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Nadine Sierra: American soprano is her best advocate

By Gianmarco Segato on 3 April 2022 Interviews, Opera

Opera singers who boast contracts with big-name recording labels are rare these days, but American soprano Nadine Sierra can count herself among that select few. Her newly-released album on Deutsche Grammophon is entitled Made for Opera. Eschewing the more usual calling-card list of standard lyric soprano arias, Sierra takes a more curated approach, focusing on three iconic heroines, all of whom she has sung multiple times on stage. Verdi’s Violetta in La traviata, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Gounod’s Juliette from Roméo et Juliette are presented in most of their major arias and scenes. The Italian selections are injected with…

Amelia Workman & Talene Monahon (photo by Valerie Terranova)

A New Comedy, Jane Anger, Features Revenge, Belly Laughs, and the Plague

By Charles Geyer on 16 March 2022 Classical Music, Interviews, Theatre

REVIEW: of a new comedy, Jane Anger, currently playing at the New Ohio Theater (New York) through March 26, 2022; and INTERVIEW: with the playwright, Talene Monahon. It’s London, 1606 – one of the 17th Century’s many recurring “plague years.” Infection is rampant; the populace is sheltering in place; businesses are shuttered; and – perhaps most disheartening – the theatres are dark! Sound familiar? In redress to this grim dispensation, playwright Talene Monahon has delivered a 95-minute comic whupping that is fierce, subversive and ultimately redemptive – holding the mirror up to cruel nature and laughing it to scorn. Home…

Jean Lesage: Modern-age composer-philosopher

By Justin Bernard on 9 March 2022 Baroque and Early, Contemporary, Interviews

The Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, as part of its series of portraits of composers, focused on Jean Lesage in a presentation scheduled for the Salle Pierre-Mercure last month (March 27). The composer’s world, at once musical and philosophical, is at the intersection of several arts, as he himself has claimed: “I believe a composer should be open to all the great trends which characterize an epoch’s culture. They need feelers to sense the signs of the time, the zeitgeist, whether it’s through philosophy, literature, painting or the visual arts.” Many stylistic influences Surrealism continues to feed Jean Lesage’s…

Amanda Keesmaat, violoncelle; Pierre-Alexandre Saint-Yves, flûtes, chalumeaux, cornemuse, voix; Patrick Graham, percussions; Seán Dagher, direction musicale, cistre, voix; Alex Kehler, violon, nyckelharpa.

La Nef: Styles and fields come together

By Justin Bernard on 12 January 2022 Baroque and Early, Contemporary, Folk, Interviews, Multimedia, World Music

La Nef is continuing its 30th anniversary celebrations under the general and artistic leadership of Claire Gignac. Though La Nef will present many concerts featuring various musical styles this season, it is currently being noted for its disc production at the start of a new year. On February 5, a concert will take the form of an album presentation, featuring Long Way Home by Andrew Wells-Oberegger, composer and multi-instrumentalist. Six musicians will join him at Montreal’s Maison de la culture Ahuntsic in the Concerts au bout du monde series. On March 10, another production will be led by Artistic Codirector…

Photo: Paul Laramée

François Dompierre: From Silver Screen to Concert Stage

By Justin Bernard on 12 November 2021 Film, Interviews, Movie soundtrack music

In Quebec, François Dompierre is like the kingpin of film composers, his stature akin to Denys Arcand in filmmaking – an analogy by no means spurious considering their repeated collaborations over the years. With some 60 scores written for TV and movie productions, Dompierre has worked with the best in the field. Filmmaker Jacques Godbout, for one, figures prominently throughout the composer’s career, starting with the 1966 flic YUL 871, followed by IXE-13 five years later, all the way to Le sort de l’Amérique in 1996. He went on to write music for Arcand’s most famous features, The Decline of…

Photo: Michel Pineault

La Nef: 30th anniversary

By Justin Bernard on 2 November 2021 Baroque and Early, Folk, Interviews

No fewer than three events are on the horizon between now and February. The musicians of La Nef will first present a concert on Nov. 11, another on Dec. 14 and, finally, a new album, which is due early in the new year. This is how the 30th-anniversary celebrations of this cultural organization unfold. In an interview, La Nef artistic director and co-founder Sylvain Bergeron shared some of his most vivid memories of the adventure: “Our first trips took us to Spain in the days of Jeanne la Folle, to the Cathars of southern France and even to the Middle…

Photo: Michel Dubreuil

Walter Boudreau: 33 years with the SMCQ

By Justin Bernard on 7 October 2021 Contemporary, Interviews, Orchestral

A major page is about to turn. The Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) in September announced the retirement of its artistic director Walter Boudreau. “The challenges ahead for the SMCQ, as well as for music and the arts in the post-pandemic world, will be unprecedented, demanding and exhilarating,” Anik Schooner, chairman of the board of the new-music society, said in a statement. “That’s why I think it’s the right time to pass the torch.” 33 Eager to ensure a smooth transition, this man with no inhibitions and a head brimming with ideas had already informed the board, near…

Photo: Pierre-Étienne Bergeron

Bourgie Hall: 10 years and counting

By Arthur Kaptainis on 10 September 2021 Chamber Music, Interviews, Piano

“I think 100 is a good number,” Isolde Lagacé said, referencing the tally of concerts presented by Bourgie Hall in 2021-2022, up from 53 in its inaugural season 10 years ago. “To have 100 concerts, in every style, and of good quality.” A good number? More like astonishing given the array of alternatives that exist in Montreal and the challenges still posed by the pandemic. Not many chamber rooms in Canada can claim such a sum, which rises to 141 when rentals are taken into account. Or perhaps the numbers are both surprising and predictable at once, given the steady…

Photo: Antoine Saito

Classics prevail in Payare’s first OSM season

By Arthur Kaptainis on 24 August 2021 Classical, Classical Music, Interviews, Orchestral

Rafael Payare will be in masterpiece mode for his inaugural season at the helm of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. The Venezuelan conductor’s indoor opening act on Sept. 14 comprises Shostakovich’s Fifth, arguably the most popular of all post-Mahlerian symphonies; Ravel’s La Valse, a venerable OSM showpiece; and Pierre Mercure’s Kaléidoscope, a Canadian favourite since its premiere by the OSM in 1948. The closing concerts in May and June feature Beethoven’s Ninth. “I would not say anything against this,” the 41-year-old said Monday when it was put to him that a playlist including Brahms, Bruckner, Debussy and Sibelius reflects a…

Catherine Major at the inauguration of the Maison de la culture Claude-Léveillé (2018)

Catherine Major: from chanson québécoise to opera arias

By Justin Bernard on 15 July 2021 Interviews, Opera, Popular Music, Quebec Music

Albertine, en cinq temps is getting a makeover. For the first time, this play by Michel Tremblay, premiered in 1984, will be adapted as an opera. A few arias have already been composed by singer-songwriter Catherine Major. These will be featured in a pair of concerts. For Nathalie Deschamps, the artistic director of Productions du 10 avril, the choice of Major was obvious. “Michel Tremblay’s words express the heart of who we are, in our Quebec roots,” Deschamps explains. “I wanted to find a woman who shares those roots, who composes music that can be hummed easily and that would…

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