Arte Musica’s 8th Season At the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Bourgie Hall

Advertisement / Publicité

This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en: Francais (French)

Montreal, April 5, 2018 – With great enthusiasm, General and Artistic Director Isolde Lagacé raises the curtain this afternoon on Arte Musica’s 8th season of concerts and series at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Bourgie Hall. This season’s common thread is French music.

Music lovers are offered a total of 105 concerts spread over several major concert series at Bourgie Hall: The Complete Cantatas of J.S. Bach – Year 5; Concerts in connection with exhibitions held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Les Violons du Roy, Musicians of the OSM, Nothing but Piano, Jazz 5 to 7 – in addition to new musical Rendez-Vous including concert lectures and concerts presented on the premises of the Museum, within its various rooms.

Awarded the title of “Diffuseur spécialisé de l’année” (Specialized Presenter of the Year) at the 2017 Opus Prizes Gala, Arte Musica has taken its rightful place as front-line player in Montreal’s vast cultural network, and is recognized today as one of the most prominent presenters of classical music in Quebec.

Make way for a splendid season!

MAIN THEMES OF THE 2018-2019 SEASON

Chamber Music

(please consult the season brochure, pp. 4 to 11)

Because of its size and acoustical qualities, Bourgie Hall is ideally suited to the performance of chamber music. The Hall is thus a natural fit for showcasing this type of music and displaying its many aspects. Highlights of this season include (among many others) Musicians of the OSM performing Schubert’s Octet (September 28); Carte blanche to composer Kelly-Marie Murphy (October 9); TheCalder Quartet (October 17); the New Orford String Quartet (November 14); Quatuor Debussy (January 30); Musicians of Malborough (March 5), Chiaroscuro Quartet and pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout (March 7); Quatuor Arod (April 2); the Castalian Quartet (April 10); the wind quintet Pentaèdre (April 24); and the Israeli Chamber Project (May 14).

Piano in the Spotlight!

(please consult the season brochure, pp. 14 to 17)

Throughout the 2018-2017 season, Arte Musica is host to an impressive roster of renowned pianists, to audiences’ delight! Here is a quick look at some of the key events:

Anne Quéffélec – Thursday, October 18 – 7 :30

Presented as part of the series Couperin Days

Garrick Ohlsson Plays Brahms – Thursday, October 25 and Friday, April 26 – 7 p.m.

See the Press Release “Complete Works”

Yefim Bronfman – Sunday, February 10 – 2 p.m.

For his first recital at Bourgie Hall, Bronfman has designed a programme that combines the Romantic lyricism of Schumann and Schubert with Debussy’s intimate discourse.

Llŷr Williams – Wednesday, February 20 – 7:30 p.m.

For his debut in Montreal, the Welsh pianist presents a recital centred on piano transcriptions of works by Wagner and Liszt.

Andreas Staier and Alexander Melnikov, Piano Four Hands – Wednesday, March 13 – 7 p.m.

Two venerated performers, both familiar to Bourgie Hall audiences, unite to perform a selection of works for piano four hands by the great Viennese composer Franz Schubert, on the Hall’s historical Érard piano.

Christian Blackshaw Plays Mozart – Tuesday and Wednesday, March 19 and 20 – 7 p.m.

See the Press Release “Complete Works”

Khatia Buniatishvili – Monday, April 15 – 7 p.m.

With sheer energy and dazzling mastery, the young virtuoso of Georgian origin Khatia Buniatishvili tackles monumental works by some of the composers who defined the Romantic era.

Gabriela Montero – Tuesday, May 7 – 7 :30 p.m.

Venezuelan pianist and composer Gabriela Montero offers a performance in which spontaneity is one of the hallmarks.

The Complete Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach – Year 5

(please consult the season brochure pp. 28 to 31)

Arte Musica pursues its presentation of the complete cycle of cantatas by Bach. For complete details, consult the Press Release “Complete Cantatas of J.S. Bach – Year 5”.

GREAT MOMENTS – FALL 2018

Concerts presented in connection with exhibitions held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Alexander Calder: Radical Inventor

(please consult the season brochure, pp. 42 to 45)

The work of Alexander Calder (1898-1976) bears many affinities with music. His famous mobiles and his vision of movement had an undeniable impact on the outlook of his contemporaries, and certainly proved a catalyst for elaborating new musical concepts. Arte Musica leads in the discovery of the multiple facets of this innovative artist, who has remained as relevant today as he was during his lifetime, in a series of 6 concerts featuring the Architek Percussion Ensemble, the Calder Quartet, a cinema-concert event that will transport audiences to the heart of a Dadaist evening in 1920s Paris, an original performance combining music and circus art, guitarist Tim Brady in a concert in situ within the Museum’s walls, and the Musicians of the OSM, as part of the series “Musical Canvasses” in which the public is invited to take an optional guided tour of the exhibition, before the concert.

A Resplendent World: Books of Hours from the 13th to the 16th centuries in Quebec Collections

(please consult the season brochure, pp. 22 and 23)

Books of Hours figure among the most beautiful and valuable artifacts that have come down to us from the Middle Ages. They are usually richly illustrated and follow the cycle of the season, also serving as witnesses of human activity within the liturgical cycle. Two concerts will be presented in connection with this exhibition, showcasing the Boston vocal ensemble Blue Heron and the ensemble Obsidienne playing on some twenty instruments from a vast instrumentarium depicted in medieval iconography.

Couperin Days – October 19 to 24, 2018

(please consult the season brochure, pp. 24 to 26)

To mark the 350th birth anniversary of French composer François Couperin, Arte Musica invites audiences to immerse themselves in this composer’s works through 6 concerts featuring pianist Anne Quéffélec (October 18); the vocal and instrumental ensemble Les Talens Lyriques (in their first concert in Montreal) conducted by Christophe Rousset (October 20), a dance and recital with Alban Richard (October 21), organist Jean-Willy Kunz (October 21), and the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal (October 24); as well as a public interview with Christophe Rousset animated by Natalie Michaud (October 20), and two lectures with Sylvain Caron and harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour (October 19) and Edward Higginbottom (October 23).

Fabio Bonizzoni… Times Two

(please consult the season brochure, pp. 28 and 34)

Renowned Italian harpsichordist Fabio Bonizzoni will perform in a pair of concerts at Bourgie Hall. The first concert features his ensemble La Risonanza as part of the Complete Cantatas of J.S. Bach – Year 5 (October 28), and then with violinist Jorge Jimenez on Wednesday, October 31 in a performance of the remarkable sonatas for violin and harpsichord by J.S. Bach.

Philippe Sly and the Chimera Project | Winterreise Klezmer

Sunday, November 18 – 4 p.m.

(please consult the season brochure, p. 47)

In an exceptional collaborative project uniting Philippe Sly and the Chimera Project, Schubert’s vocal masterpiece serves to push the limits between the recital and the theatrical stage. Sly is accompanied by a traditional klezmer ensemble, revisiting Winterreise in a most intriguing way!

THE HOLIDAYS, WITH ARTE MUSICA

(please consult the season brochure, pp. 56 to 58)

One of the year’s favourite series, Arte Musica’s series Holiday Concerts aims to enhance perennial Holiday magic! The Ensemble Correspondances opens the festive season with Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Pastorale and Antiennes (December 7), followed by the 39th edition of the highly popular CBC Sing-In (December 9). The New York Polyphony is back at Bourgie Hall on December 12for a concert that will serve up an antidote to the usual holiday frenzy! Pallade Musica celebrates some of the surprising and flamboyant aspects of Christmas, with soprano Andréanne Brisson Paquin (December 13), and the velvet tones of singer and guitarist David Myles (December 13) are sure to seduce any listener. On December 14, make room for the colourful music of the French baroque period with Les Violons du Roy conducted by Mathieu Lussier. Music performed throughout the world to mark the winter solstice, performed by Ensemble Strada is sure to make spirits bright on December 16, while the peerless The King’s Singers perform a collection of holiday classics and English carols for their first appearance at Bourgie Hall. To conclude the series in style, theTaurey Butler Trio is back with a performance that has become a holiday favourite at Bourgie Hall: A Charlie Brown Christmas, on December 20.

GREAT MOMENTS –– WINTER– SPRING 2019

Louis Lortie Week

(please consult the season brochure, pp. 12 and 13)

The great pianist LOUIS LORTIE settles into Bourgie Hall for an exciting three-concert run! Audiences will discover this world-famous artist under many guises: the soloist and the chamber musician flanked by exceptional young musicians he regularly encounters as Master-in-residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel (Waterloo, Belgium), in two concerts centred on Fauré (January 22 and 23), and again on January 24 when he is joined by pianist Hélène Mercier, his musical collaborator since the 1980s, in an exciting programme of Russian music for two pianos.

The Mass in B minor – Ensemble Caprice

Saturday, January 29, 2019 – 7 p.m.

(please consult the season brochure, p. 35)

Because of its monumental proportions, J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor could not have been destined to the liturgy. Instead, this masterpiece recasts cantata arias and choruses composed in the last fifteen years of the great Cantor’s life, and stands as his legacy to the world of sacred music.

Give way to Ondes Martenot! 

Thursday, February 7, 2019 – 7 p.m.

(please consult the season brochure, p. 19)

Estelle Lemire, professor of Ondes Martenot at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and pianist Jean Marchand present a commented recital that will provide an overview of the rich repertoire for this simply bewitching instrument.

Jordi Savall – Tous les matins du monde

Saturday, February 16 – 8 p.m. – Sunday, February 17 – 2 p.m.

(please consult the season brochure, p. 33)

To everyone’s delight, the legendary Jordi Savall and his ensemble Le Concert des Nations recreate the famous sound track from Alain Corneau’s film Tous les matins du monde, which won the César award for best film music in 1992.

Vienne and Paris 1900 – Dong-Suk Kang, violin, Charles Richard-Hamelin, piano

Wednesday, February 27 – 7 p.m.

(please consult the season brochure, p. 11)

In 1899, the year of Ernest Chausson’s death, Arnold Schoenberg completed his expressionist masterpiece Transfigured Night, whose innovative instrumentation stands at polar opposites with Chausson’s resolutely Romantic and concertante aesthetic. While Chausson closed the century in a spirit of continuity, Shoenberg was already at work on an entirely new musical language.

Andreas Scholl – A Musicall Banquet

Sunday, March 3, 2019 – 2 p.m.

(please consult the season brochure, p. 33)

The turn of the 17th century was marked by the apotheosis of English melancholy. Celebrated German countertenor Andreas Scholl is back at Bourgie Hall with virtuoso lutenist Edin Karamazov to perform some of the most moving songs from this period, with a short excursion in the world of Handel’s Italian cantatas.

Festival Palazzetto Bru Zane – Montreal

(please consult the season brochure, p. 37)

This is a fantastic opportunity to discover original and lesser-known repertoire! Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre for French Romantic music is dedicated to the revival and international awareness of French musical heritage from the greater 19th century (1780 – 1920). After Paris and Berlin, Palazzetto Bru Zane sets its sights on Montreal, and Arte Musica devotes an initial weekend to French Romantic music. Come hear Les Violons du Roy with baritone Jean-François Lapointe and harpist Valérie Milot (March 8), La Clique des Lunaisiens in a programme of operetta arias and political songs on the art of governance (March 9), the quartet I Giardini in a performance event on the theme of fairy tales (March 10), and cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand with pianist Pascal Amoyel in recital (March 10).

Ensemble Alia Mens – France

Friday, March 29 – 7 p.m.

(please consult season brochure, p. 35)

Since 2012, the French ensemble Alia Mens has specialized in the performance of works by Bach, particularly the cantatas from the Weimar period and concertos for several harpsichords. A great opportunity to discover these fine musicians in their first appearance in Montreal!

Ensemble Alia Mens can also be heard performing in the Complete Cantatas of J.S. Bach series on Sunday, March 31.

*** *** ***

Les Violons du Roy at Bourgie Hall

(please consult the season brochure, pp. 38 to 41)

Arte Musica is pleased to present Les Violons du Roy in eight concerts at Bourgie Hall that are guaranteed exceptional events. The series features conductors Jonathan Cohen, Les Violons du Roy’snew Music Director, Anthony Marwood, Mathieu Lussier, and Julien Chauvin, with mandolinist Avi Avital, cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, pianist Aleksandar Madžar, baritone Jean-François Lapointe, andharpist Valérie Milot.