Interviews - my/maSCENA

Cameron Carpenter: L’enfant terrible

By Caroline Rodgers on 1 February 2016 Classical Music, Interviews

“I am a radical free thinker, an atheist, a sex-positive person and I am against all forms of religion.” It is with these unequivocal terms that American organist Cameron Carpenter, guest performer at the Montréal Chamber Music Festival in March, opens our interview. It is soon apparent that his eccentricity, his punky hair and rocker clothes are more than a façade; they are the reflection of his original and unique personality. He is known in the organ world for his iconoclastic approach to the instrument and for his trend-bucking ideas. Carpenter’s originality begins with his instrument: the International Touring Organ,…

collectif9: On the Edge

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 February 2016 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Interviews, Quebec Music, Strings

Known for pushing the boundaries in their music, Montréal-based classical string band collectif9 is forging into uncharted territory with the release of their debut album (see review here), featuring the world premiere recording of Volksmobiles by Canadian composer Geof Holbrook. Formed in 2011 by Thibault Bertin-Maghit, collectif9 is a group of nine classically trained string players who aren’t shy about shaking things up. The members, who met at McGill University and the Université de Montréal, are violinists Yubin Kim, Frédéric Moisan, Grégor Monlun, and Roland Arnassalon; violists Scott Chancey and Xavier Lepage-Brault; cellists Andrea Stewart and Jérémie Cloutier; and bassist…

Amateur passion

By Julie Vovan on 1 February 2016 Interviews, Opera, Orchestral

Author : (Julie Vovan)

The lights come up, and you’re on stage at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica. Every seat is filled: 2700 people. Nervousness increases if your orchestra is called I Medici di McGill. You may tell yourself, as an amateur, “Well, let’s be professional.” But the question is, what is expected of amateur ensembles? “I don’t like the word ‘amateur’,” says Maestro Gilles Auger, I Medici di McGill’s conductor. “I prefer to say non-professional.” And indeed, almost half of I Medici’s members study or work in health sciences, far from the music jungle. Amateur ensembles are common: in Montreal, some amateur choirs allow people…

Pierre Boulez : 1925-2016

By La Scena Musicale Team on 1 February 2016 Contemporary, Interviews

Cliquer ici pour télécharger notre page de coloriage de Pierre Boulez / Click here to download our Pierre Boulez colouring page Pierre Boulez was a brilliant, courageous and imposing visionary who changed how we think, hear and evaluate music performance. As a composer and performer, his influence and memory will outlast his own era, joining those other immortal greats of Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Mahler, Bernstein, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach… to name a few. To me personally, Pierre Boulez was a great mentor, introduced to me by my teacher, Olivier Messiaen. For a time I was lucky enough to study conducting with both…

Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass

By Caroline Rodgers on 1 February 2016 Choral, Interviews

On March 29, Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct the Glagolitic Mass by Leoš Janáček for the first time with the Orchestre Métropolitain. Very rarely played in Montréal, this impressive work will be part of the conductor’s Slavic Masterpieces concert. For the occasion, he stopped by La Scena Musicale for an interview. “I’ve never conducted the Glagolitic Mass,” Nézet-Séguin tells us. “I’m very much looking forward to doing so for the first time with my Montréal choir and orchestra. It’s going to be a great event in our musical season. I’ve long dreamed of conducting this piece.” The even is great not…

Piano Caméléons: Keys for Two

By Marc Chénard on 1 February 2016 Interviews, Mainstream Jazz, Scena Jazz

Author : (Marc Chénard)

Left to right: Matt Herskowitz, Oliver Esmonde-White, and John Roney. Photo Lorraine Desjardins The Piano Caméléons project first came together in 2013. Its instigator, Oliver Esmonde-White (see sidebar) recalls, “I invited five pianists to play in duo combinations over five nights at the House of Jazz on Aylmer Street: Oliver Jones, Lorraine Desmarais, Marianne Trudel, John Roney, and Matt Herskowitz. I’ve known Matt for about 20 years, shortly after he arrived in town. He came one evening to my old studio for a musical evening I’d put together. I was taken by him as a virtuoso classical pianist, but…

Alix Sobler

Anne Frank lives in New York

By Robert Kilborn on 1 December 2015 Interviews, Theatre

The Secret Annex, a play by New York-Winnipeg writer and performer Alix Sobler, asks: “What if Anne Frank had survived and lived in Brooklyn?” As Hitler looted and murdered his way through Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, and North Africa; as the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Sobibor, and Bergen-Belsen gassed and incinerated millions of Jews, Gypsies, communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and the disabled; and as the Nazis starved, tortured, and slaughtered the people of the Netherlands, an intelligent, sensitive, and talented Dutch Jewish girl wrote down her thoughts in a red-checkered autograph book she had received as a…

A Tale from Vienna: The Bösendorfer Story

By Marc Chénard on 1 November 2015 Interviews, Piano

“Sometimes pianists try to sound like singers. Me personally, I try to sound like a Bösendorfer.” – Placido Domingo Bösendorfer’s famous 97-key Imperial model Bösendorfer. The name itself stands for something grandiose, majestic, even noble. At times, some have even said that there are pianos and then there are Bösendorfers. Its fame is in no small part due to its Imperial model, complete with nine extra keys in the lower register and covering eight complete octaves. Referred to as the most expensive piano in the world, retailing over 200 grand, if you have to ask, this instrument is…

Gunther Schuller: A “Renaissance” Musician Tells All!

By Paul E. Robinson on 25 November 2012 Interviews, Orchestral

by Paul E. RobinsonGunther Schuller: a Life in Pursuit of Music and BeautyUniversity of Rochester Press: Rochester, 2011664 pagesIn the fall of 1959, I made my third visit to New York City. I was an ambitious young bass player making a pilgrimage to the ‘Big Apple’ to play for one of the most respected of bass teachers anywhere at that time, Frederick Zimmermann of the New York Philharmonic. Fred and I got on very well and, in time, became the best of friends. I remember vividly that when I saw him in 1959, Fred was consumed with excitement about a new…

MISQA: Spells Tradition

By La Scena Musicale Team on 15 August 2012 Chamber Music, Interviews, Strings

By John DelvaIn its third year, the Montreal International String Quartet Academy (MISQA) unites some of the foremost young string quartets from around the world to hone their skills through the guidance of experienced chamber musicians and concert performances. For its director, André J. Roy, the oral tradition—the sharing of knowledge between teacher and student—is one of the academy’s main focuses. This is not surprising seeing how many who have met the viola teacher highlight his affability. With prestigious faculty that includes Gerard Schultz and Günter Pichler of the Alban Berg Quartet, Michael Tree of the Guarneri Quartet, Paul Katz…

Browsing: Interviews