Vocal - my/maSCENA

Matthew Aucoin (photo: Steven Laxton)

Matthew Aucoin Wins 2018 MacArthur Fellowship

By Newswire on 5 October 2018 Music Competition, Newswire, Vocal

It was announced today that Matthew Aucoin – “one of the most sought-after young voices in classical music” (Wall Street Journal) – has been named a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. Selected for his extraordinary originality and dedication in his creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction, the composer, conductor, writer, and pianist is one of 25 recipients of this year’s “genius grant.” On learning of the award, Aucoin commented: “When I look at past MacArthur fellows, I’m struck not just by their brilliance but, in so many cases, by their humaneness and wisdom. Claudia Rankine, Peter Sellars, Claire Chase –…

New Jewish Music. Analekta Works by Current, Marhulets, Foss

By Benjamin Goron on 5 October 2018 CD and Book Reviews, Choral, Contemporary, Folk, Orchestral, Vocal

Three composers are involved in this first co-production between Analekta and the Azrieli Music Prizes: Brian Current and Wlad Marhulets, winners of the 2016 Azrieli Commissioning Competition and Azrieli Prize in Jewish Music, respectively, and the American Lukas Foss. The Czech National Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Steven Mercurio, the choir by Miriam Nmcová. Soloists are soprano Sharon Azrieli, clarinetist David Krakauer and tenor Richard Troxell. In The Seven Heavenly Halls, Current offers his musical vision of the Zohar, the fundamental text of the Kabbalah. Tension in the orchestra, a tumult of voices, mystical flights of fancy and dense textures…

Opéra de Montréal: Building a Community of Opera Lovers

By Pierre Vachon on 4 October 2018 Education, Opera

The Opéra de Montréal has been reaching out to a broader audience over the last few years by staging activities for diehard fans and newcomers alike. The purpose, of course, is to get people better acquainted with this “total” art form, as Wagner once called it, and thus build a wider community of devotees. Among the activities and community initiatives devised by the company to develop awareness are Parlons opéra, préOpera, presentations in schools for the blind and hearing-impaired, and initiatives designed to promote mental health. The good news is that things are working out. Just last year, 14,494 youths…

Majestueux Mozart: Orchestre du Nouveau Monde takes on the Requiem

By Marie-Claire Fafard-Blais on 4 October 2018 Choral

True to tradition and confident of success, the Orchestre philharmonique du Nouveau Monde will perform Mozart’s Requiem twice on Nov. 10 under the baton of its own Michel Brousseau. Presented by Mundia Productions, the concerts in Notre Dame Basilica bring together five musical organizations: the Orchestre philharmonique du Nouveau Monde, its choir, the Chanteurs de Sainte-Thérèse, le Chœur Tremblant and the Ottawa Classical Choir. Brousseau has a passion for the Requiem, having conducted it many times. Mozart died while working on it, aged 35. As Brousseau explains, “It’s an unfinished work and we still don’t know for sure what was…

Photo : Brent Calis

Magali Simard-Galdès – 2018 Récital-concours of Festival Classica Winner

By Benjamin Goron on 3 October 2018 Art Song, Music Competition, Vocal

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.…

Photo : Loud Photography

Simona Genga – 2018 Canadian Opera Company’s Centre Stage and Ensemble Studio Competition Winner

By Gregory Finney on 3 October 2018 Music Competition, Opera, Vocal

Opera Canada says of mezzo-soprano Simona Genga after winning the Canadian Opera Company’s 2017 Centre Stage Gala and Ensemble Studio Competition that she was reminiscent of a young Stephanie Blythe with “a vocal plushness, amplitude and range mature beyond her years.” “I was first introduced to music when I was still a baby,” Genga says. “… [My mother] used to play Baby Mozart CDs for me which I also loved listening to when I was a kid! “I grew up loving to entertain people, whether by making up stories, plays, songs or poems. After being encouraged to try various activities…

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…

Karl Goldmark’s Die Königin Von Saba: An Opera Worth Reviving, with or without a Jewish Soul

By Arthur Kaptainis on 3 October 2018 Opera, Romantic

Johannes Brahms was in a foul mood one evening while dining at the house of the pianist Ignaz Brüll, a popular host in Vienna in the 1880s. “Don’t you think it strange,” he blurted out, “that a Jew should set a text of Martin Luther’s to music?” Everyone present was meant to hear him, including the Jew in question, Brahms’s long-suffering friend and colleague, Karl (or Carl) Goldmark. While this was far from the first social occasion that Brahms spoiled with an insensitive remark, the composer’s biographer Jan Swafford deems it to be “the only time on record when Brahms…

Young Verdi & Ladino Music: A Possible Connection

By Sharon Azrieli on 3 October 2018 Folk, Opera

Born in Roncole, Italy, on Oct. 9 or 10, 1813, Verdi was named in French, Joseph François Fortunin. At that time, that part of Italy was still under French dominion. He was the son of Carlo and Luigia Verdi. Verdi’s parents owned a tavern close to Busetto in the Parma region of northern Italy. His parents were middle-class, educated Catholics. His father even bought a spinet piano for his young son, which indicates both that they were people of means and that they supported Verdi’s talent from a young age. Verdi received his main musical education as a child from the…

Chansons d’amour d’Acadie et de France – Atma Classique, 2018

By Benjamin Goron on 2 October 2018 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Choral

Chansons d’amour d’Acadie et de France – Chœur Louisbourg, dir. Monique Richard ; Skye Consort This album offers a happy musical reflection of publications of recent decades. The Acadian folk songs are from compilations published in 1988 and 1996. Musical style range from the languor of Écrivez-moi to the light touch of Moine Simon. The Louisbourg Choir, directed by Monique Richard, lends rich tone and consistency to these songs, whose harmonies have been carefully chosen to give them a traditional sound, complemented by the instruments of the Skye Consort: recorder, chalumeau, rauschpfeife, cittern, violin, nyckelharpa and cello. Jacotin Le Bel’s songs complement a…

Browsing: Vocal