Vocal - my/maSCENA

La Scena Tête-à-tête Interview: John Brancy

By Adrian Rodriguez on 26 November 2022 Interviews, Opera

In this Tête à tête segment, Don Adriano interviews American baritone John Brancy for La Scena Musicale during his performance in Montreal with Opera de Montreal’s La Beauté du Monde! On YouTube: Interview with John Brancy: About John Brancy Grammy Award-winning baritone John Brancy is known for his intense musicality and communicative power. Hailed by the New York Times as “a vibrant, resonant presence,” Mr. Brancy is equally at home in staged opera, concert performance, and recital, with a wide-ranging repertoire that includes classical, contemporary world premieres, and musical theater. www.johnbrancy.com MORE Opera de Montreal’s La Beauté du Monde concludes…

Job Posting: Director of the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal

By Newswire on 26 November 2022 Employment, Opera

TITLE : Director of the Atelier lyrique LOCATION : Montreal, Quebec DATE LIMITE : 9 janvier 2023 The Company A leading artist residency for Canadian opera singers and pianist opera coaches, the Atelier lyrique is a collaborative professional development springboard at the heart of the Opéra de Montréal. The Atelier lyrique’s mandate is to provide professional internships for emerging Canadian opera artists, combining training and stage experience, with the aim of ensuring a future for the opera world. Unique in Québec, the Atelier lyrique is the only program in Canada to train its artists in both French and English, a…

Gilbert Patenaude (1947 – 2022)

By La Scena Musicale Team on 14 November 2022 Choral, Classical Music, Daily News Roundup, La Scena Online

Laval, November 14, 2022 – The wife and children of Gilbert Patenaude regret to announce his death on November 13, 2022 at the Cité de la santé de Laval. Born in Montreal in the Rosemont district, he grew up in Outremont where he learned music as a soprano with the Clerics of Saint-Viateur, then piano and organ at the Vincent-d’Indy School. He then pursued most of his musical training at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec in Montreal. On the recommendation of Raymond Daveluy, he became the first lay musical director of the Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, a position that…

Photo: Caroline Barbier de Reulle

Review | New Perspectives Through Familiar Sounds: Echo Chamber Ensemble Presents A World Transformed

By Eva Stone-Barney on 7 November 2022 Art Song, Dance, Opera

On October 28 and 29, Toronto audiences had the privilege of seeing performances of Echo Chamber Ensemble’s latest work, “A World Transformed.” The piece is a seamless combination of dance, piano repertoire, spoken narration, and classical vocal music, assembled to tell the story of the murder of Matthew Shepard, who was killed for his sexuality when he was a university student in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. Programmed by tenor Marcel d’Entremont, and choreographed by William Yong and Laurence Lemieux, A World Transformed featured dancers Evan Webb, Zachary Cardwell, Brayden Cairns, and Johanna Bergfelt; violinist Aaron Schwebel; pianists Dakota Scott-Digout and…

0139 - First Prize winner Karoline Podolak performing at Centre Stage: Ensemble Studio Competition, 2022. Conductor Jacques Lacombe, assistant lighting designer Sarah Mansikka. Photo: Michael Cooper

Review | Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio Competition Showcases Bright Young Talents

By Denise Lai on 5 November 2022 Concert Reviews, Opera

After a two-year hiatus, COC’s Ensemble Studio Competition made a comeback last night. The competition is the feature event of the COC gala fundraiser Centre Stage, an annual celebration of Canada’s best young opera artists. From a pool of over 100 applicants from across the country, seven finalists—three sopranos, two tenors, one baritone and one bass– were chosen to perform in front of a live audience, accompanied by the full force of the COC orchestra. The competition jury comprised COC General Director Perryn Leech and Director of Artistic Planning Roberto Mauro; renowned Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka; and mezzo J’Nai Bridges,…

Francis Choinière: Thinking Big

By Justin Bernard on 4 November 2022 Orchestral, Vocal

Francis Choinière has an appetite for great musical projects. When we interviewed Choinière in early October, he was in Toronto assisting Maestro Jacques Lacombe for a number of weeks, conducting rehearsals for Georges Bizet’s Carmen, the second production of the Canadian Opera Company (COC) season. “I already had familiarity with Carmen,” he said. “When I was a child, I sang excerpts from Carmen in school. When I became a conductor many years later, I had the opportunity to conduct choirs and get more familiar with Carmen. This is the first time I have worked on such an ambitious production in…

Bach and Labadie: A Love Story

By Marie-Claire Fafard-Blais on 4 November 2022 Choral, Classical Music, Orchestral, Vocal

The Chapelle de Québec and Les Violons du Roy, under the direction of Bernard Labadie, will present the concert Bach, que ma joie demeure (may my joy remain) this December in Quebec City and Montreal. The program, consisting of Bach’s cantatas Ich glaube, lieber Herr (BWV 109), Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 140) and Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (BWV 147), was conceived by the maestro who is particularly fond of this repertoire.”Bach is the composer who compelled me to become a musician; he is the one to blame,” he confides with a smile. “And his…

Christina Haldane and Carl Philippe Gionet – Journey to the Acadian Heartland

By Marie-Claire Fafard-Blais on 4 November 2022 Interviews, Vocal

Soprano Christina Haldane and pianist Carl Philippe Gionet, both with roots in Caraquet, N.B., have known each other for a long time. The former, of shared Acadian descent on her mother’s side and British on her father’s, earned most of her operatic experience in the U.K., where she spent most of her life. Then she moved back to Eastern Canada with teaching in mind and has been a staff instructor at Mount Allison University in Sackville since 2019. Gionet, for his part, is a multi-disciplinary artist who netted both his master’s and doctorate degrees at the Université de Montréal before…

PHOTO: CLAUDE CHARLEBOIS

Giorgia Fumanti: Crossover Soprano

By Dino Spaziani on 4 November 2022 Vocal

by Mélissa Brien and Dino Spaziani We hear of those super-women who sail through life, juggling family and work with ease. Well, the Italian-Canadian soprano Giorgia Fumanti is proof that such women really do exist. This mother to four children and star of crossover classical music has chosen Canada as her home. MUSICAL INITIATION Music was always a part of Fumanti’s childhood in Italy, but she only began singing seriously at 16, when she joined a choir and found she had a natural aptitude. “I sincerely believe that music saved my life from the start. I was born in Tuscany…

JEANICK FOURNIER ON THE STAGE OF CANADA’S GOT TALENT

Jeanick Founier: A Tour de Force

By Denise Lai on 4 November 2022 Vocal

Life has taken a dramatic turn for Quebec native Jeanick Fournier—one she sometimes can’t quite believe herself. Her love of music is finally paying off, all thanks to a chance she almost didn’t take. Growing up near Lac St-Jean, music has always been a part of Fournier’s life. As a child, she sang in church. She admires Céline Dion, another Quebecer from humble beginnings to rise to musical fame, and she learned English by listening to favourite singers such as Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Pat Benatar, emulating their breathing, pronunciation and speech patterns. Surprisingly, she has never had any…

Browsing: Vocal