New Sounds for 2014

Last night’s concert at the Music Gallery, featuring Montreal-based Ensemble Paramirabo, as well as quite a few others, was definitely one of the most interesting concerts I have been to in a long time.

It started with Canadian sound artist and composer Christopher Willes, who has had exhibitions in Finland, New York City, and Toronto, to name a few. The only piece on the first half of the concert was Willes’ immersive Blow/Draw. The performers, and there were many of them, positions themselves around the hall and began to play long sustained tones. I’m told the direction of the piece resulted from following the harmonic series, but I wish I could’ve had a chance to talk to the composer about this piece. It seemed everyone had a different reaction to the piece, given that it was those long notes for almost 45 minutes. I’m not the first to admit that my mind wandered off for a while in the middle of the piece, but, then, maybe that was the point. Different colours, textures, and effect kept appearing, and the overall impression I got was that of the world’s most colourful slinky.

After an intermission, Ensemble Paramirabo stepped up to performer Willes’ Receding Background. A work made of seven miniatures featuring the instruments and electronic sounds via speaker. Most were good, some were fantastic. There was a constant shift in mood between playful, serious, exciting, and back again.

Canadian Scott Rubin’s interestingly titled work the Torn Cubist felt like a piece that progressed from abstraction into something more or less solid. In the later parts of the piece especially, when the music adopted a driving rock and jazz derived set of rhythms, did I feel like this was a piece that I would like to hear again.

Composers Robert Hansler and Rodrigo Bussad had brand new offerings. In the former’s case, a work titled In Every Place, Incense and in the latter’s, Loin.

In Every Place, Incense felt like a piece whose name really fit. It was a great combination of fragility and strength. The musicians seemed to really be in their depth during this piece, and it came out in the music.

Loin was another interesting piece. Perhaps not my favourite sort of work, but it had its definite moments. Roaring at a rapid pace through sections, with dark textures and a fantastic use of the instruments and their less conventional techniques, I would very much like to hear this piece again, as I don’t feel ready to give a complete opinion on it with just one listening.

There were also two Frank Zappa arrangements,  I’m the Slime and Fifty-Fifty,  on the program (arranged very well by Symon Henry). I’m not convinced that they were completely necessary for the concert, and they did stand out a little bit, but I enjoyed them nonetheless, and so did the audience and the performers.

This was my first concert of 2014, and casting aside the fact that I’m pleased to finally get back into things, the concert was enjoyable and a success. A full house with an enthusiastic audience and great performers is great to see, and it’s always nice to see familiar faces.

A final note. A word of advice to the man and woman who were lying spread eagle in the aisle during the concert: Don’t. It’s incredibly unbecoming, makes the audience look bad, and makes you look even worse.

Have a good weekend.

– Paolo Griffin

Preview: Week of November 25th

There are three events happening this week. All are worthwhile viewings.

Tuseday November 26th:

7:30 PM: The Toronto Arts & Letter’s Club will be holding a memorial concert for American-born, Canadian composer Larry Lake, who passed away earlier this year. Larry founded Canadian Electronics Ensemble, and worked with the CBC for almost 30 years.

8:00 PM: Music Toronto and Eve Egoyan put on a concert at the Jane Mallet Theatre at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts. The program contains music by Americans James Tenney, Piers Hellawell, and Linda C. Smith (who is based out of Toronto), as well as a work by English composer Michael Finnissy.

Thursday November 28th:

7:00 PM: The Canadian Music Centre’s yearly project ‘New Music for Young Musicians’  comes to a head with this concert; Featuring works by Canadian composers chosen to write educational new works for young musicians. Also sharing the stage for this concert is Toronto-based composer/pianist Heather Schmidt and cellist Shauna Rolston who will be launching their new Centrediscs CD ‘Icicles of Fire’. Works by Schmidt, Nick Storring, Patrick Horn, Darlene Chepil Reid, and Monica Pierce will be played.

– Paolo Griffin

Review: Sherkin & Britten Explore America

With a name like ‘Britten’s America’, I would have thought that Adam Sherkin’s concert would have had more music by Britten. Instead, we were treated to a look at the music of composers whose life intersected with Britten’s.I’m not really complaining about this – It was a great concert, filled with lively music.

Britten’s America looked at Britten’s visit 1934 visit to Canada and eventual visit to the United States. While in Canada, he toured Ontario and Quebec, finishing a work for piano: Holiday Diary op. 5 (1934). His trip to the United States in 1939 brought him into contact with Aaron Copland, a man who had a lasting impact on Britten, as well as with Colin McPhee, the Canadian ex-pat who had recently returned from Bali, bringing with him transcriptions of traditional Balinese music.

Sherkin’s concert opened with Britten’s Holiday Diary. A light and enjoyable work, fraught with imagery of his travels in Canada. Sherkin pulled of the work with style. The piece has its moments of virtuosity, and it was impressive to see Sherkin work with the material so well.

Also included in the program were American composer Aaron Copland’s Piano Sonata (1939-1941) and Colin McPhee’s Four Balinese Transcriptions (1934), arranged for solo piano by Sherkin.

Written in a standard sonata form, the Piano Sonata work is filled with both Copland’s characteristic wit, and his penchant for more serious fare. The voicing in this piece is particularly difficult. Having heard it in concert a number of times, I can say that much of the piece depends on how much attention you pay to each voice and their individual lines.

The Four Balinese Transcriptions were a  surprising pleasure to listen to. As the name suggests, the four movements of the work come from a set of transcriptions McPhee did in Bali during his seven year residency there. If you listen closely and pay attention, you can hear music that leaves no doubt that Colin McPhee was a precursor to the American Minimalists of the 1960’s and 70’s. This music had the repetitive, bright quality that many minimalist pieces have, and, despite the fact that much of the material is reused, it never grew old.

Sherkin also included two of his own works of the program. Northern Frames (2010 rev. 2013) and Ink from the Shield (2013). Both of these were very well written, however my favourite piece of the night was Ink from the Shield. Northern Frames – a companion piece to an earlier set of music for toy piano – was a calm and relaxing look at constellation that only we in the Northern Hemisphere are able to see. It was calm, at least, until the final movement (Draco – The Dragon), when the music burst into bombastic rhythm that jolted me out (perhaps a little too fast), of my previous relaxed feeling.

Ink from the Shield was a virtuosic tribute to Britten’s travels through the Canadian Shield that explored his time here and more. Written in four parts, played consecutively, this piece brought together the harmonic and melodic richness with which we often associate Britten, and Sherkin’s apparent penchant for fast, intense, rhythmic passages. The last few minutes of the work especially, zeroed in my attention on Sherkin’s skill as a pianist and the quality of the piano music he writes.

This was the sort of concert I enjoyed going to. Not just due to the quality of the music, but because this music was never too serious. New music concerts (and often classical music concerts as well) often get a bad reputation by those outside of the community of being too stuffy. This concert was not that. It was a good balance between serious and fun; and that’s what the new music scene needs more of.

– Paolo Griffin

Preview: Weekend of November 15th

I’m quite excited for this weekend’s music. There are two concerts happening, one on Saturday evening, and one on Sunday evening.

Saturday November 16th: 

Adam Sherkin – Pianist & Composer

Britten’s America: Toronto composer and pianist Adam Sherkin opens the first of a three concert series exploring the music of 20th century composer Benjamin Britten. An all-piano program, consisting of some of Britten’s early music, two works by Sherkin himself, including a world premiere. Also on the program are Aaron Copland’s Piano Sonata (1941) and Canadian composer (and ethnomusicologist) Colin McPhee’s Balinese Transcriptions (1934).

The concert begins at 8 PM at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, with a 7:15 pre-concert chat.

Sunday November 17th:

Esprit puts on their second concert of the season alongside the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan. Music by Alex Pauk, Lou Harrison, Chan Ka Nin, Andre Ristic, and Claude Vivier are on the program, as well as a premiere by Spanish-born, Canadian composer Jose Evanglista.

The concert begins at 8:00 PM in Koerner Hall, with a 7:15 PM pre-concert chat.

What are you waiting for? Go see some music!

Review: Music & Drinks on the 13th.

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending the ‘On the 13th’ Piano Series at the CMC. The series, which started earlier this year, pairs a short concert (usually lasting just under an  hour), with wine or beer tasting and occurs on the 13th day of every month. This week, the 13th Street series hosted the junctQín Keyboard Collective and the Junction Craft Brewery.  junctQín is one of those exciting ensembles that not only consists of an instrumentation not normally found (in this case, three keyboard players), but also has a knack from programming thoroughly entertaining Canadian music. Consisting of Elaine Lau, Joseph Ferretti, and Stephanie Chua, the group is celebrating their fifth year together, and last night, they performed  four works that occupied the spaces of serious and fun music: Aaron Gervais’ Disney Princess Disasters (2011) (2nd movement: The Little Mermaid), Alex Eddington’s Grasslands, Badlands, Spirit Sands (2013), a series of movement for the piano that, according to the composer, is ever expanding. Toy Piano Composer Monica Pierce also had an offering: it plays (because it plays) (2013), and Alfred Schnittke’s Homage à Stravinksy, Prokofiev, & Shostakovich (1979). 

Gervais, a composer with a great deal of international experience (receiving schooling at the Hague Conservatory, and in San Diego), is a composer whose music I have always enjoyed, mainly because it eschews the normal dry seriousness of a lot of contemporary music and wanders into the part of town where music doesn’t take itself too seriously. This piece offered exactly that. Disney Princess Disasters retells the story’s (by way of narrator) of the Disney princesses with a twist. In this case, the Little Mermaid. Long, flowing lines of music, with just the right about of dissonance for the situation, along with a few squeak toys (yes, squeak toys), resulted in a very charming piece of music. Any child would love it, I think, and it had all the adults in the concert space chuckling with amusement too.

Eddington’s Grasslands, Badlands, Spirit Sands, was written while the composer (who also acts in theatre), was on a theatre tour through the prairie’s of Canada. He said that the tour took him up to different places (different than the more commonly seen ‘flat’ sections of the prairies anyway), and so it inspired him to write a  piece.  Dogtown, the first movement,  was an homage of sorts to a prairie dog colony. The piano was paired with a recording of a prairie dog colony, and the result was an incredibly busy piece, where lines melted into each other and sometimes, all you could hear was the sound. Big Muddy and Devil’s Punchbowl, the second and third movements, followed a similar pattern, though, without the recording. Both were very compelling movements that contained wave after wave of sound through lines in the lower register of the piano. Devil’s Punchbowl I enjoyed in particular.

Monica Pierece’s it plays (because it plays), was to me, the highlight of the night. It had all those moments you look for in music. It was energetic, rhythmic, a lot of fun, but it had sections that were sweet, almost sorrowful. I wouldn’t mind hearing this piece again. The Schnittke had a similar feeling to sections of it plays, especially in the area of rhythm. Combining the three styles of these three great Russian composers, this work was fast, fun, and incredibly difficult.

Get out to one of these concerts. Their odd time space (5:30 PM-6:30 PM) actually benefits them, as most people listen to the music, stick around for a drink and to mingle, and then head off to another engagement. It’s also worth going for the music, and, of course, for the drinks.

– Paolo Griffin

Preview: A Busy Weekend for Music in Toronto.

This is a busy weekend for all those interested in music in Toronto.

In addition to the usual Thanksgiving/holiday feasting, there is also a plethora of concerts for listeners to feast on.

Concert weekend kicks off on Friday, with the X Avante New Music Festival returning to the Music Gallery with three nights of great music. Friday offers Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (1913) as reimagined by Montreal-based group Quartetski. Their Rite will feature a smaller, more diverse instrument group, as well as some improvisation and general re-working of the original piece. Having just seen the Marinksy Orchestra play Rite of Spring this past Sunday, I’m looking forward to hearing what Quartetski has come up with.

On Saturday, there is a concert double header. At 6 PM, the X Avante Festival continues at the Music Gallery with the Flux Quartet performing Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2 (1983). Those familiar with the work of Feldman will recall that this particular piece is a whopping six hours long. This piece was first premiered by the Kronos Quartet in the fall of 1983 on CBC radio. It outlasted its two-hour radio spot and pre-empted the national news before finishing just before the stations blackout period at 1 AM. In addition to the music, there will be various rooms to hang around in, as no one expects you to sit through a whole six hour piece. There will be a relaxing room and a video game room, as well as food vendors on site. OCADU is also offering some of its space, and its students will be showing work as well. If you feel like a 6 hour party, come out to this event.

The second concert on Saturday begins at 8 PM at Gallery 345. The Toy Piano Composers are a composer/musician collective who make it their aim to create fun, livley music for people to listen to. This is their 5th anniversary concert, and it will consist of re-worked favourite from past seasons. Special guests junctQin keyboard collective join them for a great night of music.

Finally, on Sunday the X Avante New Music Festival ends with a presentation of music by Charlemagne Palestine, a contemporary of the American minimalist school’s practitioner’s in the 1960’s, but in no way  a minimalist himself. He has described his music as more like “trance music”. Toronto composer Rose Bolton will also be there to present new work.

If you like music at all, and not just new art music, I encourage you to get out this weekend and check out these concerts. No matter what your taste, there really will be something for everyone.

– Paolo Griffin

Tomorrow Night: Going North 2

It’s not often that new music from Latin America makes its way up to Canada, but when it does, I find that I am usually impressed with the quality of it. Hopefully, tomorrow’s concert at the Canadian Music Centre will not break this trend.

Pianist Luciane Cardassi, a pianist in the United States and now Canada, has made it her business to collaborate with composers, and her work since she moved to Canada in 2006 has been nothing short of impressive. Premiering more than 30 works by Canadian composers in her time here, she is an active and valuable participant in the new music scene in Canada.

Tomorrow night’s concert at the Canadian Music Centre continues the trend of new music with several world premiers by Canadian and Brazilian composers. Among them, Emilie LeBel, a prominent Toronto-based composer who was last year’s winner of Canadian Music Centre’s 2012 Toronto Emerging Composer Award as well as the Canadian Federation of University Women Elizabeth Massey Award.

If you get a chance, get out to the CMC at 8 PM tomorrow night to see this concert, as I’m sure it will make for an enjoyable evening.

The Canadian Music Centre is located at 20 St. Joseph Street Toronto, ON.