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Welcome to La Scena Musicale’s weekly Highlights, a roundup of classical music news from Canada and beyond. With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, musicians are readying their hearts for a series of romantic shows. The TSO is also celebrating the Lunar New Year, and Hindi music is gaining traction, meaning India may soon surpass the U.S. for the most amount of music streams in a year.
Musicians Open Their Hearts for Valentine’s Day
As part of its annual Singing Valentines program, La Scena Musicale is looking for singers willing to perform 5-10 free serenades for seniors. Artists will also receive 50 per cent of the revenue from other performances, which cost between $30 to $120. More details are available on the Google Forms.
Soprano Myriam Leblanc is revisiting 800 years of love on her Feb. 2 album, Amour fou, for Valentine’s Day. Featured artists include soprano and baroque guitarist Ellen Torrie and Ensemble Mirabilia.
Catch Candlelight’s first orchestra performance in Ottawa (Secret Ottawa), featuring timeless love songs performed by the FILMharmonic Orchestra, at Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre on Feb. 8.
Orchestre Classique de Montréal is hosting a Valentine’s Day Benefit Gala called Chocolat et chants d’amour on Feb. 13. After an hour of chocolate and wine tasting, violinist Marc Djokic will perform alongside sopranos Élizabeth St-Gelais and Sharon Azrieli, and a handful of OCM musicians. Tickets are $600 a person.
The NAC’s “Valentine’s Playlist” will star mezzo soprano Wallis Giunta performing romantic works by Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, as well as from Kurt Weill’s romantic comedy One Touch of Venus.
Recent and Upcoming Shows
Toronto Symphony Orchestra is celebrating the Year of the Dragon with a Feb. 13 show featuring conductor Naomi Woo, violinist Timothy Chooi, pianist Eric Guo, and guqin player Zhao Xiaoxia. It also includes a performance by the Chinese Collective Arts Association’s dance company.
Recordings and Debuts
Marie-Gabrielle Ménard has released the seventh and final episode of her audio show FAIRE CORPS, where she interviews seven Quebec choreographers. This episode features choreographer of 30 years Manon Oligny.
For its first concert of the year, the Orchestre Classique de Montréal is featuring violinist Tara-Louise Montour in a program entitled “Phoenix”. It’s the first time the titular piano concerto, composed by Louis Babin, is being performed in North America.
Quebec singer-songwriter Etienne Dufresne is releasing his second album (Le Devoir), Etienne Dufresne fait des efforts, on Jan. 26. Where Dufresne says his previous work was composed for the most part using a computer, this album sees him exploring the possibilities of acoustic guitar.
Classical, Orchestra and Ensemble News
Based on a new report by Bachtrack, compositions made by living composers made up around 20 per cent of works in surveyed 2023 U.S. concert programs. This also means an increase in female representation in classical music. Ludwig Van has explored this report in depth in a recent article, providing several other discoveries of note.
Maestro, the biopic about Leonard Bernstein directed by Bradley Cooper, was nominated for seven Academy Awards (Opera Wire). Categories include Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture, and Best Screenplay.
Screenshot from the Maestro trailer
Krzysztof Urbański will start as the new artistic director for Warsaw Philharmonic (Opera Wire) in the 2024-25 season.
Opera and Choral News
Courtney Lewis, who set to conduct the last three Opéra de Paris performances of “The Exterminating Angel,” will instead be replaced by Robert Houssart (Opera Wire), the Royal Danish Opera’s resident conductor.
The first principal guest conductor of Opera Omaha (Opera Wire) will be Steven White, who has previously conducted seven pieces with the company.
Instrument News
“At 99, Ruth Slenczynska embodies a living history of classical piano music,” writes Michael Vincent of Ludwig Van. “As the last surviving pupil of Sergei Rachmaninov, her fingers have not only danced over the keys under the watchful eye of the maestro himself but have continued to inspire and move audiences across the globe.”
Business and Politics in the Arts
Hindi music is on the rise on streaming platforms, in line with the decreasing popularity of English language music over the last two years, according to a Luminate report analyzed by Music Business Worldwide. At a total of one trillion music streams, India has the second most total streams of any country, and they’re closing in on the U.S. (1.45 trillion streams) for first.
Music journalism is collapsing, Ted Gioia suggests in a column on Substack, but it’s only a symptom of a larger problem: music producers and distributors don’t pay enough attention to new music, despite how much listeners want it.
Apple Music
Spatial Audio recordings on Apple Music will receive up to 10 per cent more royalties (Music Business Worldwide).
Grammy award-winning American violinist Hilary Hahn, as well as saxophonist Steven Banks, pianist Jonathan Biss, and conductor Jessica Cottis, have joined artist management agency KD SCHMID.
Obituary
Laurie Johnson (Variety), composer for Dr. Strangelove and the 1960s British spy show The Avengers, died in his sleep at the age of 96 on Jan. 16.
That same day, composer Peter Schickele, known for his alter ego P.D.Q. Bach (Ludwig Van), died at 88.
Former concertmaster for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and US violinist Sidney Weiss “was 95 years old and toured extensively with his pianist wife, Jeanne Weiss,” writes The Strad.
Opera choreographer Eleanor Henta Fazan (Opera Wire), known for her work with London’s Royal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, died at 93.
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