Baroque and Early - my/maSCENA

Il Cortegiano : Festival Montréal Baroque with the participation of Jardins Chorégraphiques, Ensemble Alkemia, Flûte Alors! and Les Voix Humaines. Photo : Guillaume Lamothe.

Some serious fun at the Montreal Baroque Festival

By Arthur Kaptainis on 26 June 2019 Baroque and Early, Concert Reviews

The governing theme of the Montreal Baroque Festival this year was sprezzatura, an Italian word defined as nicely-calibrated nonchalance by Baldassare Castiglione in his Book of the Courtier (1528). The choice allowed for a preponderance of Italian repertoire, a concentration on venues in Little Italy, a philosophical attitude toward late starts and, on Sunday, the spectacle of co-artistic directors Susie Napper and Matthias Maute locking arms on the stage of the Théâtre Le Chateau, each with a glass of wine, and thanking the various collaborators who made the 17th edition possible. “Concert” would not quite do justice to the show,…

Baritone Tyler Duncan in "Leonardo" by Jonathan Berger

Da Vinci Our Contemporary – The Legendary Renaissance Polymath Arrives Center Stage in Composer Jonathan Berger’s New Monodrama

By Charles Geyer on 5 April 2019 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Classical, Classical Music, Contemporary, Education, La Scena Online, Musical Theatre, Opera, Theatre, Visual Arts

PREVIEW: of the world premiere of Leonardo, a new operatic monodrama about Leonardo da Vinci by composer Jonathan Berger at NYC’s 92nd Street Y; and INTERVIEW: with composer/librettist Jonathan Berger. “Che cos’è uno starnuto?” Leonardo da Vinci asks himself – and his audience – at the top of composer Jonathan Berger’s new one-man opera, Leonardo. “What is a sneeze?” It may seem a disarmingly piddling question from one of history’s most titanic intellectual figures – but that is precisely composer Jonathan Berger’s point. “Leonardo’s greatest asset was his unabashed asking of simple questions,” Berger says, “and through those questions arriving…

Photo : Roger Mastroianni

Olivier Brault: A Quest for Eloquence

By Benjamin Goron on 3 April 2019 Baroque and Early, Violin

Olivier Brault is very much in demand internationally for his deft playing of, and expertise in, period instruments. His embrace of the Baroque era, with special emphasis on 18th-century French music, has given this violinist the credentials to stimulate interest in this repertoire through lectures to younger audiences and his work as a teacher at McGill University. His twin musical concerns now are the use of memory and its transmission, although his own journey was a winding one, beginning with a childhood visit to a great-uncle in Nova Scotia. A Love Affair with the French Trio Sonata “My mother was…

Mika Putterman – Reviving the Art of Early Flute

By Benjamin Goron on 28 March 2019 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Romantic

The modern flute is one of the most recent additions to the woodwind family. Developed in the 1830s, it gained full acceptance by the century’s end. Its new key system gave it a more even tone, greater sound projection and, not least, increased playing facility. As entrenched as it is in concert music, is this instrument, otherwise known as the Boehm flute, the only one worthy of interest? What about its predecessors? Is there anything to learn from these? Mika Putterman, for one, would certainly answer the last question in the affirmative. As a self-described “historical flutist,” she owns an…

International stars and prestigious beginnings at the Festival de Lanaudière

By Newswire on 21 March 2019 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, Orchestral

Unveiling of another part of the 2019 edition’s programming Featuring great artists from here and from France, Italy and Germany Joliette, March 21, 2019—The Festival de Lanaudière’s Artistic Director Renaud Loranger has announced four new concerts in the artistic programming of the 42nd edition of the Festival de Lanaudière. They feature the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM), Orchestre Métropolitain (OM), Venice Baroque Orchestra, and violinist Christian Tetzlaff. The Festival runs from July 5 to August 4 this year. The OSM has been invited to give the Festival’s opening concert on Friday, July 5. Renowned French conductor Alain Altinoglu makes a return…

Giovanni Giornovich: London concertos (Delphian)

By Norman Lebrecht on 16 March 2019 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

At first hearing, these three violin concertos dated 1790 sound like Haydn. The second of them could even be Mozart if we didn’t know that Mozart only wrote five concertos and these are numbered 13 to 15. So who was Giornovich if he could write so well, and why have we never heard this music before, given that this is a world premiere recording? Giornovich was, if nothing else, well connected, A Croat whose name has at least 30 misspellings, he was raised in Palermo and became a French citizen because it was the best passport to hold in those…

4th Annual Toronto Bach Festival Offers The Best in Baroque

By Newswire on 4 March 2019 Baroque and Early, Newswire

Bach Specialist, Harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour makes Festival Debut Two concerts directed by Artistic Director John Abberger Vocal Soloists Hélène Brunet, Daniel Taylor, Lawrence Wiliford, Joel Allison Instrumental Virtuosi: violinist Julia Wedman, cellist Elinor Frey, flutist Alison Melville, oboist John Abberger The Toronto Bach Festival Singers and Orchestra New Canadian Music for Baroque Cello Free Lecture by Noted Bach Scholar and Author Ellen Exner “Toronto is fortunate to be home to brilliant period music performers, such as those participating in the Toronto Bach Festival.” – Toronto Concert Reviews, 2018 “Seventy per cent of Bach’s music is unknown to the average music…

Credit: Cylla von Tiedemann

Old meets new as Tafelmusik unveils 2019/20 Season

By Newswire on 12 February 2019 Baroque and Early, Newswire

Tchaikovsky on period instruments Elisa Citterio’s new orchestral arrangement of Bach’s Goldberg Variations Six new commissions by living composers The Indigo Project, Alison Mackay’s new multimedia program Christmas program with Vesuvius Ensemble Europe tour with soprano Karina Gauvin Elisa Citterio’s debut Tafelmusik recording Toronto, February 12, 2019… Today Music Director Elisa Citterio unveiled Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s 2019/20 season, which highlights the freshness and vigour at the heart of everything Tafelmusik undertakes. Old meets new in unprecedented ways, including Tafelmusik’s first-ever foray into the music of the late Romantic composer Tchaikovsky, a new multimedia program by Alison Mackay, the return of…

Tafelmusik Announces New Executive Director Carol Kehoe

By Newswire on 14 November 2018 Arts Industry, Baroque and Early, Canadian Music, Newswire

Toronto, November 13, 2018 … David Kilburn, Chair of the Board of Directors of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, is pleased to announce the appointment of Carol Kehoe to the position of Executive Director. Ms. Kehoe is an accomplished leader with more than 25 years of management experience at senior levels, most recently as the Executive Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, where she led the organization through an impressive financial turnaround. Carol came to Tafelmusik in August as Interim Executive Director and will transition to her permanent role immediately. “We are delighted to have Carol join Tafelmusik as…

Baroque Opera and the Harpsichord

By Luc Beauséjour on 5 November 2018 Baroque and Early

My maternal grandmother introduced the sound of the harpsichord into our home. When I was still a child, she gave us records and her turntable. In quick succession, I discovered Bach’s Fourth and Fifth Brandenburg Concertos and, not long after, his famous Toccata in D minor for organ – preludes to my first listening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It was only much later, during a stay at the music camp founded by Father Lindsay, that I first laid my eyes on a harpsichord. We young campers were learning about musical history in a modest chalet nicknamed the Sorbonne – it…

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