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Photo: Met Opera

Newswire | Ten singers advance to the final round of the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition

By Newswire on 20 April 2023 Classical Music, Music Competition, Newswire, Opera, Vocal

New York, NY (April 19, 2023)—Following this week’s semifinal competition, ten singers have advanced to the final round of the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. The finalists will compete on the Met stage on Sunday, April 23, at 3PM ET, hosted by Latonia Moore, the 2000 Grand Finals–winning soprano and star of the Met’s new production of Terence Blanchard’s Champion. Chosen by a panel of opera administrators from the Met and other companies, each finalist will perform two arias accompanied by the Met Orchestra, conducted by Michele Gamba. The winners will receive individual cash prizes of $20,000,…

Photo: Jiyang Chen

Newswire | Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green wins Met’s 2023 Beverly Sills Artist Award

By Newswire on 19 April 2023 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Newswire, Opera

New York, NY (April 19, 2023) —The Metropolitan Opera has named bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green the winner of the 2023 Beverly Sills Artist Award, the second time that Green has received this honor. Previously, Green shared the award with four other artists in 2021, the season that had been canceled due to the pandemic. The annual $50,000 award recognizes extraordinarily gifted singers with rising Met careers. Established in 2006 by an endowment gift from the late Agnes Varis, a former Met Board member, the award is given in honor of legendary American soprano Beverly Sills. Most recently at the Met,…

Photos: COC

Newswire | Association for Opera in Canada Announces Finalists for New Works Pitch Program

By Newswire on 14 April 2023 Classical Music, Newswire, Opera, Vocal

Toronto, ON – The Association for Opera in Canada (AOC) is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2023 edition of its New Canadian Works Pitch Program, which is funded by the Azrieli Foundation. This program provides an opportunity for artists, creators, and producers to discuss their works with potential producers, co-producers, co-commissioners and presenters. The finalists were selected by a jury based on artistic merit, sectoral impact, project viability, and market viability/program fit. The finalists are as follows: Likht Ensemble, Toronto: “Jewish Space Lasers,” a one-hour cabaret style theatrical piece exploring the experience of Jewish artists in classical music.…

Review | Met Live in HD: Verdi Falstaff Staging a Travesty

By Paul E. Robinson on 7 April 2023 Concert Reviews, Opera

Verdi’s opera Falstaff is an amazing achievement for a man nearly 80 years old. It is also remarkable for being Verdi’s first comic opera, and for being like Otello, the opera which preceded it, a through-composed opera lacking set piece arias and ensembles. Even in his 70s, and the most celebrated opera composer of his time, Verdi was experimenting with new ways to write an opera. Unfortunately, modern producers and directors can’t leave well enough alone and let a Verdi masterpiece speak for itself in all its magic and beauty. Gripes In this case, producer Robert Carsen has decided that…

Photo: Taylor Long

Review | Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s B Minor Mass a Fine Performance of a Great Work

By Joseph So on 29 March 2023 Choral, Concert Reviews, Toronto, Vocal

Soloists: Jacob Abrahamse, Neil Aronoff, Julia Barber, Lesley Emma Bouza, Rebecca Claborn, Simon Honeyman, Kieran Kane, Rebecca McKay, Nicholas Nicolaidis, and Sinéad White; Toronto Mendelssohn Choir; Baroque Orchestra, Jean-Sébastien Vallée, conductor. Koerner Hall, March 28, 2023. With Easter just around the corner, we are at the height of the oratorio season. Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s offering this year was Bach’s great B Minor Mass. It was a large and enthusiastic audience gathered last evening at Koerner Hall, where they were treated to a superlative performance from the 100+ voices and baroque orchestra, under the assured and knowing baton of its Maestro,…

CD Review | Durme, Durme: Four Ladino Folk Songs (Leaf music, 2023)

By Zenith Wolfe on 29 March 2023 Art Song, Canadian Music, CD and Book Reviews, Piano

Durme, Durme: Four Ladino Folk Songs Maureen Batt, soprano; Tara Scott, piano Leaf Music, 2023 With only four short compositions inspired by prayers, poems, and lullabies, composer Elisha Denburg doesn’t have much room to establish the themes of the Judeo-Spanish folk songs. Luckily, he uses time to its fullest, enlisting soprano Maureen Batt and pianist Tara Scott to convey a wide range of raw emotions by reducing vocals and piano to their bare essentials. Batt demonstrates extreme flexibility through her limited performances, switching from solemn to jolly to confident without a second thought. She accommodates this wide range of feelings…

CD Review | Legacy (Naïve Classiques, 2023)

By Zenith Wolfe on 29 March 2023 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Classical, Strings, Vocal

Legacy Christian-Pierre La Marca, cello; Adrien La Marca, viola; Julien Chauvin, violin; Philippe Jaroussky, countertenor; Le Concert de La Loge Naïve Classiques, 2023 The musicians’ bold and confident performances on this album exude an unforgettable joie de vivre. Legacy features incredible cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca alongside Le Concert de La Loge. The compositions are centred around the cello and the evolution of string performances from the 18th century onward, and La Marca’s careful ordering of works tells this story well. It starts and ends on Haydn, with Mozart in between, in a recognition of their incredible contributions to the genre.…

Newswire | Toronto Mendelssohn Choir Announces 2023/2024 Season

By Newswire on 29 March 2023 Choral, Newswire, Romantic

Toronto, March 29th, 2023 – The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir is delighted to announce their 2023/2024 season under the artistic direction of Jean-Sébastien Vallée. Highlights of the upcoming season include two major choral masterworks: Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, which features the TMChoir with a full orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall, and Verdi’s haunting Requiem at both Koerner Hall and George Weston Recital Hall. In addition to these major performances, the TMChoir also returns with their annual holiday celebration, the Festival of Carols, at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. This season will also feature two performances with the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, the TMChoir’s …

CD Review | Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs (Deutsche Grammophon, 2023)

By Pietro Freiburger on 27 March 2023 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary, Piano

Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs Hélène Grimaud, piano; Konstantin Krimmel, baritone Deutsche Grammophon, 2023 This new CD from Deutsche Grammophon features the Five Songs and some of the Eleven Songs by Valentin Silvestrov, one of Ukraine’s leading composers. Initially an exponent of the so-called Kiev Avant-Garde, which developed around the 1960s, Silvestrov has known greater success in the style he himself refers to as “meta-music”—metaphorical music. In Silvestrov’s writing, a touching lyricism of Mahlerian inspiration and contemporary colours coexist: the language of this style is universal and precisely meant as an instrument from which the listener can give his own meaning…

Sharon Azrieli: Tribute to Michel Legrand

By Charles Geyer on 26 March 2023 Orchestral, Popular Music, Vocal

Versatile musical prodigy Sharon Azrieli has enjoyed a distinguished and far-flung career as an operatic soprano, Broadway and pop song stylist, and even synagogue cantor (Montreal’s first woman in such a role). Now, Azrieli has made what she calls “a deep dive” into the copious oeuvre of the late, legendary film and jazz composer Michel Legrand with her album Secret Places – a Tribute to Michel Legrand. The collection features 14 lavishly orchestrated and lovingly delivered performances of songs by the prolific French composer—some well-known, some cannily culled from obscurity by Azrieli’s determined research efforts—comprising a panoptic view of the…

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