Baroque and Early - my/maSCENA

Suzie LeBlanc Appointed Early Music Vancouver Artistic and Executive Director

By Newswire on 7 December 2020 Baroque and Early, Classical Music

Vancouver, BC – Early Music Vancouver (EMV), alongside its Board of Directors, today announced the appointment of Suzie LeBlanc C.M. as Artistic and Executive Director. LeBlanc is the first female to take the helm at EMV since its founding in May 1970. She will assume the role on January 4, 2021. A charismatic and tireless champion of early music and Acadian culture, LeBlanc is an internationally celebrated Canadian soprano, an early music specialist and educator who is admired by artists and administrators alike. Born in New Brunswick, but currently residing in Montreal, she has managed a globe-spanning career for 35…

Photo: Michael Slobodian

Mécénat Musica names Karina Gauvin inaugural Artist in Residence

By Newswire on 17 November 2020 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Opera, Vocal

Montreal, November 17, 2020 – Karina Gauvin, Montreal soprano, is Mécénat Musica’s first collaborative Artist in Residence. Karina Gauvin is a soprano of international renown, collaborating and vivaciously performing with the greatest symphony orchestras, opera companies and recital series around the world. Ms. Gauvin has recorded 50+ albums and among her distinctions has three Grammy nominations. The New York Times describes Ms. Gauvin as singing “with serene ease and radianceʺ. Opera News calls her the “queen of Baroque opera”. As collaborative Artist in Residence Ms. Gauvin will be performing with Mécénat Musica organizations and is also a donor under the Mécénat Musica program to keep…

Against the Grain Theatre Presents: Messiah/Complex

By Newswire on 10 November 2020 Baroque and Early, Classical Music

TORONTO — premiering this December 13 on AtG TV, the multi-award-winning innovative team at Against the Grain Theatre(AtG) is proud to present a bold interpretation of Handel’s Messiah, accompanied by and in partnership with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO), co-directed by Joel Ivany, the Founding Artistic Director of AtG, and Reneltta Arluk, Director of Indigenous Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. The seventy-minute filmed performance of Messiah/Complex will showcase multilingual translations, and feature a diverse cast of soloists and choirs representing every province and territory across Canada, accompanied by the exceptional musicians of the TSO and conducted by…

Festival Bach Montréal: Hear Concerts Anywhere on New Streaming Platform

By Arthur Kaptainis on 6 November 2020 Baroque and Early, Classical Music

The Festival Bach Montréal opens its 2020 proceedings on Nov. 19 in St. Joseph’s Oratory, or in your living room, depending on your point of view. The program gathering four organists and the Schola de l’Oratoire starts at 7:30 p.m., or whenever you like – again, according to taste. The annual celebration of the great J.S. is going online and has built a new digital platform – Québec Baroque or www.quebecbaroque.com – to make it feasible. “Québec Baroque offers you the opportunity to catch up on many of its performances several days after their initial broadcast,” reads an online introduction to…

Francis Colpron, flutist and founder of Les Boréades

Les Boréades: 25 Years of Making Early Music

By Justin Bernard on 6 November 2020 Baroque and Early, Opera

The baroque instrumental ensemble Les Boréades is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its founding by flutist Francis Colpron. But this is a celebration unlike any other. In spite of the continuing restrictions and uncertainties caused by the pandemic, Colpron wants to keep in touch with subscribers and fellow musicians while continuing to perform in concert. Digital technologies are a godsend, and the ensemble’s members are all set to use them. “For the time being, we’re looking closely at any opportunity to perform in front of cameras, so people can share the concert with us on their screens,” says the artistic…

Opera and Jewish Cantorial Music: a 21st-Century Update from Montreal

By Philip Ehrensaft on 16 September 2020 Baroque and Early, Vocal

Montreal’s Shaar Hashomayim synagogue is well known as a centre of Jewish music. The title track of Leonard Cohen’s penultimate album, You Want It Darker, brought the Shaar’s cantor, the lyric tenor Gideon Zelermyer, and its choir, directed by Roï Azoulay, to the attention of a wider public. Cohen, the grandson and great-grandson of past presidents of the Shaar, was a lifetime member of the synagogue, and is buried in the Shaar’s cemetery on Mount Royal. When Cohen inserted repetitions of the Hebrew word hineni (“here I am”) into the title song he was acknowledging that his end was near,…

Ad Litteram Acquires ATMA Classique Label

By Newswire on 30 March 2020 Arts Industry, Baroque and Early, Classical Music

PRESSE RELEASE, For immediate release Montreal, March 30, 2020 – Johanne Goyette, founder and president of ATMA Classique, and Guillaume Lombart, founder and president of Ad Litteram jointly announced that Ad Litteram, a leading company with more than 20 years of experience in the music industry, has entered into an agreement to acquire the ATMA Classique label, effective April 1, 2020. With this transaction, Ad Litteram Inc. will acquire Disques ATMA Inc.’s shares and the ATMA Classic label, ensuring the company’s sustainability while promoting a bold vision for the future, including an emphasis on video and the expansion of the…

Monsters Coming to the National Gallery

By Newswire on 28 December 2019 Baroque and Early, Newswire

Dec/Jan 2020 issue Monsters at the National Gallery! Christmas may be over, but “You better watch out” if you visit the National Gallery of Canada on January 25th, 2020. Why? Because… there be monsters. In fact, Monsters are already on display at the Gallery, in a special exhibition titled Beautiful Monsters in Early European Prints and Drawings (1450–1700), which runs until March 29th, 2020. But on January 25th, the monsters will creep off their canvasses and come to life in a one-time performance in the Gallery’s auditorium. The show features the Ottawa Baroque Consort, hosted by master storyteller David Brennan.…

Photo: Stephanie Sedlbauer

Annamaria Popescu: Never Too Late to Start Early

By Arthur Kaptainis on 27 November 2019 Baroque and Early, Vocal

Annamaria Popescu has both a harpsichord and a piano in her studio at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. “I require all my students to do early music,” says the mezzo-soprano and assistant professor, who will be one of the soloists in Handel’s Messiah as performed on Dec. 8 by the Orchestre classique de Montréal under Boris Brott. “And they start with Italian. Because if they start with Italian early music, they see the evolution. If they do a piece from the mid-1500s and from the 1600s and the mid-1700s, then when they do their Bellini song, they have a…

Akamus Flying instruments Photo : Uwe Arens

Fall Preview: Early Music

By Benjamin Goron on 5 September 2019 Baroque and Early

The perseverance of Orpheus The best-known musician of antiquity will attempt several more descents into the underworld this year to bring back his beloved Eurydice. The epic story of this accomplished lyricist will start quite far from Montreal. At the prestigious Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Theatre of Early Music will present Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice from Nov. 8 to 12 with Daniel Taylor in the principal role. Closer to home, countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and soprano Amanda Forsythe bring one of the most famous myths of music back to life with the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble on…

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