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Stephen Hough: Dream Album (Hyperion)

By Norman Lebrecht on 26 May 2018 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly, Piano

In the hands of anyone other than Stephen Hough, this album would be either a horrible indulgence or a public act of psychoanalysis. Hough is far too fastidious a pianist to be suspected of such temptations. What we have here are morsels by composers great and (mostly) small, work the evoke a trance-like state between sleep and wakefulness. I’m not sure about Hough’s opening setting of Strauss’s overworked Radetsky March, but thereafter he hardly puts a finger wrong. Das alte Lied by Henry Love will blow you away; Love was the pseudonym of Hilde Loewe, a Viennese refugee in London.…

Kent Nagano presented with the Meritorious Service Medal

By Newswire on 25 May 2018 Arts Industry, Newswire, Orchestral

OTTAWA, May 24, 2018 /CNW/ – Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada, presented a Meritorious Service Medal to Maestro Kent Nagano, conductor and music director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, during a ceremony in Montréal, Quebec, on May 24, 2018. Included below is the recipient’s citation as well as background information on the Meritorious Service Decorations. Kent Nagano, M.S.M. As the music director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM), Kent Nagano rejuvenated the OSM, increasing its profile worldwide and instilling a sense of pride into the City of Montréal. He has toured with…

Managing Director William Norris to Step Down

By Newswire on 25 May 2018 Arts Industry, Baroque and Early, Newswire

Toronto, May 23, 2018 … Tafelmusik Board Chair Helen Polatajko announced today that William Norris has resigned from his position as Managing Director, his last day being July 4, 2018. Mr. Norris will be relocating to London. Ms. Polatajko also stated that Tafelmusik will immediately form a search committee and engage a search consultant to begin the process of appointing Tafelmusik’s next Managing Director. “Over the past three years, William Norris has skillfully steered Tafelmusik through a period of profound change for the organization. During his tenure Elisa Citterio was appointed Music Director, and Tafelmusik has continued to build its stature as a global leader in…

Sondra Radvanovsky photo: Andrew Eccles

ShowOne Presents Sondra Radvanovsky in Recital – Nov 24 at Koerner Hall in Toronto

By Newswire on 25 May 2018 Opera

From Bel Canto to Verismo A Rare Intimate Evening with One of the Great Voices of Our Time “Radvanovsky at the peak of her powers is something extraordinary to behold.” – The Toronto Star For Immediate Release, May 23, 2018 … Deemed “an essential artist” by The New York Times, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky continues to astound audiences around the world with her magnificent portrayals of opera’s great dramatic heroines. Toronto audiences have the rare opportunity to experience Radvanovsky’s artistry in the intimacy of a recital setting, on Saturday, November 24 at 8pm at Koerner Hall, with pianist Anthony Manoli, presented by ShowOne Productions. The all-Italian program, From Bel Canto to Verismo, will touch upon Radvanovsky’s history-making…

Tenor Ismael Jordi Highlights OdM’s Romeo et Juliette

By Adrian Rodriguez on 20 May 2018 Concert Reviews, Opera, Romantic

Last night, Opéra de Montréal presented Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, the last opera of their 2017-18 season to a full house. A production with beautiful set designs by Claude Girard, the production bets on the quality and appeal of young Canadian singers; Andalucían tenor making his company debut was the only foreign singer. Almost all the supporting roles where performed by the members of the company’s training program. What you missed All the singers did an agreeable job, including the chorus. However, Jordi was the true revelation of the show. He exhibited a charming light lyric tenor voice and…

J S Bach: Goldberg Variations/Sonatas and Partitas (Delphian/Navona)

By Norman Lebrecht on 18 May 2018 Baroque and Early, Lebrecht Weekly

In times of stress I reach for Bach in the raw, one instrument, one pair of hands. I’m choosy who I listen to when the nerves are frayed. The immortal interpretations – Gould in the Goldbergs, Milstein in the Sonatas and Partitas – are too profound, too perfect, to afford prompt and gentle relief. Two new releases are just what the soul doctor ordered. Peter Hill is an English pianist, a Messaien expert who studied with Nadia Boulander and taught at the University of Sheffield. I have come across him on record and radio, never in the concert hall. His…

Queen Elisabeth Competition, the winner of the voice edition 2018 is Samuel Hasselhorn

By Newswire on 14 May 2018 Contemporary, Newswire

Samuel Hasselhorn has won the 2018 voice competition! The International Queen Elisabeth Grand Prize – Queen Mathilde Prize receives 25,000€ and numerous concerts in Belgium and abroad. The prizewinners First Prize : Samuel Hasselhorn (27, baritone) Germany Second Prize : Eva Zaïcik (30, mezzo-soprano) France Third Prize : Ao Li (30, basso) China Fourth Prize : Rocío Pérez (27, soprano) Spain Fifth Prize : Héloïse Mas (30, mezzo-soprano) France Sixth Prize : Marianne Croux (27, soprano) Belgium – France The six unranked laureates, in alphabetical order : Germán Enrique Alcántara (30, baritone) Argentina Alex DeSocio (30, baritone) USA Yuriy Hadzetskyy (26, baritone) Ukraine Sooyeon Lee (29, soprano) Korea …

Federico Colli Plays Scarlatti with Rare Conviction

By Norman Lebrecht on 11 May 2018 Baroque and Early, Lebrecht Weekly, Piano

Domenico Scarlatti: Sonatas, volume 1 (Chandos) It feels dangerously transgressive, and thus all the more enjoyable, to listen to Scarlatti’s keyboard pieces on a full-throated Steinway D piano set up in an English country barn. Why musicians submit so readily to the tyranny of political correctness – composers to the imposition of serialism, performers to the doctrines of period practice – is a mystery to me. So to find a young pianist at the start of his path who is prepared to defy the professorial rule makers and play a Bach contemporary on a modern big banger of a concert…

Unveiling of the 2018 CIOC Festival Program October 7 to 30, 2018 in Montréal

By Newswire on 10 May 2018 Newswire, Piano

Montréal, May 9, 2018 – The Canadian International Organ Competition (CIOC) presents the program of its annual Festival, from October 7 to 30, 2018, with a flurry of activities involving the king of instruments, around the theme “History and Modernity.” “The organ is one of the oldest instruments with more than 2,000 years of history, but it is also an instrument of the future,” states Jean-Willy Kunz, Artistic Director of the CIOC. Some 15 events will make up the CIOC program, including a musical for fans of history, music, and photography (Organ Trip, October 20, 10 am), a concert featuring…

NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic and Kaljuste’s Arvo Pärt Symphonies Labours of Love

By Norman Lebrecht on 4 May 2018 Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral

Arvo Pärt: The Symphonies (ECM New Series) Worth buying for the booklet alone. A symphonic cycle from most composers marks a stately progress from imitative beginnings to a predictive summit. Think Brahms with all that Beethoven clutter in the first symphony and those weighty Mahler anticipations in the fourth. Well, Arvo Pärt is not quite like that. His first two symphonies, written in the mid-1960s, are set in Schoenbergian twelve-tone with a polyphonic overlay, an intentional affront to Soviet rule in Estonia. The third, dated 1971, marks his conversion to Russian Orthodoxy with voices from heaven, Bach chorales and other…

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