Contemporary - my/maSCENA

Photo: Marek Beblot

Krzysztof Penderecki (23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020)

By Wah Keung Chan on 29 March 2020 Arts Industry, Contemporary

The Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki died on Sunday, March 29 at the age of 86 in his hometown of Krakow. According to media in the country, citing the Ludwig van Beethoven association founded by his wife Elzbieta, the composer and conductor died from a long illness. In a tweet, the Polish Minister of Culture said that he was one of “the greatest Polish musicians, a world authority on classical music”. Enclosed is an interview La Scena conducted with maestro Penderecki in 1998. Krzysztof Penderecki Talks about the Polish Requiem by Philip Anson / April 1, 1998 Version française… Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki [pronounced…

Papagena Vocal Quintet: Hush! (Somm Recordings)

By Norman Lebrecht on 27 March 2020 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly, Vocal

What can you do with 3 sopranos and 2 altos. Be inventive, that’s what. The all-women quintet Papagena have come up with a range of unaccompanied songs, settings and original commissions that often takes the breath away. Don Macdonald’s Moonset, for instance, does just what the title says: it sinks, gently, bringing hope of a new day, a breath of fresh air. Libby Larsen’s Jack’s Valentine declares ‘I love you’ with just the right degree of equivocation. Sweet Child O’Mine is a Guns N Roses hit reset for a capella voice – magic. Apart from Larsen, David Lang, Tchaikovsky and Gustav Holst, I don’t recognise any…

$130,000 New Music Solidarity Fund offers $500 emergency grants to performers

By Newswire on 24 March 2020 Arts Industry, Contemporary

More than 100 artists, arts leaders, and professors announce $130,000 New Music Solidarity FundFund to offer $500 emergency grants to performers of music by living composers impacted by COVID-19 cancellations Donate to the New Music Solidarity Fund now Apply to the New Music Solidarity Fund starting on March 31 Watch the announcement video More than 100 artists, arts leaders, and professors in the field have announced the New Music Solidarity Fund, an initiative that aims to grant emergency funding to musicians impacted by COVID-19. At the time of the announcement, more than $130,000 has been pledged. The fund will be administered through New Music USA, and all donations…

IRCAM Forum in Montreal: Music meeting science

By Arnaud G. Veydarier on 4 February 2020 Contemporary

Scientific research and musical creativity will be honored at the next IRCAM Forum Hors les murs, which will be held for the first time in its history in Canada in April. Researchers, composers, performers and music lovers are invited to a series of workshops and concerts that take place in Montreal around the themes of spatialization, orchestration and perception. The forum is organized in partnership with Le Vivier, CIRMMT, the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), McGill University and the Université de Montréal and will take place in various venues around the city. A veritable high mass of new music,…

Tim Brady, guitar

The NEM and Tim Brady: Silence Deployed on a Grand Scale

By Arnaud G. Veydarier on 4 February 2020 Contemporary

More than 100 musicians and singers will fill the Church of the Gesù on April 26 to perform the latest symphonic work of composer and guitarist Tim Brady. Soberly titled Silence, Symphony No. 10, this new opus adds to the imposing corpus of the Montreal composer whose career spans more than four decades. Cultivating an obvious taste for large-scale music, Brady will on this occasion be accompanied by the musicians of the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne and their leader Lorraine Vaillancourt, in addition to the members of his ensemble of electric guitars, Instruments of Happiness. To these musicians will also be…

Photo: Courtesy quatuormolinari.qc.ca

Quatuor Molinari celebrates good works of two special women

By Arthur Kaptainis on 1 February 2020 Chamber Music, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Strings

Never miss a Quatuor Molinari concert. It might end up being a Prix Opus-winning event. Actually, I had a few reasons turn up at the Conservatoire on the final evening of January. One was an opportunity to hear Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 4 – probably the first in Montreal since this enterprising ensemble played a Schoenberg cycle in 2012. One can understand why the Fourth is a less-than-frequent flyer on the standard chamber circuit. Made of 12 tones and multiple time signatures, it poses considerable technical and intellectual challenges, which the Molinaris managed adroitly in this taut reading. The rigour…

Photo: Erich Schlegel

Everest the Opera a Tough Climb in Austin

By Paul E. Robinson on 26 January 2020 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Opera

BY PAUL E. ROBINSON ON 26 JANUARY 2020 Austin, TX – Joby Talbot’s one-act opera Everest was composed in 2014, and is based on an ill-fated Mount Everest expedition in 1996 in which several climbers perished. The premiere was presented by Dallas Opera in a fully staged version. Three years later it was again performed in Dallas but this time in a semi-staged version with the orchestra on stage. It was this version that was offered last week by Austin Opera at the Long Center for the Performing Arts. Among the survivors from the 1996 expedition was the journalist Jon…

Photo: igloofest Facebook

Winter Festivals

By Andréanne Venne on 3 December 2019 Classical, Contemporary

Winter Classics Festival Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 The Orchestre symphonique de Laval is launching its Winter Classics Festival, a joyous occasion to listen to classical music in a festive setting with refreshments and activities for all. Because it coincides with the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven, the composer’s great classics, such as his Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, will be played in four concerts over three days. Alain Trudel conducts, with Charles Richard-Hamelin at the piano in the “Emperor” Concerto and a hundred-strong choir in Beethoven’s Ninth. Entertainment includes yoga, fireside stories and skating, while hot chocolate, beer…

Nicole Paiement. Photo: Opera Parallèle

Nicole Paiement: Conductor of Modern Opera

By Hassan Laghcha on 2 December 2019 Contemporary, Opera

Nicole Paiement is one conductor not lacking for work in the opera circuit. Fresh from a run of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, staged by the Lyric Opera of Chicago last month, she moves on to our city to collaborate with the Opéra de Montréal in its January production of Written on Skin by George Benjamin. Next up for her are performances of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella and Poulenc’s La Voix humaine with the Dallas Opera from April 3 to 8. With Opera Parallèle, her own company based in San Francisco, she will be at the podium for three consecutive performances in…

Photo: Francois Goupil

Orchestre Métropolitain Makes a Brilliant Debut in a Special Place

By Arthur Kaptainis on 23 November 2019 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Opera, Orchestral, Romantic

NEW YORK – It is possible to lose a sense of perspective after a good night of Bruckner. The critic in me urges caution. Best live Fourth Symphony I have heard in months! My heart suggests something a little less guarded. Best in…well, quite a while. Certainly the performance ranks among the signal achievements in the history of the Orchestre Métropolitain, which on Friday made its third stop on a four-city U.S. tour and, not incidentally, its debut at Carnegie Hall. You can imagine a new punch line to the old gag about how you get there: by having Yannick…

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