Browsing: Classical Music

It’s raining Rachmaninov concertos and I’m not sure the roof can take any more. The past couple of weeks have brought Vanessa Benelli Mosell on Decca, Marc-André Hamelin on Hyperion and now the exuberant Khatia Buniatishvili on Sony. Benelli and Hamelin both play with London orchestras, neither sounding on peak form. Khatia is seriously challenged by the Czech Philharmonic, who are in terrific shape under Paavo Järvi’s baton. Benelli’s pairing for the C minor concerto is the Corelli Variations, which she does rather well. Hamelin matches the D minor concerto with Nikolai Medtner’s long-neglected second concerto, a curiosity that falls…

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The Kurt Weill Foundation is pleased to announce the fourteen young singer/actors named as finalists for the 20th annual Lotte Lenya Competition: Curtis Bannister (31, Green Bay, WI) Gan-ya Ben-gur Akselrod (29, Tel Aviv, ISR) Felipe Bombonato (28, Gainesville, FL) Molly Dunn (28, South Orange, NJ) Jasmine Habersham (27, Macon, GA) Michael Hewitt (26, Denver, CO) Philip Kalmanovitch (32, Ottawa, ON) Marie Oppert (19, Paris, FR) Tony Potts (24, Fargo, ND) Taylor Raven (25, Fayetteville, NC) Katherine Riddle (25, Annapolis, MD) Lisa Rogali (22, Bergenfield, NJ) Bradley Smoak (32, Cary, NC) Paulina Villareal (27, Torreón, MX) The contestants represent a…

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Montreal, April 4, 2017 – Applications for the next Voice edition of the CMIM (Concours musical international de Montréal) taking place May 27 to June 7, 2018 are now open. Singers around the world born on January 1, 1983 or later are invited to apply by December 15, 2017. The online application form, as well the rules and conditions for participation and the required repertoire are all available on CMIM’s official website at concoursmontreal.ca/voice. Transportation and accommodations are offered to the candidates who are selected, in accordance with the terms of the Competition. Starting in 2018, the vocal competition features…

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MAHLER, BEETHOVEN, MOZART AND VERDI HIGHLIGHT THE OSM SEASON WITH SUBLIME WORKS Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand” opens the season on a grand scale A finale with the complete Beethoven symphonies Mozart tints the season in a series of concerts featuring bold combinations Four sacred works: Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s C Minor Mass, Saint-Saëns’s Christmas Oratorio and Bach’s Magnificat The premiere of Matthew Ricketts’s Blood Line will celebrate 150 years of Confederation Nordic Festival from Mathieu to Sibelius: with Alain Lefèvre and Samian Science and fiction: a week in images and music when the OSM meets E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Express concerts:…

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Samy Moussa, a young Montreal composer, will see his work premiered on the occasion of the 375th anniversary of the city of Montreal by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. At 32 years old, Moussa has just won the 2017 Hindemith Prize, given to a contemporary composer and accompanied by an award of 20,000 euros. This is not the composer’s first collaboration with the OSM, since the soberly-titled Symphonie is his fifth orchestral commission. It is, however, his longest and most ambitious work. In a brief interview, Moussa spoke to us about the circumstances of the creation of the work and…

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Louis Riel is one of the most important Canadian operas ever written. It was inspired by the life of controversial Métis hero Louis Riel (1844-1885) and events surrounding Canadian Confederation in 1867 that became defining ­moments in the country’s history. With a libretto by Canadian playwright Mavor Moore in collaboration with Jacques Languirand and music by Harry Somers, Louis Riel was premiered in Toronto by the Canadian Opera Company for Canada’s centennial celebrations and performed soon after at Montreal’s Expo ’67. Louis Riel is being programmed this year by the COC as a co-production with the ­National Arts Centre to…

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This February 7, 2017, it was a celebration of the excellence of performance and artistic creation and the Conseil Québécois de la Musique, under the presidency of Robert Leroux, thanked the artists who contributed. Collectif9, with their youth and dynamism, were entrusted with the opening performance by the CQM. This great ensemble demonstrated that classical music demands a lot of effort. Their interpretation of Brahms required an exceptional form and a collective discipline. And for 2016, young performers were not shy to take their place in the spotlight. Beth McKenna received the prize for the Concert of the Year – Jazz and World Music for Home Montreal. Ballet-Opéra-Pantomime, a young company, has been…

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When retired Concordia music professor Phil Cohen was hospitalized in early February, his piano students didn’t want to miss their lesson, so they joined him at the Richardson Hospital where he was recovering. For a brief moment the common room was transformed into a ­concert hall with a master class in progress. As patients watched TV while others listened, the old beat-up piano-in-residence, freshly tuned for the occasion, filled the space with the music of Granados, Albeniz, and Prokofiev. This is a significant year for Cohen, who turned 90 in February. It is his 50th year since joining Concordia, where…

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Many years ago, Ft. Worth, Texas was perhaps best known for its stockyards. Ranchers would organize massive cattle drives to bring their herds to its railhead and slaughterhouses. It was a “cowtown” with all the unsavoury services that went with that connotation, including gambling, drinking, prostitution, and all-out hell-raising. Bits of the stockyards are still there, now a tourist attraction rather than a collection of foul-smelling pens and meat-packing factories. Over the past 20 years, Ft. Worth has ­undergone a major transformation. Its ­population today approaches a million ­residents and it boasts such major businesses as Lockheed Martin, one of…

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La Scena Musicale will present key moments from celebrations that take place as part of Canada’s 150th and Montreal’s 375th anniversaries. It will illustrate the rich diversity of artistic and cultural expression, as well as the creative energy that goes into all the hard work in different fields across the country through various Montreal, Quebecois, and Canadian art scenes. Alain Trudel: Birth made especially for Canada’s 150th The Ottawa Symphony Orchestra presents conductor Alain Trudel’s latest work, Birth: Sesquie for Canada’s 150th (April 3, Southam Hall at the NAC). This piece, which commemorates Canadians of all cultures and origins, was…

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