Art Song - my/maSCENA

John Brancy – 2018 CMIM Aria Winner

By Adrian Rodriguez on 3 October 2018 Art Song, Music Competition, Vocal

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…

Faith and Folly — Taking Up Serpents, a New American Opera, Bows in Boston

By Charles Geyer on 26 September 2018 Art Song, Choral, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Indigenous, Interviews, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Musical Theatre, Opera, Theatre, Uncategorized, Vocal

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…

Canada’s Next Great Art Song Vies for $100k Aviva Community Fund

By La Scena Musicale Team on 26 September 2018 Art Song, Arts Industry, Music Competition

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…

Three Essential Lieder Recordings

By La Scena Musicale Team on 4 September 2018 Art Song, Vocal

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…

Schubert’s Winterreise: Reference Recordings

By Pierre Chénier on 4 September 2018 Art Song, Vocal

Composed in 1827 by Franz Schubert, Winterreise is a landmark in the annals of classical music. So much so that that this 24-song cycle for voice and piano based on poems by Wilhelm Müller has been recorded an estimated 200 times. The words convey the wanderings of a man befallen by an unrequited love. The cycle, however, deals less with the man’s states of mind than the images of loneliness conjured by the winter scenery, or the people that cross his path, like the hurdy-gurdy player, a fellow wanderer whose company he solicits. Winterreise is truly one of the great…

20th Century British Art Song: An Introduction

By La Scena Musicale Team on 4 September 2018 Art Song, Vocal

At the turn of the 20th century, the tradition of the drawing-room ballad still held sway. Songs of little literary value by Liza Lehmann, Maude Valerie White, Arthur Sullivan, Edward German and others were extremely popular. While Hubert Parry (especially his 12 sets of songs, comprising settings of Shakespeare and other important English poets, called English Lyrics), Charles Stanford and Arthur Somervell were trying to raise the standard of song-writing, their efforts paled when Edward Elgar presented his cycle Sea Pictures months before the new century. It was in many respects the beginning of the British art song renaissance. Though…

John Brancy and Peter Dugan: A Winning Pair

By Adrian Rodriguez on 4 September 2018 Art Song, Interviews, Opera, Vocal

Back in our April issue, Wah Keung Chan and I predicted that John Brancy would be one of the winners of the 2018 CMIM. I met the American baritone with pianist Peter Dugan two days before the Aria division finals. Brancy won First Prize in the Art Song division and the French Mélodie Award. Is vocal technique different for opera and art song? John: Absolutely. When I was singing mélodies at Bourgie Hall, I was able to play with the hall; it had the acoustics that allow the performer do that. I could go ‘off the voice’ and into pure…

Art song organizations

By La Scena Musicale Team on 4 September 2018 Art Song, Arts Industry

Canadian Art Song Project Canadian Art Song Project was founded in 2011 by tenor Lawrence Wiliford and pianist Steven Philcox. Its mission is to build on the rich legacy of Canadian song by engaging composers, authors and performers to share and celebrate their experiences through the creation of new music while providing opportunities for Canadian artists to champion the wealth of the existing song literature. In addition to presenting concerts, CASP has commissioned 13 Canadian works for voice and piano, released five commercial CDs and a podcast called Conversations with Canadian Art Song Project. During the 2018-19 season, CASP will celebrate…

Philippe Sly: a Wandering Journey

By Adrian Rodriguez on 31 August 2018 Art Song, Interviews, Opera

I first heard Philippe Sly at the 2012 Concours musical international de Montréal. He was only 23, but that didn’t prevent him from winning every prize: First overall, best Quebec artist, best Canadian, best interpretation of an imposed Canadian art song and the Radio-Canada People’s Choice Award. I met him more than six years later on a hot summer day at his place in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve quarter, which has also enjoyed a recent cultural awakening. Sly reminisces: “The first thing I remember about opera was actually going to an operetta when I was seven years old in Ottawa. I was…

Michael Hewitt as Lieutenant Horstmayer and Arnold Livingston Geis as Nikolaus Sprink in The Glimmerglass Festival's 2018 production of Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell's "Silent Night." Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

Through the Glimmerglass, 2018 – Reflections of a Turbulent Century

By Charles Geyer on 24 August 2018 Art Song, Choral, Classical, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Dance, Education, Folk, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Musical Theatre, Opera, Orchestral, Romantic

PROFILE/REVIEW: of the 2018 Glimmerglass Festival Season: Silent Night by Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell; West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim; Cunning Little Vixen by Leoš Janáček; and The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini and Cesare Sterbini. “It’s remarkable how many important things happened in 1918,” observes Glimmerglass Festival artistic and managing director Francesca Zambello, speaking at a recent pre-show audience address in Cooperstown. “The end of World War I. The birth of Leonard Bernstein. And the premiere of this piece” – this last a reference to Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, which was…

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