Art Song - my/maSCENA

Asitha Tennekoon. Photo: Simon Karmal

Review | Asitha Tennekoon Interrogates the Immigrant Experience at WMCT

By John Gilks on 9 May 2025 Art Song, Concert Reviews, Piano, Strings, Toronto, Vocal

Tenor Asitha Tennekoon’s May 8th recital at the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto explored the idea of Belonging. The first set, Vaughan Williams’ setting of six poems from Housman’s On Wenlock Edge explored a geographically settled but psychologically unsettled sense of self. The accompaniment of piano quintet (Steven Philcox, piano; Yolanda Bruno and Aysel Taghi-Zada, violins; Laurence Schaufele, viola and Amahl Arulanandam, cello) provided lots of colour for these sometimes lyrical, sometimes dramatic, but always death-obsessed poems. Tennekoon sang them with perfect diction and great expressiveness, navigating the tricky dialogue in “Is my team ploughing?” very effectively. Ian Cusson’s Where…

Midori Marsh. Photo: Sam Gaetz.

Review | Midori Marsh Travels Through Generations of Sisterhood

By John Gilks on 4 April 2025 Art Song, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Opera, Piano, Toronto, Vocal

The Women’s Musical Club of Toronto’s Music in the Afternoon series continued at Walter Hall on April 3rd with a song recital by soprano Midori Marsh and pianist Frances Armstrong. The theme was “sisters,” with each set designed to explore a particular aspect of sisterhood. The first set dealt with religious sisterhood. It began with the duet, Bone Jesu, fons amoris, by the Benedictine nun Chiara Margarita Cozzollani for which Midori was joined by mezzo-soprano Alex Hetherington. It’s a very lovely piece which sounds more polyphonic than two voices should. The blend was excellent too, with just the right difference…

Thomas Hampson. Photo: Chris Singer

Thomas Hampson: A Song of Freedom

By Justin Bernard on 31 March 2025 Art Song, Interviews, Opera, Quebec City

Thomas Hampson needs no introduction. At nearly 70 years old, the American lyric baritone continues to travel the world, not only as a singer and recitalist, but also as a singing teacher. He studied with teachers who themselves had learned from the great masters. Today, he passes on his passion for vocal arts to young artists, notably at the Lied Academy in Heidelberg. On April 26, he will present a recital at the Club musical de Québec and, a few days before that, will sing Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte at the Maison symphonique. La Scena Musicale spoke to…

Shira Gilbert. Photo: Tam Photography

CMIM: Big Changes for 2025 Vocal Edition

By Gianmarco Segato on 31 March 2025 Art Song, Interviews, Montreal, Music Competition, Opera, Vocal

The 24th edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal (CMIM) will once again be dedicated to voice. For its 2025 iteration, 348 singers—including 74 Canadians—applied from 43 countries. A preliminary jury has already winnowed the number down to 24 competitors, ages 25 to 32, who will gather in Montreal from May 25-June 6 to compete for prizes valued at $160,000. In terms of its place within the firmament of international voice competitions, Artistic Director Shira Gilbert points to CMIM’s position near the top “both in terms of prize money which includes our career development grant, which is significant, the…

CMIM 2025: Our Predictions

By La Scena Musicale Team on 31 March 2025 Art Song, Classical Music, Montreal, Music Competition, Opera, Vocal

Each year, La Scena Musicale assembles an informal jury that listens, grades and evaluates the 24 participants of the Concours musical international de Montreal (CMIM). For this year’s Voice edition, a team consisting of La Scena’s voice specialists Adrian Rodriguez, Justin Bernard, Wah Keung Chan and Gianmarco Segato have drawn their top predictions for the competition winners. Jingjing Xu, mezzo-soprano, China Aria 1st: Adrian, Gianmarco Song 1st: Adrian, Gianmarco, Justin, Wah Keung AR: Jingjing Xu possesses what can only be described as flawless bel canto technique—her voice is consistently focused, her coloratura is impeccable, she can sing forte and (AR…

Benjamin Appl and Eric Lu. Photo 1: David Ruano

Review | Benjamin Appl & Eric Lu’s Schwanengesang at Bourgie Hall

By Amanda Wong on 17 February 2025 Art Song, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Piano, Vocal

A German-born baritone like Benjamin Appl is certainly no stranger to Schubert’s work. I can only assume that the Austrian composer’s impressive list of over 600 songs offer much to Appl’s repertoire, who himself is largely a Lieder singer. Accompanied by American pianist Eric Lu, Appl presented Schubert’s Schwanengesang—his ‘swan songs’—as well as Beethoven’s song collection, An die ferne Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved), at Montreal’s Bourgie Hall on Feb. 13. What you missed Though one’s swan song is typically a final piece or performance before retirement or death, Schubert’s Schwanengesang is a collection of Lieder compiled and shared by…

CD Review | Rachel Fenlon, Winterreise

By Gianmarco Segato on 8 November 2024 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Vocal

Schubert: Winterreise Rachel Fenlon, soprano & piano Orchid Classics, 2024 Franz Schubert’s devastatingly confessional song cycle, Winterreise (1828) charts the journey of a spurned narrator through 24 songs set to poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is a pinnacle of Romanticism and foundational to the German Lied (Song) tradition. Although more associated with male singers, it was recorded by German mezzo-soprano Elena Gerhardt as early as 1928 and, in more recent times, by mezzos Christa Ludwig, Brigitte Fassbaender and contralto Nathalie Stutzmann. What makes Canadian soprano Rachel Fenlon’s new traversal unique is that she acts as her own accompanist, the first…

Olivier Godin. Photo : Tam Photography

Bourgie Hall: Complete Schubert Lieder

By Justin Bernard on 8 October 2024 Art Song, Montreal

Excellence, beauty and discovery. These are the keywords used by Bourgie Hall to present its new concert season. If there’s one event that brings them all together, it’s the launch of their traversal of the complete catalogue of Schubert’s Lieder. Bourgie Hall’s presentation of the complete cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach had only scarcely been completed when artistic director Olivier Godin was already thinking of another project on a similarly grand scale. There are no fewer than 600 songs born of Schubert’s genius. “It’s a very rich body of works,” he says, “and yet the public hears perhaps 20 per…

CD Review | Benjamin Bernheim, Douce France, DG

By Gianmarco Segato on 4 September 2024 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Vocal

Douce France: Mélodies & Chansons Benjamin Bernheim, tenor; Carrie-Ann Matheson, piano Deutsche Grammophon, 2024 For his debut album of French mélodies and chansons, French-Swiss tenor Benjamin Bernheim and Canadian pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson have not shied away from some of the most performed, most recorded songs in the repertoire. Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, three of Duparc’s glorious mélodies and even Chausson’s cycle, Poème de l’amour et de la mer are certainly not lacking in exposure. But as Bernheim notes in the program book, the Berlioz and Chausson sets have historically been the domain of high-voiced female singers, the Duparc often taken…

CD Review | Erin Morley, Rose in Bloom, Orchid Classics, 2024

By Gianmarco Segato on 31 May 2024 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Vocal

Rose in Bloom Erin Morley, soprano; Gerald Martin Moore, piano Orchid Classics, 2024 One of today’s most in-demand lyric coloratura sopranos, Erin Morley sings roles like Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Cunegonde in Candide and Gilda in Rigoletto at The Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera. Rose in Bloom is her debut recital disc alongside pianist Gerald Martin Moore. It centres on floral themes in songs dating from the early 19th century to the current day. Morley’s consummate mastery of high, florid music ensures there are inevitably several songs representing composers’ penchant to equate piping coloratura with…

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