Browsing: La Scena Spotlight

This month, Brian Current will experience something many composers would envy: the premiere and recording of one of his major works by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. The $50,000 Azrieli Prize enabled him to compose The Seven Heavenly Halls for solo tenor, choir and orchestra. The composer talked to La Scena Musicale about this work and his career. Like many musicians, Brian Current first learned piano as a child. “I was lucky my parents were so persistent and constantly got me to practice, even when I didn’t want to,” he says. “My parents weren’t musicians by profession, but they sang in…

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Born in Czechoslovakia in 1986, Lukáš Vondráček is one of the hottest young pianists on the scene right now. In 2016, he won the International Grand Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, propelling his career, already solidly established in the musical milieu, to new highs. Vondráček had an early introduction to the piano thanks to his mother, herself a professional pianist. He made his stage debut at a young age, and by age 20 he had no less than 850 concerts in 28 different countries under his belt. Notably, he completed his first international tour at the age…

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The Eckhardt-Gramatté Competition (E-Gré) is a unique competition in which contemporary music is highly promoted. The Final was held this past spring at Brandon University and pianist Matt Poon won the first place as well as the prize for the best performance of the commissioned work. He received almost $17,000 including a $10,000 cash prize, a residency of three weeks, and a debut recital at the Casalmaggiore International Music Festival in Italy, as well as the Cross-Canada Winner’s Tour in November 2016. Poon began his undergraduate studies in Piano Performance in Music at the University of Toronto and moved to…

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Born in 1991, pianist and composer Philippe Prud’homme began his piano studies with professor Gilles Many at age twelve. Sixteen-year-old Prud’homme was accepted, under special circumstances, to the Université de Montréal in 2007 without even finishing his secondary studies and with only four years of piano studies under his belt. He earned his master’s with highest distinctions in the class of Dang Thai Son before beginning another graduate degree at the Conservatoire de Montréal in 2015 with Louise Bessette. An active presence on the Quebec scene, Prud’homme has notably won first prize at the CMC several times, in the solo…

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Last May, Emily Oulousian won the grand prize of the CBC Radio-Canada show Virtuose, produced and hosted by the ever-popular Gregory Charles. Oulousian was awarded an almost perfect score of 97.6 for her performance of an excerpt of Grieg’s Piano Concerto – without orchestra. She was only 15 years old. In the episodes leading up to the grand finale of the competition, Oulousian performed brilliant renditions of Prokofiev’s Toccata in D minor, Op. 11 and Scriabin’s Étude in D-sharp minor, Op. 8, No. 12. A native of Montreal, Oulousian, whose mother is of Chinese descent and father is of Armenian…

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“By the end, I could barely control my emotions,” says Thomas Yu, describing his first-prize-winning performance at the Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, on June 25. Yu, a Calgary periodontist, was one of six finalists who played a piano concerto movement with the Fort Worth Symphony under guest conductor Damon Gupton. He chose the third movement from Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 5. “I had only six minutes to give the audience and jury my entire life,” he says. “It is difficult to get into that mindset and physicality in such a short time, especially with a…

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Since his arrival in town four years ago, trumpeter Hichem Khalfa has been on the move. Hailing from France, he came to Montreal struck by wanderlust. “I like to travel, discovering new things and places,” he explains. “At first I wanted to go to New York, like all aspiring jazz musicians. I was offered a scholarship there at the New School, but gave up on the idea when I saw what the cost of living was, paying the rent and all the tuition fees.” One day, he stumbled on McGill University and its jazz program. He came over for an…

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OPERA REVIEW AND COMPANY PROFILE:  dell’Arte Opera Ensemble’s “Violetta & Her Sisters”: “Scenes from the Demi-Monde” (August 23, 2016) Massenet’s Manon (August 24, 2016) Verdi’s La traviata (August 25, 2016) “Chansons de Baudelaire” (August 27, 2016) Libiamo! Autumn ought not arrive without our noting that New York City enjoyed a mini-“Summer of the Courtesan.” For two weeks in August (the 13th through the 28th), one could join in a bittersweet brindisi, tip a glass to free-spirited pleasure, and shed a tear for loveliness cut down too young. The program was “Violetta & Her Sisters,” and it was the fruit of…

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Opera Montreal’s opera season begins with the Opéra de Montréal’s Aida on September 17. Running until the 24, the show features Kamen Chanev (Radames), Olesya Petrova (Amneris), Gregory Dahl (Amonasro), Phillipe Ens (Ramfis), Anatoli Sivko (The King of Egypt), with Russian soprano Anna Markarova in the title role. Paul Nadler conducts. The November production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni features the return of Canadian bass-baritone Gordon Bintner to the Opéra de Montréal stage as the philandering anti-hero. Includes an all-Canadian cast of Daniel Okulitch (Leporello), Emily Dorn (Donna Anna), Jean-Michel Richer (Don Ottavio), Layla Claire (Donna Elvira), as well as up-and-coming…

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Joan Jonas: From Away DHC/ART, until September 18 Guest curated by art historian and UQAM ­professor Barbara Clausen, From Away is the first Canadian exhibition of American multi-media artist Joan Jonas (b. 1936). The show traces her career from her first video ­performances to They Come to Us without a Word (2015). Like many of her works, the piece embodies ideas about gender, narrative, and space through a non-linear intermixture of environmental politics, Nova Scotia ghost stories, and the writing of the Icelandic author Halldór Laxness. www.dhc-art.org Souvenirs from 1976 ­exhibition Olympic Park, until September 30 There is still time…

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