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La Scena Online is the digital magazine of La Scene Musicale.Contents: News, Concert reviews, CD reviews, Interviews, Obituaries, etc; Editor: Wah Keung Chan; Assistant Editor: Andreanne Venne
ISSN: 1206-9973

Guitarist Sean Shibe performs with (l-r) Matthew Hunt, Adam Walker, and Ema Nikolovska. Photo: Darius Weinberg/Wigmore Hall

Review | Steve Shibe & Ema Nikolovska Bring on the New at Wigmore Hall

By James Ellis on 30 May 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Strings, Vocal, Winds

Scottish guitarist Steve Shibe is a feature artist at London’s Wigmore Hall this season. I first clocked him at a stellar concert with the Manchester Collective in Cardiff. He is clearly a musician to watch out for as this concert proved. Scottish composer James Dillon’s 12 Caprices for guitar solo was given its world premiere. Conjured earlier this year, Dillon’s sound contains ghosts of atonality, though the allure of classical Spanish guitar was never far away. Gently hushed, these miniatures commanded the space, the sense of quiet was highly pleasing. Shibe looked focused and played with his renowned pianissimo. With…

Summer 2025: jazz festival season

By Félix-Antoine Hamel on 30 May 2025 Jazz, La Scena Online, Montreal, Région, Scena Jazz

Rain or shine, for jazz fans summer always means one thing: festival season. As always, La Scena Musicale offers a wide selection of interesting shows and musicians, local and from abroad, who will appear on Canadian stages during the season. For experienced ears Ever since the 2018 reissue of his classic 1975 Valley of Search LP, Brooklyn-born saxophonist Alan Braufman is enjoying a late career renaissance. He has since released two new albums, reuniting with some old comrades (notably, pianist Cooper-Moore), but also meeting newer talents (like fellow saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and vibraphonist Patricia Brennan). Braufman will give a…

Yewon Han, soprano. © Tam Photography

Report | CMIM Day 3: Excitement before the Semifinals

By Justin Bernard on 28 May 2025 Art Song, Concert Reviews, Music Competition, Opera

The last session of the CMIM Aria category before the semifinals sees a final push from the remaining competitors! On the evening of May 27, four candidates closed the first round, including singers we had counted among the competition’s favorites. Chinese mezzo Jingjing Xu received warm applause as she entered the Bourgie Hall stage. In a short pre-recorded presentation video projected on a big screen, Xu, who completed part of her studies at McGill University, showcased the masculine posture she would have the pleasure of adopting in Handel’s “Dopo Notte.” However, once she reached this aria from Ariodante, the singer…

Samuel Mariño with Tafelmusik. Photo Dahlia Katz

Review | Samuel Mariño Caps Tafelmusik Season with Sheer Joy

By Michelle Assay on 27 May 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Opera, Toronto, Vocal

“I want to thank the musicians, and I want to thank you for accepting me for who I am … . When I’m in Canada, I always feel accepted, and free.” Samuel Mariño’s speaking voice is boyish, pure, and ever-so-melodious, and his words went down a storm. But it was his singing that had drawn the audience to the first of his three Koerner Hall concerts alongside the early-music ensemble, Tafelmusik on May 23. Venezuela-born and now based in Berlin, Mariño has that rarest of voices: the male soprano. As an adolescent his voice never fully broke, making him the…

Abel Selaocoe with the OSM. Photo: Antoine Saito

Review | Selaocoe’s Extraordinary Four Spirits & Prokofiev with OSM

By Amanda Wong on 27 May 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Orchestral, Strings

The world of classical music is filled with prodigies and virtuosos. Excellence is the norm onstage in a large concert hall, and so it takes an artist of exceptional brilliance to deliver a performance that doesn’t just impress, but rocks you and stays with you long after the final note. Abel Selaocoe is a South African cellist and vocalist who, at just 33, has emerged as a trailblazer in modern classical music. On May 21, a packed audience of concert goers gathered to witness him sing and play alongside the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under the baton of celebrated Chinese-American…

Chanhee Cho, baryton-basse; Esther Gonthier, piano. Capture d'écran sur le site web du CMIM.

Report | CMIM Day 2: Are the Evening Session More Favourable to the Candidates?

By Justin Bernard on 27 May 2025 Art Song, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Music Competition, Opera

The sessions at the CMIM that follow one another are all different. So far, the one constant is that we hear the most remarkable voices in the evening. Could this be a coincidence, or does the timing of the performance have something to do with it? Aria I – Afternoon This second day started rather well with Katerina Burton. The American soprano was generous in her interpretation and legato, but her repertoire choice was very cautious. Later in the evening, other competitors in her voice category took real vocal risks that were rewarded in the end. Given his vocal qualities…

Julia Muzychenko-Greenhalgh, soprano; Ian Tindale, piano. Capture d'écran sur le site web du CMIM.

Report | CMIM Day 1: The Competition Begins

By Justin Bernard on 26 May 2025 Art Song, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Music Competition, Opera

The Montreal International Musical Competition (CMIM) is officially launched! May 25 marked the beginning of the first rounds in the Voice – Aria category. Ten candidates entered the competition out of the 24 selected. They included Hedvig Haugerud, Ruby Dibble, Karoline Podolak, and Ihor Mostovoi, whom we had already identified in our predictions. Afternoon Session The verdict? Many of these singers gave it their all, instead of letting their enthusiasm cool. This was the case for Mexican bass Daniel Noyola. The first to take the stage, the performer occupied the space well, both with his body and his voice, but…

Lebrecht Weekly | Yunchan Lim Approaches Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto with Sheer Fearlessness

By Norman Lebrecht on 23 May 2025 Lebrecht Weekly

Rachmaninoff had large hands and enormous fingers. He wrote concertos for himself to play. The third, in D minor, had its US premieres in Carnegie Hall with Walter Damrosch conducting the first run, Gustav Mahler the next. The concerto proved conspicuously more difficult than its predecessors to achieve with precision. A fear factor set in among lesser pianists. Rachmaninoff, though, was a generous man, quick to acknowledge when others played better than he did. He preferred Vladimir Horowitz’s recording of the D minor concerto to his own. Others who imprinted their take in the work down the ages include Emil…

Photo: Theresa Pewal

Lebrecht Weekly | Just Biber (Outhere Music)

By Norman Lebrecht on 16 May 2025 Classical Music, Lebrecht Weekly

If you had told me at the start of the week that I’d still be listening to Biber on Friday, my response would have been dusty and unprintable. Middle-European music before Johann Sebastian Bach has about as much interest for me as a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste. The world of Heinrich Biber, a Salzburg violin composer in the Italian style, was rendered obsolete by the birth in 1685 of Bach and Handel. Biber kept plugging away until 1704, just about long enough to see himself dwarfed by genius. His music, as much as I have heard, is unadventurous and ingratiating,…

Lauren Margison (Mimì) and Frédéric Antoun (Rodolfo) in Opéra de Montréal's La Bohème. Photo: Vivien Gaumand

Review | Opéra de Montréal La Bohème does Puccini Proud

By Wah Keung Chan on 13 May 2025 Concert Reviews, Montreal, Opera, Vocal

Opéra de Montréal closes its 2024-25 season with a celebration of the Puccini anniversary. One cannot go wrong with a production of La Bohème which the company has historically rolled out when it needs a sure crowd pleaser. It’s arguably Puccini’s most popular opera with several of his best known hits. This production assembled a strong ensemble of predominantly Canadian singers. What you missed? The revelations on opening night were the two female leads, both graduates of the company’s Atelier Lyrique young artist program. Montreal audiences have been following Lauren Margison since 2017 when she was a member of the…

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