Vocal - my/maSCENA

Une attention mémorable – A memorable gift

By Viviane Reid on 8 February 2018 Classical Music, Newswire, Romantic, This Week in Montreal, Vocal

Nous sommes de retour cette année avec une nouvelle édition de levée de fonds des Valentins Chantants. Offrez un cadeau original à votre douce moitié par l’entremise d’une chanson d’amour performée au téléphone par un de nos 7 chanteurs participants. Pour le prix d’un bouquet de fleurs, un de nos artistes invités contactera votre proche et lui chantera la chanson sélectionnée au téléphone! Réservez votre Valentin Chantant dès maintenant! Trouvez toutes les informations ici: https://myscena.org/fr/valentins-chantants-2018/ We are back this year with our new edition of the Singing Valentines fundraising. Offer an original gift to your loved one through a love…

CD Review – Woefully Arrayed : Sacred & Secular Choral & Polychoral Works

By Arnaud G. Veydarier on 7 February 2018 CD and Book Reviews, Choral, Classical Music, Contemporary, Vocal

Woefully Arrayed : Sacred & Secular Choral & Polychoral Works Jonathan David Little, Navona Records NV6113 Woefully Arrayed by the Australian-born composer Jonathan David Little is dedicated to choral music. Recorded for the most part in churches in 2016, the six pieces have been performed by various ensembles, including Vox Futura, the Thomas Tallis Society Choir and The Stanbery Singers. As the title suggests, Little’s musical manner is in line with such Renaissance polyphonic composers as Palestrina and Josquin des Prés. However, Little does not just imitate the language of his predecessors. If he accepts the formal general characteristics, such as contrapuntal…

CD Review: CRAZY GIRL CRAZY

By Paul E. Robinson on 7 February 2018 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Contemporary, Opera, Vocal

CRAZY GIRL CRAZY Berio: Sequenza III. Berg: Lulu Suite. Gershwin: Girl Crazy Suite (arr. Bill Elliott & Barbara Hannigan). Barbara Hannigan, soprano and conductor. Ludwig Orchestra. Alpha Classics 293. Total Time: 57:23. At 47, the Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan has emerged as an international star, praised for her work in such operas as Berg’s Lulu, George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten, Louis Andriessen’s Writing to Vermeer and, notably, an excerpt from Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, which she both sang and conducted. Here she sings and conducts Berio, Berg and Gershwin. Arguably less about music than all…

Dr. Trevor W. Payne: Still a Choral Force

By Dwain Richardson on 5 February 2018 Arts Industry, Choral, Classical Music, Vocal

After 43 years at the helm, Dr. Trevor Payne has decided to put down the baton. His final appearance with the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir was on Dec. 7 in a concert with the Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil. He hasn’t left the choir for good, though: Payne will continue to serve as artistic director and producer. Here’s a look at his memorable moments, his musical background, and the motivation behind his conducting. Anyone who retires from a job after more than four decades would normally feel a sense of accomplishment, relief, and liberation. “Quite the contrary,” said Payne in a laid-back…

Opera Love Duets

By O.Delaire on 4 February 2018 Classical Music, Opera, Vocal

We are delighted with the success of our january survey of your favorite opera duets. Here are the three winners: Qual Occhio Al Mondo from Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca Without a doubt, our winner is one of the most popular duets in the opera repertoire. In this scene from Act 1, the painter Mario Cavaradossi finishes Mary Magdalene’s portrait when Angelotti, former consul of the Roman Republic and political prisoner, enters the church. Having just escaped from prison, he tries to hide in the family chapel. Cavaradossi promises to help him escape. Suddenly, the singer Floria Tosca, Cavaradossi’s lover and very jealous,…

Stella Musica Festival: Empowering Women

By Arnaud G. Veydarier on 4 February 2018 Canadian Music, Classical, Classical Music, Quebec Music, Vocal

Established in Montreal’s cultural landscape for three years, Stella Musica devotes its programing each year to women in classical music. Although more women are taking on roles traditionally reserved for men, female composers, conductors and performers still often remain in the shadow of their male peers. The pianist and artistic director Katarzyna Musial founded the festival to emphasize the work of female musicians and to encourage young women to pursue music. Thematic Concerts This fourth edition commemorates the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Armistice by presenting concerts revolving around the theme of psychological distress. Music will be explored for…

photo Bertrand Licart César Ochoa

Gino Quilico: New Roles and New Horizons

By Adrian Rodriguez on 4 February 2018 Classical Music, Opera, Vocal

After a 40-year career that has taken him to every major opera house in the world and placed him alongside the likes of Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti, Canadian baritone Gino Quilico is embarking on new challenges. “This year, I am celebrating my 41st year of career by singing Mephistopheles,” he declared with a hearty laugh. He initially resisted the invitation from pianist Dominic Boulianne, artistic director of the Société d’art lyrique du Royaume de Saguenay. The devilish emissary from Gounod’s Faust is, of course, a bass. Then Quilico looked at the score. Soon he realized that the role was…

Marie-Josée Lord photo: Laurence Labat

Marie-Josée Lord : A voice of her own

By Adrian Rodriguez on 4 February 2018 Canadian Music, Classical Music, Opera, Quebec Music, Vocal

Marie-Josée Lord is a soprano on the move. We caught her by phone while she was in Toronto for an intensive two-week workshop with the Volcano Theatre Company. Lord is participating in their reboot of Treemonisha, the opera written by Scott Joplin in 1910 and first performed in 1972. The company is replacing the libretto while keeping Joplin’s original characters. Meredith Potter, producer of the show, explains that the original manuscript with an orchestration was lost. Now a vocal/piano score is the only vestige. The new orchestration and arrangements by Jessie Montgomery and Jannina Norpoth are a fusion of classical…

Tenor Mark Padmore’s Winterreise Intensely Musical

By Norman Lebrecht on 2 February 2018 Art Song, Lebrecht Weekly

Schubert: Winterreise (Harmonia Mundi) Mark Padmore, tenor Kristian Bezuidenhout, piano At the 15th song of the Winter’s Journey, a piano melody that seems to come from the nursery turns into a bleak anticipation of death. ‘The crow has come with me…. Flying ceaselessly above my head.’ Anyone listening will know that Franz Schubert will be dead within a year. But Schubert does not know he is going to die. He is thirty years old and feeling a bit low from various ailments, but he has no idea that he is writing his own requiem. Our knowing against his unknowing heightens the…

JFK Opera: An American Opera

By Adrian Rodriguez on 29 January 2018 Opera, Vocal

Continuing their new tradition of presenting one modern work per season, this year Montreal Opera decided to opt for JFK by composer David Little and librettist Royce Vavreck. Alternating between the world of dreams and real life, the opera’s story is based on the final night of American president John F. Kennedy’s life spent at the Hotel Texas before he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The opera portrays a surreal decadent picture of the Kennedy couple and it satirizes every possible American and Russian stereotype. The show begins with huge bright neon, flashing lights that read: TEXAS. The use of…

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