Chamber Music - my/maSCENA

Browsing: Chamber Music

James Ehnes, Photo: Benjamin Ealovega

Interview – James Ehnes @40

By Kiersten van Vliet on 14 September 2016 Chamber Music, Interviews, Violin

As part of his 40th birthday celebrations, Canadian virtuoso violinist James Ehnes is hitting the road. Travelling across Canada with his family and accompanist Andrew Armstrong in tow, Ehnes will cross coast-to-coast-to-coast in Canada, trekking from Vancouver to St. John’s and all the way North to Iqaluit as part of his James Ehnes @40 tour. Next month, Ehnes plays the Dvořák Violin Concerto with the OSM (October 13, 8PM & October 14, 7PM), and a recital of Beethoven, Franck, and Ravel with Armstrong (October 16, 2:30PM). He returns to Montreal this spring in recital at LMMC Concerts, (April 30, 2017, 3:30PM). Below is a…

Borodin Quartet (Ruben Aharonian, Sergey Limovsky, Igor Naidin, and Vladimir Balshin) with Nuné Melik (centre)

Interview – Borodin Quartet at MISQA

By Nuné Melik on 13 September 2016 Chamber Music, Interviews, Strings

To catch all the members of the Borodin Quartet off stage is almost impossible. Formed in 1945, the legendary Russian ensemble, rarely, if ever, gives interviews – especially when they are on tour abroad. I conducted this interview after their spectacular opening Pollack Hall concert on August 14 at the McGill International String Quartet Academy (MISQA), where they gave masterclasses to quartets from all over the world. Speaking in Russian, first violinist Ruben Aharonian, second Sergey Limovsky, violist Igor Naidin, and cellist Vladimir Balshin covered a range of subjects at the four-star Omni Hotel in downtown Montreal. Nuné Melik: The…

James Ehnes with his accompanist Andrew Armstrong, Photo: Ben Ealovega

James Ehnes @40

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 September 2016 Chamber Music, Interviews, Violin

Age may be but a number, but its influence is broad. For celebrated Canadian violinist James Ehnes, turning 40 earlier this year has led to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tour his homeland in a series celebrating family, community, and (of course) great music. Though he is no doubt still fielding quips about being over the hill, Ehnes’s bustling performance schedule certainly erases any doubts about him slowing down any time soon. Ehnes, a Brandon, Manitoba native, began playing the violin at the age of 4 and studied with renowned violinist and pedagogue Francis Chaplin at 9. From 1993 to 1997…

Review – Alfred Schnittke: Works for Violin and Piano (Quartz)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 September 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Contemporary, Violin

Alfred Schnittke is a name we often shy away from on this side of the Atlantic. His style of unabashed dissonance is not solely reliant on serialism, but rather an understanding of the latent dramatic potential of atonality, an understanding that is made possible by his awareness and appreciation of the music that preceded him. Instead of breaking with the past, Schnittke aimed to show the connections between past and present in his so-called “polystylism”; this is no more evident than in his chamber output for the violin. The two-CD set opens with the late Third Sonata (1994), darkly opulent…

Review – Franz Schubert: String Quintet – Lieder (Erato)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 September 2016 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Romantic

His final work for strings, Schubert’s Quintet in C Major (1828) is unusual for its doubling of the cello voice rather than the viola, Mozart’s quintet model. With unmatched lyricism and finesse, Quatuor Ebène tackles this behemoth of Romantic chamber repertoire, which was only completed two months before the composer’s untimely death. Gautier Capuçon makes a fine fifth wheel, adding a dark intensity without disrupting the balance of the upper strings. This is perhaps the most evident in the exquisite second movement, Adagio, a nocturne that is so unusually slow for Schubert, and given a keenly sensitive treatment by Quatuor…

Bozzini Quartet, Photo: Michael Slobodian

La Rentrée Musicale: Contemporary Music

By An-Laurence Higgins on 1 September 2016 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Experimental Jazz, La Scena Spotlight, Orchestral, Scena Jazz

As always, the new season in Montreal offers a rich array of concerts as well as new and contemporary musical experiences. Whether you love digital art or sound installations, instrumental or mixed music, the creative community has concerts and festivals to satisfy everyone. Have your calendars ready! This year the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) celebrates its 50th season with the kind of programming that has been its hallmark since its foundation. The 2016-17 season begins with a free concert on September 30. Entitled Broadway Boogie-Woogie, it’s a tribute to the Mondrian painting of the same name, which…

The 39th Festival de Lanaudière – Time to Take Stock!

By Newswire on 9 August 2016 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Newswire, Orchestral, Piano, Violin

Joliette, August 8, 2016 – For its 39th season, le Festival de Lanaudière invited music lovers to discover some of the works that its founder, Father Fernand Lindsay, liked to hear and teach. Between July 9 and August 7, 2016, fourteen concerts were presented at the Amphithéâtre Fernand-Lindsay, eight in churches throughout the region, and two at the Musée d’art de Joliette. In addition, there were four cinema evenings and five morning yoga sessions held outdoors. Nearly 53,000 people attended Festival events – a significant increase over the figure for 2015. The piano takes center stage This year, the…

View on the mountains from the Combins terrace, Photo: Nicolas Brodard

Review: The Verbier Festival (July 26–29, 2016)

By Xenia Hanusiak on 8 August 2016 Chamber Music, Classical, Concert Reviews, Piano, Romantic, Violin

Verbier, Switzerland July 22 – August 7, 2016 For 23 years, Artistic Director Martin T:son Engstroem has curated the Verbier Festival with a dedicated commitment to intergenerational music making, encouraging the precocious energy of youth to collaborate alongside the cultivated gravitas of the some of the most respected musicians on the roster today. The famed Academy hosts young musicians and singers from across the globe assembling for orchestral, chamber music, and opera performances with the A-list. In the case of the 2016 edition the long-list red carpet roll out includes conductors Charles Dutoit and Gabor Takács-Nagy, pianist András Schiff, violinist…

Lebrecht Weekly – Bruno Walter: Violin Sonata / Piano Quintet (Naxos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 5 August 2016 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly

The most successful and elusive of Gustav Mahler’s inner circle, Bruno Walter was ranked among the foremost conductors of his time, esteemed equally by the jealous and mutually hostile Toscanini and Furtwängler and showered with offers when he arrived in the US as a Hitler refugee in 1939. Mahler had taken Walter on as his assistant in Hamburg when he was barely out of school at 18, guided his career path to Vienna and entrusted him with the first performances of Das Lied von der Erde and the ninth symphony. Walter, for his part, kept an objective distance from his…

Danish String Quartet

Daily News Roundup: 2 August 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 2 August 2016 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Daily News Roundup, Folk, Literature, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic

+ The Heckeler’s Andrew Burn takes on Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum & Jubilate with respect to the context around its creation and performance. “I’m not saying that this music shouldn’t be performed, quite the contrary. Its presentation, however, could be better geared to outlining the complex nature of its creation and allow for us to better appreciate our own history through live performance. What I am advocating for is an embrace of the whole truth to a work, even if that means acknowledging certain facts which may run contrary to the intent of its performance.” + The Danish String Quartet…

Previous 1 … 24 25 26 27 28 … 31 Next

Current Issue

PDF HTML

Next Issue : June/July 2024

Ad Deadline : May 24, 2024

Past Issues, Subscriptions, Advertising