Interviews - my/maSCENA

Browsing: Interviews

Nicole Lizée, Photo: Marc Bourgeois

Interview: Nicole Lizée Redux

By Kiersten van Vliet on 2 March 2017 Contemporary, Interviews

Back in January, I interviewed Montréal-based composer Nicole Lizée for the cover of the February/March issue of La Scena Musicale. We had a long and involved conversation, covering many topics that simply could not make the print article due to space constraints. In light of the evening of her music last night with Standing Wave at the SMCQ’s Montréal/New Musics festival (which runs until March 4), I thought it would be interesting for my own sake to return to our original interview. But that’s when I realized that there’s a lot more in there that could be relevant to those…

ETHEL, Photo: Erin Patrice O'Brien

ETHEL – Walking Tightropes, Bringing Healing, Keeping It Human, Staying Young!

By Charles Geyer on 27 February 2017 Chamber Music, Interviews, Strings

PROFILE: of celebrated contemporary classical music group ETHEL; and INTERVIEW: with Dorothy Lawson and Ralph Farris (of ETHEL) and composer Robert Mirabal. “We originally thought of calling ourselves ‘Hazardous Material,’” recollects violist Ralph Farris, one of the core four Juilliard-trained string players who formed the group in 1998. “But then we said, ‘Hey, wait! We’re not dangerous!’” What they are is ETHEL – a remarkable, and protean, music-making group. They inspire enthusiastic description, but defy easy definition – or, at least, any attempted definition will have a short shelf-life: what ETHEL was yesterday isn’t what ETHEL will be tomorrow, given…

Ted Sperling, Photo: Laura Marie Duncan

Maestro Ted Sperling’s Polite Passions – from Broadway to Bach

By Charles Geyer on 7 February 2017 Baroque and Early, Choral, Interviews, Musical Theatre

PROFILE: Interview with Ted Sperling, artistic director of MasterVoices (formerly the Collegiate Chorale); PREVIEW: MasterVoices’ new presentation of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion – Carnegie Hall, February 9, 2017. He’s soft-spoken, genial, elegantly self-possessed. It’s difficult to imagine him indulging in tirades, or hurling withering invective. He’s a nice guy. He’s also brilliant, prodigiously talented, professionally indefatigable, and apparently liked by everyone. Ted Sperling is, in short, a bit of a blessed paradox: probably the most mannerly guest at any dinner party, he is also one of today’s most accomplished, versatile – and, yes, passionate – practitioners of a craft…

Nicole Lizée, Photo: Marc Bourgeois

Nicole Lizée: Techno-Hauntologist

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 February 2017 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Interviews

“What happens when you find a ghost and you bring it into a work of music?” asks Nicole Lizée. Insofar as that question is answerable, her compositions that form a dialogue with the surrealist film worlds of David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, and Alfred Hitchcock or compositions that meld outmoded and glitching gadgets with western chamber instruments unveil the eerie temporal rift between present and past as humans interact with media and technology. Sound Sources Born in small-town Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan in 1973, Lizée’s experiments in sound led her to pursue piano at Brandon University, Manitoba followed by a MA in composition…

Julien Bilodeau: Talking About Another Brick in the Wall

By Caroline Rodgers on 1 February 2017 Contemporary, Interviews, Opera, Quebec Music

Opéra de Montréal’s production of Another Brick in the Wall, inspired by Pink Floyd’s cult album, must be one of the most eagerly anticipated arts event of the year. Composer Julien Bilodeau was given the enormous task of turning the work by Roger Waters into an opera. He spoke to us about the process. After graduating from the Montreal’s Conservatoire de musique, Bilodeau completed further studies in Paris and Frankfurt, and in 2006 received the Robert Flemming prize from the Canada Council for the Arts for most promising composer. Since then he has composed works commissioned by the Montreal Symphony…

Eric Owens as Jaufré Rudel in Kaija Saariaho's L'Amour de Loin. Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Best of mySCENA: Amin Maalouf on his collaboration with Kaija Saariaho

By Charles Geyer on 1 February 2017 Contemporary, Interviews, Literature, Opera

The opera L’Amour de loin – or Love from Afar – premiered to conspicuous plaudits in Salzburg in 2000, and has enjoyed numerous productions around the globe. It also signaled the beginning of a remarkably fertile, ongoing collaboration between composer Kaija Saariaho and then first-time librettist Amin Maalouf. Maalouf has since partnered with Saariaho on three more musico-dramatic works, all of them sharing certain distinctive features: strong female characters, epitomizing a generative, rancorless strain of feminism; an elusive, gossamer air of mysticism; a usually gentle, ultimately affirmative perception of the workings of providence; and a subtle yet dogged curiosity about the paradox of simultaneous…

Discovering the treasure of the viola: Pièces de concours by Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot

By An-Laurence Higgins on 1 February 2017 Education, Interviews, Strings

As soon as I entered her office, I felt the passion that drives Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot as she spoke about her instrument. She explained to me that “among the strings, the viola’s register is the closest to the human voice. Every string of the viola has its own tone.” An accomplished Viennese-born violist, Puchhammer-Sédillot is professor of viola in the Faculty of Music at the University of Montreal and is as passionate about the repertoire as she is about teaching the instrument. She regularly attends viola conferences around the world, where she shares her discoveries and reflections with other internationally-acclaimed violists.…

Alexandre Da Costa Takes on Opera

By Ian Cochrane on 1 February 2017 Interviews, Opera, Orchestral, Violin

Canadian violin virtuoso Alexandre Da Costa is on a mission – to bring classical music to the public. His latest project Stradivarius à l’Opéra consists of twelve gems from the operatic repertoire, reworked for solo violin and orchestra. He selected the works that he felt suited his large, lush tone, found the arrangements and then made a recording, now out on CD. Da Costa said that the project has two principal objectives: to appeal to opera lovers with a different approach to classics, and to reach out to those not familiar with the beauty of opera by providing an easily…

Armin Kolarczyk (Wagnerdämon), Photo: Falk von Traubenberg

In Wahnfried, It Ain’t Over ‘til Wagner’s Son-in-Law Sings!

By Charles Geyer on 25 January 2017 Contemporary, Interviews, Opera, Romantic

PROFILE AND INTERVIEW: An advance discussion with Avner Dorman about his new opera: Wahnfried “When I started working on this project,” recalls Avner Dorman, “there were people who said it could be controversial.” Those people were probably right, but it doesn’t faze Dorman in the least. “From my point of view,” the celebrated American-Israeli composer replies, “I think that’s a good thing for an opera.” Dorman, best known to date for his “intricate craftsmanship and rigorous technique” in a dazzling array of orchestral, chamber, dance and vocal works, is about to have his first opera, Wahnfried, premiered at the Badisches…

anatomy theater, Photo: James Daniel

They Sing the Body Dissected: anatomy theater

By Charles Geyer on 10 January 2017 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Interviews, Opera

OPERA REVIEW: anatomy theater, a new opera by David Lang and Mark Dion, part of the 2017 Prototype Festival, New York City (New York premiere, viewed January 7, 2017). INTERVIEW: Composer David Lang. She’s been hanged for murder – but men still can’t keep their hands off her. Signs posted at the entrance to Brooklyn’s BRIC Arts | Media House for performances of anatomy theater warn of “simulated hanging” and “nudity” featured in the show. And, yep, both appraisals prove quite true (with nothing “simulated” about the latter, by the way). But no tipoff can adequately prepare one for the…

Previous 1 … 12 13 14 15 16 … 19 Next

Current Issue

PDF HTML

Next Issue : February/March

Ad Deadline : January 24, 2025

Past Issues, Subscriptions, Advertising