Browsing: Classical Music

Aged just 21, violinist Lynette Israilian won first prize in the Canimex Canadian Music Competition in June, giving her the privilege of playing with the Orchestre Métropolitain and guest conductor Nicolas Ellis. The young musician with the infectious smile and determined look plays a 2015 Jacques Martel instrument and is just starting the last year of a degree course at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal with her teacher for the last seven years, Johanne Arel. “My aim is to become a soloist, so I can decide what I want to play,” she says. Nonetheless, she likes chamber music, with…

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Opera Canada says of mezzo-soprano Simona Genga after winning the Canadian Opera Company’s 2017 Centre Stage Gala and Ensemble Studio Competition that she was reminiscent of a young Stephanie Blythe with “a vocal plushness, amplitude and range mature beyond her years.” “I was first introduced to music when I was still a baby,” Genga says. “… [My mother] used to play Baby Mozart CDs for me which I also loved listening to when I was a kid! “I grew up loving to entertain people, whether by making up stories, plays, songs or poems. After being encouraged to try various activities…

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Born in Shanghai and now a resident of Vancouver, Wang was introduced to classical music in China, starting piano lessons at age 4. He quickly developed an interest in the music of the Renaissance and the Baroque, which remains a reference to this day, although he also is particularly fond of Mahler. Attracted by Spanish music and captivated by the expressive possibilities of the instrument, Wang exchanged the piano for the guitar at age 11. This change coincided with the creation of his first works, strongly inspired by the artistic approach of the composers of the Second Viennese School. Wang…

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With numerous first prizes in national and international classical guitar competitions to his credit, Brent Crawford has been gaining recognition as a leader among guitarists of his generation. However, nothing predisposed young Crawford to the career of a performer. He started the guitar at age 8, influenced above all by his love of rock and rap of the 1990s. It was necessary to wait until his twenties for the piano music of Bach and Tchaikovsky to awaken a passion for the classical genre. The most recent win on his record is of the Montreal International Classical Guitar Festival and Competition,…

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Canadians might know American Baritone John Brancy as winner of the 2018 Concours musical international de Montréal (CMIM) and third prize in 2012. However, as pretentious as it might sound, winning the prestigious competition twice was probably another day in the office for him. During the last four years alone, the lyrical baritone has won many internationally renowned competitions: he obtained first prize in the 2018 Lotte Lenya Competition in New York; second prize at the 2017 Wigmore Hall Competition in London; and the media prize in the 2017 Belvedere International Singing Competition in Moscow; and first prize in the 2015 Jensen Foundation Vocal Competition. in 2015. After watching him perform…

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Dominique Beauséjour-Ostiguy is a cellist, composer and multi-instrumentalist who combines passion and creativity in a many-layered career on the Quebec artistic scene. In June his performance of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, with accompanist Michel-Alexandre Broekaert, won him the Prix d’Europe. Following a Bachelor’s at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal under Carole Sirois, the native of Laval has just completed a Master’s at Université de Montréal under Yégor Dyachkov. “I’d like to go and do further training in Europe next year, keeping one foot in Quebec, where I am part of various ensembles,” he says. As a performer, he’d like to…

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Johannes Brahms was in a foul mood one evening while dining at the house of the pianist Ignaz Brüll, a popular host in Vienna in the 1880s. “Don’t you think it strange,” he blurted out, “that a Jew should set a text of Martin Luther’s to music?” Everyone present was meant to hear him, including the Jew in question, Brahms’s long-suffering friend and colleague, Karl (or Carl) Goldmark. While this was far from the first social occasion that Brahms spoiled with an insensitive remark, the composer’s biographer Jan Swafford deems it to be “the only time on record when Brahms…

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Born in Roncole, Italy, on Oct. 9 or 10, 1813, Verdi was named in French, Joseph François Fortunin. At that time, that part of Italy was still under French dominion. He was the son of Carlo and Luigia Verdi. Verdi’s parents owned a tavern close to Busetto in the Parma region of northern Italy. His parents were middle-class, educated Catholics. His father even bought a spinet piano for his young son, which indicates both that they were people of means and that they supported Verdi’s talent from a young age. Verdi received his main musical education as a child from the…

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Chansons d’amour d’Acadie et de France – Chœur Louisbourg, dir. Monique Richard ; Skye Consort This album offers a happy musical reflection of publications of recent decades. The Acadian folk songs are from compilations published in 1988 and 1996. Musical style range from the languor of Écrivez-moi to the light touch of Moine Simon. The Louisbourg Choir, directed by Monique Richard, lends rich tone and consistency to these songs, whose harmonies have been carefully chosen to give them a traditional sound, complemented by the instruments of the Skye Consort: recorder, chalumeau, rauschpfeife, cittern, violin, nyckelharpa and cello. Jacotin Le Bel’s songs complement a…

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Apogee is a five-piece album by Iranian-Canadian composer Farshid Samandari. From Bashō haikus to Rumi’s mystical poetry, from Japanese Noh theater to particle physics, the composer draws on a wide variety of disciplines to take us on a colourful journey. Witness the magnificent cover, a painting by the Iranian calligrapher Mehrdad Shoghi. Based in Vancouver, Samandari is composer-in-residence of the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra. A mix of cultures marks his work, which he defines as “unity in diversity.” Apogee for solo flute creates a contrast by borrowing from classic Persian scales and modes and a resolutely contemporary discourse in which Mark…

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