Danish String Quartet
+ The Heckeler’s Andrew Burn takes on Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum & Jubilate with respect to the context around its creation and performance.
“I’m not saying that this music shouldn’t be performed, quite the contrary. Its presentation, however, could be better geared to outlining the complex nature of its creation and allow for us to better appreciate our own history through live performance. What I am advocating for is an embrace of the whole truth to a work, even if that means acknowledging certain facts which may run contrary to the intent of its performance.”
+ The Danish String Quartet is taking over concert halls one by one. Read their rave review by the Ottawa Citizen here.
+ Read Kiersten van Vliet’s review of Orchestre de la Francophonie (July 28).
+ Montreal-born folk singer Penny Lang has died at the age of 74.
+ Margaret Atwood: coming to a screen near you…literally! The celebrated Canadian author will appear in the CBC/Netflix adaptation of Alias Grace.
+ Read a review of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, where Augustin Hadelich performed Sibelius’s Violin Concerto.
+ Pianist Paul Lewis talks with The New York Times about a single page of Schubert’s final Sonata in B flat.
“In Schubert, there’s this sense of acceptance, I feel. Whereas Beethoven always seems to find an answer, Schubert almost never does. It’s so apparent here, in such a heartbreaking way.
As you come into this last page, there’s a sense of reaching out for something that you can’t quite reach, that you can’t quite get. When you get to the top, you haven’t got it — but there’s a breathing out, an accepting that that’s how it is.”
+ Learn how to conduct with Yannick Nézet-Séguin! Nézet-Séguin leads the Orchestre Métropolitain in a Carte Blanche concert August 4, 7:30PM at Centre Pierre-Charbonneau to close out this season’s Concerts Populaires de Montréal. The following day, they will perform Dvorak’s 8th Symphony on top of Mont Royal in a free outdoor concert.
