Browsing: Montreal

Montreal articles, news, reviews

After 37 years, Geneviève Soly is retiring as artistic director of the early-music chamber ensemble Les Idées Heureuses (LIH), but concertgoers need not worry as Soly’s former student-turned-colleague, Dorothéa Ventura, is excited to be stepping into the role. The goal of LIH is to combine all aspects of early music-making and encompass the entire artistic spirit that accompanies the period. This often includes baroque dance and historically accurate and informed performance, but Ventura hopes to include acting and visual art in an effort to provide greater appeal to audiences and to capture the cultural essence of what artistic performance looked…

Share:

SMCQ This fall, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, Canada’s oldest concert society dedicated to contemporary music, presents the eighth edition of its Tribute Series. After Katia Makdissi-Warren, José Evangelista, John Rea, Denis Gougeon, Ana Sokolović, Gilles Tremblay and Claude Vivier, it’s German-Indian composer Sandeep Bhagwati’s turn to have his vast repertoire celebrated. From orchestral compositions to chamber music, multimedia creation, musical theatre and opera, Bhagwati stands out for his great versatility and mastery of different instrumental idioms. The first concert is scheduled for Sept. 24 at Salle Pierre-Mercure, with Amitiés et étrangetés presented in partnership with the Vietnamese…

Share:

Claire Gignac, artistic and general director of La Nef, says that its repertoire is defined by “a mosaic of musical colours,” the result “of all sorts of artists, disciplines, types of music, repertoires and resonances coming together.” The 2023-24 season will offer four engaging concerts reflecting this range of musical approaches. To open the new season Oct. 18 at Centre St-Jax, the show Tant que vivray will feature Vincent Lauzer on recorder and Sylvain Bergeron on lute. Dedicated to baroque music, the concert will present an instrumental repertoire from France, Spain and England from the 16th and 17th centuries. Soprano…

Share:

Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia Montréal Museum of Contemporary Art Oct. 25, 2023-March 10, 2024 If you want to dance with the devil, then this nonconformist, nontraditional, and absolutely shocking exhibit will surely stir your spirits. Russian feminist artists known for their conceptual eye tinged with nonconsensual flavours continue to be discovered and defy the authoritarian regime of their homeland. The project, which stems from a meeting in Moscow between co-founder Maria (aka Masha) Alyokhina and Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson and was launched by Reykjavik’s Kling & Bang gallery, brings its own taste for justice to the MAC. This culturally-sensitive…

Share:

Montreal Les Grands Ballets: Cinderella Les Grands Ballets will take the stage at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier with their production of Cinderella. With music by Sergei Prokofiev, and choreographed by Australian choreographer Jayne Smeulders, the production will feature the Grands Ballets Orchestra, directed by Dina Gilbert, and all-new sets and costumes, designed by Simon Guilbault and Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt, respectively (Sept. 8-10). www.placedesarts.com Les Boréades de Montréal: Maestro Mozart Following the success of their album, Maestrino Mozart, Les Boréades, led by soprano Marie-Ève Munger, will open their 2023-24 season with Maestro Mozart. On the program are excerpts of the composer’s most famous operas, all…

Share:

Montreal September Montreal’s Anglo theatre scene is still struggling to return to its pre-pandemic bustle, but hopefully quality will triumph over quantity. First up is Kate Lavut’s big-hearted Fringe hit A Little Bit Pregnant, a comedy-drama about a group of young people “trying to adult.” Mainline Theatre, Sept. 8, 10. www.mainlinetheatre.ca A favourite out-of-town venue for Montrealers is the delightful Hudson Village Theatre, which promises The Greatest Play in the History of the World. Written by Brit playwright Ian Kershaw, it’s a space/time bending love story narrated by a woman in the wee small hours. Hudson Village Theatre, Sept. 13-24.…

Share:

The inaugural concert of the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières’s 2023-24 season, conducted by Alain Trudel, will take place Oct. 21, 2023 and will feature two works of exceptional breadth: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Op. 55,“Eroica” and Gilles Bellemare’s Cœur—five symphonic poems for choir and orchestra. The idea for Cœur was born out of a collaboration between the composer, chief conductor, and first artistic director of OSTR, Gilles Bellemare, and cardiologist François Reeves. The symphonic poems written for choir and orchestra were inspired by the audible and visual rhythms of heartbeats. Each of the five movements is based on an arrythmia…

Share:

Festival de chant choral de Montréal Oct. 20-22 Now in its second year, Montreal’s Festival de chant choral brings back many of last year’s participants while encouraging all interested choristers and lovers of French choral singing to partake in its activities. The invited choirmaster for this upcoming edition, held under the auspices of the Alliance chorale du Québec, will be Monique Richard, an active promoter of choral music in New Brunswick’s Acadia region. While its programming is primarily geared toward music from living composers, the festival offers more than just performances; workshops and panel discussions revolving around a new yearly…

Share:

Opéra de Montréal presents Mozart’s La nozze de Figaro Opera de Montréal begins its new season at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier on Sept. 23 with an eight-day run of Mozart’s masterpiece La nozze de Figaro. Drawing on the writings of Pierre Beaumarchais and composed a decade before the French Revolution, the opera was censored at first due to the scandalous depictions of the aristocracy. A cornerstone of the Mozartian canon, it exhibits both dramatic intensity and comical relief in certain scenes. Figaro, incidentally, marked the first collaboration between the composer and the talented librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte who, soon after this joint…

Share:

Place des Arts  This season’s Place des Arts program includes a concert by Italian singer Gigi D’Alessio on Oct. 6 at Théâtre Maisonneuve. On Oct. 8, Iranian pop singer/songwriter Shahram Shabpareh presents The Last Tango at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier. On Nov. 12, the same venue welcomes Iranian artist Alireza Ghorbani, successor to Mohammad Reza Shajarian, the great master of classical Persian singing.  Don’t miss the TEMPÉO Danse et Musique festival, on the Esplanade, from Sept. 14-16 and 21-23. Hosted by Philippe Fehmiu, it will consist of six festive evenings of dance, offering an introduction to different dance styles. The Bollywood music…

Share:
1 38 39 40 41 42 43