La Scena Online - my/maSCENA

Browsing: La Scena Online

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: Monique de St. Croix

Review | HONENS PIANO COMPETITION REPORT # 2

By Paul E. Robinson on 28 October 2022 Concert Reviews

JEREMY DENK RECITAL AT THE 2022 HONENS PIANO COMPETITION IN CALGARY: A MUSIC-LOVER AT THE KEYBOARD No question about it: Jeremy Denk loves music. In a recital that began with Mozart’s A minor Sonata and ended with Donald Lambert’s stride version of the Pilgrim’s Chorus from Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Denk showed an enraptured audience that he loves all kinds of music and never stops discovering new wonders in every piece he plays. The Mozart was an absolute revelation. This was Mozart with blood in his veins not the anal retentive figure who often represents the Austrian master these days. Denk laid…

Photo: Nathan Elson

Review | HONENS PIANO COMPETITION 2022 REPORT #1

By Paul E. Robinson on 26 October 2022 Classical Music, Concert Reviews

HONENS PIANO COMPETITION ANNOUNCES 2022 FINALISTS. 2018 WINNER OFFERS “RACHMANINOV REFRACTED” RECITAL 89-year-old Calgarian and amateur pianist Esther Honens was so excited about what she saw and heard at the Cliburn Piano Competition in Ft. Worth she thought Calgary should have one too. That was in 1991. With her donation of $5 million the Honens International Piano Competition and Festival was off and running. After 30 years it has grown into one of the most prestigious competitions in the world. A festival is held every year and a piano competition every 3 years. The first prize winner goes home with…

Review | Does Art Trump Bad Behaviour? TÁR Film Explores the Issue

By Paul E. Robinson on 24 October 2022 Concert Reviews, Film, Orchestral

It has long been a familiar topic for discussion in ethics and aesthetics: does great art and artistry excuse bad behaviour? The question was often raised about Wagner and came to the fore again in evaluating conductors like Furtwängler and Karajan in the post World War II period. In our own time leading conductors of the stature of James Levine, Charles Dutoit and Daniele Gatti were removed from their posts for alleged sexual harassment. In the new film Tár the matter is worked over once again, but with a different twist: this time the artist under scrutiny is a female…

Jean-Philippe Sylvestre : Tam Photography

Review | Jean-Philippe Sylvestre: Virtuosic and Hyper-Romantic

By Pietro Freiburger on 23 October 2022 Concert Reviews, Piano

A large audience was present on Saturday, October 22 at the Maison Symphonique for pianist Jean-Philippe Sylvestre’s recital that will also be repeated at Palais Montcalm in Quebec City on Nov. 11. In the program, some of the best-known masterpieces for the piano, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2, Ravel’s Miroirs and Pavane, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Balakirev’s Islamey and a special performance of Mathieu’s Concerto de Québec, plus a Prelude and Fugue by Bach. What you missed The concert opens with the virtuosic Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt played convincing and full of contrasts. Sylvestre is a pianist…

A moment of Clowns. choreographed by Hofesh Shechter. Picture © Todd MacDonald. With Rachel Fallon, Natalia Gabrielczyk, Hannah Shepherd, Mickaël Frappat, Adam Khazhmuradov, Robinson Cassarino

Toronto Dance: Hofesh Shechter at the Harbourfront Centre

By Nathalie de Han on 23 October 2022 Dance, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Scena Arts, This Week in Toronto

Joy and excitement ! The Harbourfront Centre welcomes the incomparable United Kingdom-based Hofesh Shechter Company and its highly anticipated Double Murder for the opening of the 2022-2023 international contemporary dance series Torque. October 27–29, at Fleck Dance Theatre There is no doubt that universally celebrated choreographer and composer Hofesh Shechter is the prince of the contemporary dance. Raised in Israel, Hofesh Shechter was first introduced to music and folk dance. He later became interested in contemporary dance, under the influence of the great Ohad Naharin and subsequently some European companies (Nederlands Dans Theater, Sadler’s Wells). Established in London since 2008, he now…

J’Nai Bridges (on bench) as Carmen in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Carmen, 2022. Photo: Michael Cooper

Review | Canadian Opera Company’s Carmen a magnificent spectacle

By Denise Lai on 15 October 2022 Concert Reviews, Opera, Vocal

Easily the most popular and often-performed opera of all times, Carmen is a hit-parade of recognizable tunes, with vibrant characters and a titillating story of love and jealousy. Carmen is a fiercely independent, free-spirited and beguiling Romani woman with many admirers. She takes Don José as her lover, and demands that the corporal defect from the army to join her in a carefree life of smuggling. Alas, Carmen soon grows tired of him. Taunted by her constant flirtations with other men and enraged by her new affection for the dashing bullfighter Escamillo, Don José demands Carmen to pledge herself to…

Photo: www.emersonquartet.com

Review | Emerson String Quartet Begins Its Farewell Season

By Paul E. Robinson on 8 October 2022 Concert Reviews

Emerson String Quartet. Koerner Hall, Toronto, Sunday, October 2, 2022. Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 1 in E flat major MWVR25. Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in B flat major Op. 67. Dvořák: String Quartet No. 14 in A flat major Op. 105 B. 193. After more than 45 years of concerts and recordings – mostly for Deutsche Grammophon – the incomparable Emerson String Quartet is calling it quits. During 2022 and 2023 it will be making a farewell tour that will take it across Canada and the United States and to many parts of Europe. The final performance will be…

Lebrecht Weekly | Schumann/Mahler: Symphonies 1&2 (Naxos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 7 October 2022 Lebrecht Weekly

The symphonies of Robert Schumann are vastly influential and infrequently performed. There are problems with some of the instrumental, writing, but main impediment is the lack of a big tune that folks could hum on their way home. Schumann does large themes, not big tunes. Here and there (in the opening movement of the first symphony, for instance) they are large enough to be portentous, only to sound pretentious on repetition. Of the four symphonies, only the third has genuine audience appeal. Still, Schumann cannot be ignored. He was a decisive influence on Johannes Brahms, who wrote four symphonies and…

Émilie Monnet presents Okinum, her signature show

OKINUM: THE DREAM’S PATH

By Nathalie de Han on 1 October 2022 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Indigenous, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Scena Arts, Theatre, This Week in Montreal

Émilie Monnet presents Okinum, her signature show. Credit: Clark FergusonBecause her healing process still resonates within her, Émilie Monnet presents a new incarnation of Okinum, her signature show. Espace Go, Oct. 4-22. Finalist for the Prix Michel-Tremblay (2019), finalist for the Grand prix du livre de Montréal (2021), Okinum is autobiographic: “Okinum is dear to me, it is my first play, the birthing of my voice as a theater artist,” confides Émilie Monnet. Inspired by the recurring dream of a giant beaver, Okinum is an intimate reflection on the notion of inner dams, a tribute to the power of dreams…

Lebrecht Weekly | Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sixth Symphony (Hyperion/ICA Classics)

By Norman Lebrecht on 30 September 2022 Lebrecht Weekly

***/***** The English composer’s fifth symphony, like Dmitri Shostakovich’s seventh, was a musical turning point in the Second World War. Both exuded confidence in the ultimate victory of good over evil, offering a strategic boost to Allied confidence in the critical years of 1942-3. The Shostakovich symphony had universal impact; Vaughan Williams was of primarily English importance. Five years passed before he brought forth another symphony and the change in tone is extreme. Writing in the privations of post-War austerity when there was not enough to eat or heat, the national composer pushed the brass core of his orchestra to…

Previous 1 … 58 59 60 61 62 … 172 Next

Current Issue

PDF HTML

Next Issue : September

Ad Deadline : Aug. 21, 2026

Past Issues, Subscriptions, Advertising