Browsing: Chamber Music

“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 Montreal Chamber Music Festival, the Dover Quartet will be in residence to play the complete cycle of Beethoven’s 16 String Quartets and the Große Fuge Op. 133. Winners of the first prize at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC), this youthful US-based quartet recently won Avery Fisher Career Grant, the highest honour for performers at this stage of their career. The Dover Quartet—comprised of violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violist Milena Pajaro-van…

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Hard to know whether to give this confection one star or five. The dominant voice is the mandolin of Chris Thile, an instrument probably unknown to J S Bach who never wrote for it, but used often in modern transcriptions of his works. It sits more comfortably in a Bach score than, say, a tenor sax, but that does not make it remotely authentic. The other instruments at play here are a cello and double bass. What hits the ear from the off are clever, virtuosic trio adaptations of anything from a solo keyboard fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier to…

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24 young pianists, 6 women and 18 men from 15 countries with an average age of 26, have been selected to participate in the CMIM (Concours musical international de Montréal) next May 2 to 12. The highest number of candidates are from South Korea (7), followed by France (3) and Italy (3). The remaining countries are represented by one participant each: Canada, China, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Poland, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Uzbekistan. The 24 competitors were selected out of a record-breaking 304 pianists, representing the highest number of applicants in the history of the Competition and…

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Here are your daily headlines in classical music and the arts ! Hard to believe, but it’s true: “Classical music concerts in Germany are officially more popular than football matches,” even though they have one of the best football teams in the world. [The Strad] [ClassicFM] CANADA OSM POP: Review of Arianne Moffatt’s concert with the OSM at the Maison Symphonique. [La Presse] [Le Devoir] Twittosphère : Yesterday at the McCord museum, guest speaker Monique Savoir said that Montreal should be more adventurous in its architectural projects. The former artistic director of the Orchestre symphonique du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and former director of the Conservatoire…

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PROFILE: of celebrated contemporary classical music group ETHEL; and INTERVIEW: with Dorothy Lawson and Ralph Farris (of ETHEL) and composer Robert Mirabal. “We originally thought of calling ourselves ‘Hazardous Material,’” recollects violist Ralph Farris, one of the core four Juilliard-trained string players who formed the group in 1998. “But then we said, ‘Hey, wait! We’re not dangerous!’” What they are is ETHEL – a remarkable, and protean, music-making group. They inspire enthusiastic description, but defy easy definition – or, at least, any attempted definition will have a short shelf-life: what ETHEL was yesterday isn’t what ETHEL will be tomorrow, given…

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MONTREAL As part of the 8th edition of the biennial Montréal/Nouvelles musiques Festival (MNM), Walter Boudreau will lead La symphonie du millénaire II. In 2000, the performance of the first Symphonie du millénaire, brought together more than 70’000 people. [Le Devoir] Review on the concert of OSTR, highlighting Bach’s works. [La Presse] André Sauvé will join the OSM for a special concert on July 21 and 22. [La Presse] INTERNATIONNAL Le beau Danube is 150-year-olds. Back on one of the greatest successes from Strauss. [La Presse] [Radio-Canada] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t38fIJgvWEM The first recording of Bartók’s piano quartet in C minor (1898) was found and published. [Scena…

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  Tuesday – February 21 1:30PM Longueuil Campus of UdeM, Édifice Port-de-Mer, 101, Place Charles-Lemoyne, Longueuil. 14$. Les matinées d’Opéramania au Campus Longueuil- I Puritani de Bellini. 1-855 790-1245. 7:00PM. Maison de la culture Frontenac (Montreal), 2550 Ontario Est, Montreal. 0-2$. Signer and pianist from Guadeloupe perform urban compositions. 514-872-7882. 7:00PM Music Faculty of the University of Montreal – Serge-Garant Hall (B-484), 200, avenue Vincent-d’Indy. Atelier d’improvisation – Classe de Jean-Marc Bouchard. 7:30PM. Bourgie Concert Hall, 1339, Sherbrooke Ouest Street, Montreal. 30$-100$. Camp Tutti concert bénéfice. 514-486-8727.  Wednesday – February 22 7:30PM – OM – INSPIRATION AND HOPE: Inspire by…

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The Montreal Chamber Music Festival always manages to satisfy even the most demanding mélomane of the city. Long-time friends of artistic director Denis Brott, the Emerson Quartet has become somewhat of a mainstay of the Festival. The Emerson Quartet (Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violins, Lawrence Dutton, viola, and Paul Watkins, cello) celebrated their 40th anniversary on February 1st with a program of Mozart, Ravel, and Tchaikovsky. The concert opened with Mozart’s Quartet no. 15 in D minor. Their round and brilliant sound – a never-failing feature of the quartet — captured the audience’s attention from the opening notes. Lead violinist…

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CANADA The mayor of Montreal Denis Coderre engage to give 100 000$ per year to the OSM. « Through its international stature, the OSM is a cherished ambassador whose fame reflects back on the national and international reputation of Montreal, said Coderre ». [More infos] [More Infos 2] « The Gatineau Music Conservatory [will receive …] Sérgio et Odair Assad as a part of his 12e Edition of the Festival Guitare Alla Grande.» [More infos] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n60V6ukmJog INTERNATIONNAL  The Chinese pianist Lang Lang leaves Sony and return with Deutsche Grammophon. [More infos] [More infos] [More infos] « Seattle Symphony plays music from 7 nations that Trump…

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“What happens when you find a ghost and you bring it into a work of music?” asks Nicole Lizée. Insofar as that question is ­answerable, her compositions that form a dialogue with the surrealist film worlds of David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, and Alfred Hitchcock or compositions that meld outmoded and glitching gadgets with western chamber instruments unveil the eerie temporal rift between present and past as humans interact with media and technology. Sound Sources Born in small-town Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan in 1973, Lizée’s ­experiments in sound led her to pursue piano at Brandon University, Manitoba followed by a MA in composition…

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