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Stevie Wonder

Daily News Roundup: 11 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 11 July 2016 Contemporary, Daily News Roundup, Mainstream Jazz, Piano, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, Violin

+ This Day in Music: George Gershwin died this day in 1937. + The 37th edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal was a resounding success for all involved, read the festival summary here. + A benefit concert for Black Lives Matter on Wednesday in New York City is tragically timely in light of recent events. + Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà’s albums have now been streamed more than 30 million times across more than 100 countries. + Read Kiersten van Vliet’s review of Gershwin arrangements for solo piano by British composer Michael Finnissy, played by Dirk Herten. “Finnissy, who celebrated…

CD Review – Michael Finnissy: Gershwin arrangements for piano (White)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 11 July 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary, Mainstream Jazz, Piano, Popular Music, Scena Jazz

George Gershwin’s songs are so ubiquitous that it is hard to imagine an experience of his work untouched by adaptations, whether in film or in the concert hall. This set of 13 tunes was transcribed by English composer Michael Finnissy over the same number of years, between 1975 and 1988. Finnissy is perhaps best known for his transcriptions, from his English Country Tunes (1982–85) to his completion of Mozart’s Requiem (2013). Finnissy, who celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this year, hailed Dirk Herten’s performance as “thoughtful, sensitive, [and] delicately-shaded,” while praising his refined touch. He continued, “I feel like a…

A Festival of 1001 emotions! 37th edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal

By Newswire on 11 July 2016 Experimental Jazz, Mainstream Jazz, Newswire, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, Vocal Jazz, World Music

Montreal, Saturday, 9 July 2016 – When it comes to musical pleasure, nothing delivered like this 37th edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, presented by TD in collaboration with Rio Tinto! For 11 days and nights, from June 29 to July 9, 2016, jazz unfolded in all its sounds, shapes and styles… a Festival of effervescence and serenity, full of raw, passionate, challenging, inspiring, impressive musical moments! With a program this eclectic and packed with options, with young newcomers and veterans, Montréalers welcoming tourists, and fans of jazz, electronica, blues, hip-hop, etc. rubbing shoulders under the stars of our…

George Gershwin

This Day in Music – 1937: Death of George Gershwin

By Weiyu Dang on 11 July 2016 Contemporary, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, This Day in Music, Vocal Jazz

Gershwin, one of the main catalysts for jazz to become America’s music, was a composer and pianist who bridged popular and classical modes. His prolific compositions are now considered jazz and pop standards, most notably the “rhythm changes” in his tune “I got Rhythm” that would become a seminal chord sequence for bebop development. Notable works include An American in Paris, Porgy and Bess, and Rhapsody in Blue. Ella Fitzgerald – “Summertime”

Nikki Chooi

Daily News Roundup: 8 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 8 July 2016 Classical Music, Daily News Roundup, Mainstream Jazz, Musical Theatre, Opera, Popular Music, Romantic, Scena Jazz

+ Canadian violinist and winner of the OSM’s Manulife Competition in 2004, Nikki Chooi has been named the new concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera. + China’s Cultural Revolution made listening to Beethoven a political crime, but half a century later, the relationship between Chinese people and western classical music has evolved in unpredictable ways. “When it comes to ways of listening, the Chinese have long been open to other cultures and to change – not in a revolutionary way, but through a process that builds on its long musical tradition.” + Video of the Day: Lullabies with Alessio Bax on…

Photo credit: Frédérique Ménard-Aubin

“When you sing, I can’t die, I live forever” Lila Downs at the FIJM

By Camilo Lanfranco on 6 July 2016 Concert Reviews, Experimental Jazz, Folk, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, World Music

Lila Downs performed last Saturday night at the Métropolis theatre for the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Close to 2,000 fans gathered to see the singer-songwriter and her band perform a repertoire of Mexican rhythms fused with jazz instruments and players. It was precisely because of this capacity for mixing styles, while remaining true to her cultural roots, that she received the 2016 Antonio Carlos Jobim award as “an artist distinguished in the field of world music whose influence on the evolution of jazz and cultural crossover is widely recognized.” These cultural and musical crossovers are an important part of Lila Downs’s…

Jacques Lacombe. Photo by Fred Stucker

Daily News Roundup: 5 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 5 July 2016 Arts Industry, Choral, Daily News Roundup, Orchestral, Piano, Popular Music, Scena Jazz

+ Read Jeanne Hourez’s review of Nicholas Angelich’s latest release of Liszt, Schumann, and Chopin. (French) + Jacques Lacombe was invited to the Tanglewood Music Festival for the third consecutive year. He will lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra with soloist Joshua Bell on July 8, and Orff’s Carmina Burana on July 9, followed the next day by a concert with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra with a program of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and Schumann’s Third Symphony. (French) + 53 years ago today, the Beatles invaded America with “From Me to You.” + In light of the ongoing Montreal Jazz…

This Day in Music – 1963: The Beatles’ first appearance in the American Charts

By Weiyu Dang on 5 July 2016 Popular Music, This Day in Music

The origin of the moniker “Lennon-McCartney” dates back to a writer credit for a 1963 Del Shannon cover of The Beatle’s tune “From Me to You.” Initially placing 87 on the Billboard Hot 100, “From Me to You” was the first imprint of the British Invasion on the American pop music scene, a scene the Beatles would soon dominate. The song was also the first to be a genuine collaborative composition, as Lennon and McCartney wrote it through a back-and-forth exchange on a bus to a tour in Shrewsbury. Del Shannon — “From Me to You”

This Day in Music: July 4 Independence Day

By Weiyu Dang on 4 July 2016 Popular Music, Romantic, This Day in Music

For American Independence Day, it seems apt to feature an American themed post. In 1831, the 55th Independence Day, Samuel Francis Smith’s “My Country (‘Tis of Thee),” the defacto anthem for the 19th century, was first sung in Boston by a children’s choir. Earlier that year, a friend had asked Smith to translate German songs that were the basis for “God Save the Queen.” Instead, Smith would pen what he called “America,” later known as “My Country (‘Tis of Thee).” Smith’s original lyrics invoke the muse of America as a “Sweet land of liberty” protected and entreated by God to…

Daily News Roundup: 21 June 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 21 June 2016 Classical Music, Daily News Roundup, Literature, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, Vocal Jazz

+ R.E.M’s Mike Mills Concerto for Violin, Rock Band, and String Orchestra with the TSO was quite the hit with younger audiences. + A miniseries based on Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace begins shooting in August and will appear on both Netflix and CBC. + Sook-Yin Lee is moving onto a project called Sleepover, after Definitely Not the Opera got cut from CBC’s on-air programming earlier this year. + Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi is raising awareness for the environmental degradation of the North by playing on an ice floe in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Watch a video of his performance. +…

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