to an interpretation full of the bounding energy which characterizes French music. Each section of instruments seems to…
Bravura: oeuvres pour cor naturel et pianoforte Louis-Pierre Bergeron, horn; Meagan Milatz, piano Atma Classique, 2024 Horn player Louis-Pierre Bergeron and pianist Meagan Milatz mark historic landmarks in their debut album, Bravura, works for natural horn and piano, produced by Atma Classique. In addition to premiere recordings of selected works by Vincenzo Rhigini and Franz Xaver Süssmayr as well as Cipriani Potter’s Sonata di bravura on historic instruments, the album is the first solo recording of a period brass instrument in Canada. Performing on reproductions of classical horns and a Viennese fortepiano, the duo’s tasteful and elegant musicianship is apparent…
All is Love, the new Opera Atelier production is a heterogeneous mix of numbers that impress individually but fail to add up to a dramatically satisfying whole.
Under the leadership of Lisette Canton, the Ottawa Bach Choir and five-piece continuo deliver a magnificent performance of Bach’s Six Motets.
As the AKOYA duo specializes in under-appreciated early baroque music, it only makes sense that they’re exploring Graupner’s violin and harpsichord sonatas on their latest album.
Clavecin en concert is pleased to announce its first concert of 2024 with a program devoted to Johann Sebastian Bach.
Quebec harpsichordist Pierre Lavigne presents Encore baroque volume 2, following his first album, Encore baroque, which he released in 2022.
