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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

Photo: Allan Cabral

Review | TSO with Gimeno and Olafsson: Superb Mozart and Spectacular Berlioz

By Paul E. Robinson on 11 June 2023 Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Orchestral, Piano, Toronto

It is not often that the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) features a soloist from Iceland, nor does it frequently play music by Icelandic composers. Yet this week we had both – on the same program. Not only that, the TSO gave us a new piece by a Metis composer. But wait, there’s more. Super Mozart and spectacular Berlioz. In short, a great concert. The TSO is currently celebrating its 100th anniversary, and someone came up with the brilliant idea of commissioning 10 Toronto composers to write short pieces to draw attention to it. The first of the Celebration Preludes was…

Lebrecht Weekly | Benjamin Appl: Forbidden Fruit (Alpha Classics)

By Norman Lebrecht on 9 June 2023 Lebrecht Weekly, Opera, Vocal

Franz Schubert knew what he was doing when he wrote songs in cycles. It stopped singers from taking them pick-and-mix for recitals that showcased their own gifts rather than the composer’s. The art of creating a voice and piano recital has receded in the present century with very few – Matthias Goerne and Alice Coote spring to mind among recent, coherent exceptions – willing and able to pitch a programme in which the individual songs relate to one another and to a larger idea. Welcome, then, this new release by the German baritone Benjamin Appl and his British pianist James…

Review | Augustin Hadelich & Elim Chan Make Welcome Return to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra

By Denise Lai on 2 June 2023 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Toronto

This was an unusual week at the TSO. After violin superstar Nicola Benedetti cancelled her appearance on short notice, the orchestra had to scramble for a last minute program change. Audiences were no doubt disappointed about Benedetti’s cancellation, as she was scheduled to perform the Canadian premiere of the Wynton Marsalis Violin Concerto, a piece specially written for her. This may explain the many empty seats at Roy Thomson Hall last night. Fortunately, the TSO found a more than worthy replacement in Italian-German-American virtuoso Augustin Hadelich, who already wowed Toronto audiences earlier this season with his Sibelius Violin Concerto. Also…

Lebrecht Weekly | Brahms: Double concerto (Sony)

By Norman Lebrecht on 2 June 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly, Strings

Craving a dose of Brahms, I landed on a new release of his violin and cello double concerto, written in 1887 and the last score he composed for orchestra, a decade before his death. The concerto was a conciliatory offering to his lifelong friend Joseph Joachim. It followed a bitter falling-out over the violinist’s divorce from his wife, Amelie, in which Brahms was suspected of taking Amelie’s side. Joachim had accused her, falsely, of infidelity with a publisher. When Robert Hausmann, a member of Joachim’s string quartet, wondered in Brahms might write him a cello concerto, the composer designed the…

Mary-Jane Puiu (1950 – 2023)

By Wah Keung Chan on 27 May 2023 Choral, Education, Montreal, Obituaries

My first choral conductor Mary-Jane Puiu (b. March 8, 1950) passed away on May 16, 2023 at the age of 73. According to tenor Eduardo Aparicio, “despite battling a long devastating disease, she heroically managed to keep conducting her choir till the last minute of her life.” We pay tribute to Puiu by republishing a profile/interview I conducted of her in La Scena Musicale in 2010 for her 60th birthday. According to the McGill Choral Society’s Facebook page, here are the details of the service on June 12, 2023: An Orthodox service for close friends and family will be held…

Fire at Chapelle du Bon Pasteur

By Eva Stone-Barney on 26 May 2023 La Scena Online, Montreal

Montreal mourns devastation at the Monastère du Bon Pasteur this morning. Over 150 firefighters were called to control a five-alarm fire yesterday evening, around 4:30pm. While no one has been seriously injured, 27 people have been displaced, with one man (age 80) sent to hospital. Predominantly located on the roof, the fire has created so much smoke that Environment Canada has issued a special air quality statement for the Montreal region. While the extent of the damage remains unclear, the fire department currently believes that the building will not be completely lost. Built in 1846, the historic building is both…

Lebrecht Weekly | Music for a new century (DG)

By Norman Lebrecht on 26 May 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

The San Francisco-based New Century Chamber Orchestra, now in its 30th year, has a strong inclination for commissioning new work. A good thing, right? That depends on the work. The four pieces presented here are not so much a mixed bag as a Walmart display assembled by AI. The third piano concerto by Philip Glass veers between nursery-rhyme puerility and elevator Muzak. I have an open mind about Glass, but this is the most trivial piece of his that I have heard in years. Its third movement is dedicated to fellow-minimalist Arvo Pärt, who has the right to feel insulted…

Jim and Owen Adams, an Indigenous father/son duo, keep exploring teachings from the Medicine Wheel in Real People Dancing, soon to be enjoyed again in Toronto's Seaton Village neighbourhood. Picture credit: Porch View Dances

Toronto’s Kaeja d’Dance: real life dances

By Nathalie de Han on 25 May 2023 Arts Industry, Dance, Indigenous, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Scena Arts, Theatre, Toronto

Toronto’s Kaeja d’Dance returns for its 12th year in Toronto’s historic Seaton Village with the award-winning Porch View Dances: Real People Dancing In Real Spaces. The idea behind the Porch View Dances project is to pair non-professional dancers with professional choreographers. After spending some time rehearsing, the new cast eventually invites neighbors to watch the result, paying what they can. People interested to perform have to answer a short questionnaire about themselves and why they want to be involved but no dance background is required: it’s about creating movement and pleasure. Porch View Dances mingle ordinary lives and artistic expression through dance and…

NAC Orchestra (Photo Credit: Curtis Perry, courtesy of the National Arts Centre)

Review | NAC Orchestra’s stellar performance of The Planets

By Zenith Wolfe on 23 May 2023 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Ottawa

It was a phenomenal night of endings and new beginnings for the National Arts Centre (NAC): the orchestra capped off both 2023’s Mentorship program and the tenure of outgoing CEO Jayne Watson with a stellar concert featuring Gustav Holst’s famous composition The Planets, as well as the Canadian premiere of Catamorphosis by Icelandic symphonist Anna Thorvaldsdóttir. The May 18 concert began with a rendition of Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin du printemps. It’s one of the last works written by the French composer before her death at the young age of 24, with the orchestral version posthumously finalized by her sister,…

Photo: Brandon Patoc

Review | San Francisco Symphony delivers the timeless message of Britten’s War Requiem, opus 66

By Andrea Rush on 23 May 2023 Concert Reviews

Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” was magnificently performed this weekend by the San Francisco Symphony under the baton of Guest Conductor Phillipe Jordan, music director of the Vienna State Opera. (Thursday- Saturday, May 18-20, 2023). Fittingly it was the sole work on the program. The score itself is within the grasp of all performers. Britten had a gift for communication with children, evident in works such as Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, an ability to write for performers of all levels of achievement (including amateurs). The Ragazzi Boys Chorus, the largest boys chorus in the Bay area, performed under the…

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