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Photo: Georges Dutil

Quasar: The Spark of Creativity

By Marie-Claire Fafard-Blais on 3 October 2019 Chamber Music, Contemporary

Much acclaimed on the international contemporary music scene, the Quasar saxophone quartet is celebrating its milestone 25th anniversary this year. From its first concert in 1994 till now, all four members have never wavered in their commitment to the group and its dedication towards all things creative. For its current concert season, the group intends to focus more on the future than the past, with a view of renewing itself. Marie-Chantal Leclair, Quasar’s managing director and soprano player, recalls the foursome’s first outing: “We premiered four pieces that evening, and it was more than a wish for us to do…

Alexander Vinogradov, OSM, Choeur OSM. Photo : Antoine Saito

Nagano and the OSM get to the heart of Shostakovich

By Arthur Kaptainis on 18 September 2019 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Orchestral

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 “Babi Yar” is a brave choice for an OSM season opener. Cast in five movements, it runs the gamut from sorrowful to scornful, confines itself vocally to males and makes many of its musical points at a sustained fortissimo. The Yevgeny Yevtushenko text refers to a Nazi massacre. The hourlong-plus experience can be onerous for a gala crowd, unless the performance is as inspired as it was under Kent Nagano Tuesday night in the Maison symphonique. It is hard to describe in words the mix of horror, irony and humanity that the composer calibrates so exactly…

Katia Mkdissi-Warren. Photo: Jerôme-Bertrand.

SMCQ, série hommage – Katia Makdissi-Warren: The Composer as Sound Director

By Marc Chénard on 5 September 2019 Classical Music, Contemporary, Strings

Without them, movies would never be made and plays would never be seen. While they work in different media, film and stage directors must coax actors by all means available to lift scripts off the page, and, if need be, let them ad-lib lines. Having worked extensively in both areas, Montreal composer Katia Makdissi-Warren likes to call herself a “sound director.” “I identify very much with their approach,” she says, “because there is more to directing than just telling the performers how to play the music. I want them to determine some of the content as well. The difference, of…

WHITNEY ROBINSON, ALEX SOARE and KEELY FUTTERER as The Marquise, Sulpice and Marie; photo: Gary David Gold

Opera Saratoga 2019 – Tales of Girls Interrupted

By Charles Geyer on 7 July 2019 Chamber Music, Classical, Classical Music, Contemporary, Musical Theatre, Opera, Orchestral, Romantic, Theatre, Vocal

REVIEW: of Ellen West (the world premiere of a new work by Ricky Ian Gordon and Frank Bidart); and La fille du régiment (a new production of Donizetti’s 1840 comic opera). Opera Saratoga inaugurated its summer 2019 mainstage series on June 29 and 30 – the same weekend as the highly-touted “WorldPride 50” celebration. The latter event, of course, originated as homage to the purported founding moment of the modern gay rights movement; but it has by now pullulated far beyond its initial meaning, becoming a portmanteau affirmation of self-identities of all stripes. It is interesting, then, that – whether…

Ballet Opéra Pantomine (BOP)La Caisse Desjardins de la CulturePhoto : Alex Paillon

Ballet Opéra Pantomime (BOP) Wins the Prix de la relève – Caisse Desjardins de la Culture 2019

By Newswire on 7 June 2019 Classical Music, Contemporary, Newswire

Ballet Opéra Pantomime (BOP) has won the Prix de la relève – Caisse Desjardins de la Culture 2019 along with the award’s $5,000 purse. The award recognizes the work of young collectives or professional organizations that take transformative action to support emerging artists. Ballet Opéra Pantomime Founded in 2013 by Hubert Tanguay-Labrosse and Alexis Raynault, Ballet Opéra Pantomime (BOP) seeks to create multidisciplinary shows centred on works of classical and contemporary music and presented in settings that are rich in emotional resonance for spectators. The jury members selected Ballet Opéra Pantomime for its innovative and singular contribution to the vibrancy…

Musique actuelle: Book Review

By Marc Chénard on 28 May 2019 CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary, Experimental Jazz

A keen observer of the new music scene in Montreal, Réjean Beaucage has taken to the task of demystifying that slightly strange bird known as musique actuelle. His book on this subject, released last February, is but a logical extension of his first one of eight years ago that recounted the history of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec. In close to 200 pages, he embraces a good half a century of musical activity, its alpha point in 1961 with the Semaine de musique actuelle and further manifestations such as the FIMAV, founded in 1983 and still around to this…

The 35th FIMAV, a major artistic success

By Newswire on 22 May 2019 Contemporary

Victoriaville, 22 May 2019 – Now that the 35th edition of the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV) is over, the team and board of Productions Plateforme announce very positive results for every programming component: concerts, sound art installations in public spaces, visual arts and experimental short film screenings. Sound art installations in public spaces: Year 10 under the sign of maturity The circuit of sound art installations in public spaces, a free-to-visit project that was in its 10th edition this year, has obviously reached a notorious maturity. It has grown from a dozen guided tours for school groups…

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: Courtoisie de l'artiste

Concerts à venir

By La Scena Musicale Team on 12 February 2019 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary

L’OSL honore un champion lavallois L’Orchestre symphonique de Laval rendra hommage au grand athlète Bruny Surin, champion olympique en 1996 aux Jeux d’Atlanta dans le relais 4 x 100 mètres. Ce dernier a été nommé grand Lavallois de la saison 2018-2019 de l’OSL. Pianiste amateur, il s’est donné le défi de jouer en solo, avec les musiciens de l’orchestre, un arrangement de Für Elise de Beethoven. Au programme également, la Symphonie no 2 de Tchaïkovski. Le 13 février 2019, 19 h 30, à la salle André-Matthieu de la Maison des arts de Laval. www.osl.qc.ca JB Pentaèdre et Flûte Alors! réunis Le 15 février sera…

Review – Cassandra Miller by Bozzini Quartet

By Benjamin Goron on 11 February 2019 CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary

This release brings together works written between 2008 and 2015 by London-based Canadian Cassandra Miller. The Bozzini Quartet, who gave most of the premieres, is perhaps best placed to open the door to this delicate world. Four works reveal the manner of the composer, who, like the writer drawing inspiration from newspaper clippings, is on the lookout for the ambient musical material as the basis of her composition. Thus, Warblework starts with bird songs to offer us a world of changing textures with a treatment of silence and just intervals of remarkable efficiency. About Bach, which won the Jules Léger…

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