Browsing: Art Song

August 12 – 18, 2019 Temerty Theatre, Royal Conservatory’s TELUS Centre for Performance and Leadership For Immediate Release             July 30, 2019 Eight professional vocalists interpret the poems of Oleksandr Oles with art songs by four composers at the third annual Ukrainian Art Song Summer Institute Toronto, ON – The Ukrainian Art Song Project announced that the third annual Summer Institute will focus on the theme of Muse, with eight professional vocalists interpreting the poems of Oleksandr Oles, with art songs by Ukrainian composers: Myroslav Volynsky, Mykola Lysenko, Yakiv Steopovyi, and Marko Kropyvnytskyi. The Art Song Summer Institute opens on Monday,…

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From Berlioz to the Bee Gees: This is the guiding theme of the 2019 edition of Festival Classica. Set in Montérégie, specifically Saint-Lambert, it welcomed 65,000 festival-goers last year and hopes to reach similar heights with its ninth edition. “The idea to put together a festival came to me in 2008, while I was an invited soloist for the 25th anniversary of Versailles’s Centre de musique baroque,” recounts general and artistic director Marc Boucher. “In Versailles, there are several concert halls: the Trianon, the Opéra, the Queen’s Theatre, the Royal Chapel, etc. I saw people walk out of one concert,…

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We do this so you don’t have to. The flow of Christmas albums has slimmed in recent years but there is still a belief in the music industry that nothing sells at Christmas like an opera singer. Is that still true? I sampled Bryne Terfel’s DG Santa sock which includes duets with Katherine Jenkins and Emma Thompson. Need I say more? I dipped into Renée Fleming’s Broadway disc on Decca and quickly dipped out again. I attended with sadness to the great John Tomlinson’s Schubert Swansong on Signum. And then I heard Nadine Sierra’s debut album and all was light…

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REVIEW: of The Anchoress, a world premiere of a new musical monodrama/song cycle composed by David Serkin Ludwig with text by Katie Ford, performed by soprano Hyunah Yu, accompanied by saxophone quartet PRISM and ancient-instrument ensemble Piffaro; on Wednesday, October 17, at the Perelman Theatre of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, and on Thursday, October 18, at New York City’s DiMenna Center for Classical Music (the latter performance reviewed here); and INTERVIEWS: with composer David Ludwig and poet Katie Ford. The impulse to retreat from the world in search of spiritual insight or purity has manifested throughout human history. Twenty-one centuries of Christianity…

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Like father, like son. Both Christoph Prégardien, the father, and Julian Prégardien, his son, are noted for baroque and classical opera and oratorio as well as 19th-century Lieder. Both have made highly-regarded recordings of Bach. Julian, however, is taking a step farther than his father – and most singers this side of Barbara Hannigan – by conducting the St. John Passion while singing the role of the Evangelist on Nov. 22 for the Montreal Bach Festival at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul. (There will be a repeat performance on Nov. 25 at the Saint-Benoît-du-Lac Abbey in the…

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Second prize-winner in 2017 of the Recital Competition of French Art Song at the Classica Festival, soprano Magali Simard-Galdès this year won first prize for her performance of the art songs of Cécile Chaminade, accompanied by Michel-Alexandre Broekaert, who won the pianist’s prize. The Rimouski-born singer and champion of Chaminade is very proud of this feat, winning over the jury in the face of works by Debussy, Ravel, Fauré and Poulenc. Chaminade (1857-1944) was a concert pianist and prolific composer much loved in her time. Simard-Galdès likes her simple and limpid poetry, which lets the musical phrases speak for themselves.…

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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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PREVIEW: of a public workshop performance with orchestra of the new opera Taking Up Serpents – libretto by Jerre Dye, score by Kamala Sankaram; presented by MassOpera, Boston; Sunday, September 30, 2018 at 3 p.m.; Deane Hall at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts (527 Tremont Street, Boston); the opera is a commission of the Washington National Opera and this workshop is presented by MassOpera. In the final passages of St. Mark’s Gospel, Christ declares that a hallmark among his true believers shall be a willingness that “they shall take up serpents!” And in certain quarters…

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Editor’s Note: La Scena’s project Canada’s Next Great Art Song is in competition for a $100,000 grant from the Aviva Community Fund. Read below about the project and how to vote. Our September issue was a special edition on the Art Song. Read about it in PDF format or in HTML. Vote for your favourite art song of all time at www.nextgreatartsong.com Few things bring people together better than great music or a great song. At La Scena Musicale (LSM), Canada’s foremost classical music and jazz magazine, our mission is to highlight the richness and diversity of talent of Canada’s…

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It all started in 1985, during dinner. Ted Perry, founder of the British independent label Hyperion Records, asked the celebrated collaborative pianist Graham Johnson what he would most like to record. Johnson’s answer was simply, “All of Schubert’s Lieder.” Perry agreed immediately. Schubert set more than 700 texts, most as songs for solo voice, but also for vocal ensemble. Almost all are accompanied by piano. Ironically, it took 18 years for Schubert to compose his Lieder (1810-1828), the same time that it took Hyperion (1987-2005) to record and distribute 37 compact discs featuring more than 60 individual singers. Johnson was…

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