Baroque and Early - my/maSCENA

Giovanni Giornovich: London concertos (Delphian)

By Norman Lebrecht on 16 March 2019 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

At first hearing, these three violin concertos dated 1790 sound like Haydn. The second of them could even be Mozart if we didn’t know that Mozart only wrote five concertos and these are numbered 13 to 15. So who was Giornovich if he could write so well, and why have we never heard this music before, given that this is a world premiere recording? Giornovich was, if nothing else, well connected, A Croat whose name has at least 30 misspellings, he was raised in Palermo and became a French citizen because it was the best passport to hold in those…

4th Annual Toronto Bach Festival Offers The Best in Baroque

By Newswire on 4 March 2019 Baroque and Early, Newswire

Bach Specialist, Harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour makes Festival Debut Two concerts directed by Artistic Director John Abberger Vocal Soloists Hélène Brunet, Daniel Taylor, Lawrence Wiliford, Joel Allison Instrumental Virtuosi: violinist Julia Wedman, cellist Elinor Frey, flutist Alison Melville, oboist John Abberger The Toronto Bach Festival Singers and Orchestra New Canadian Music for Baroque Cello Free Lecture by Noted Bach Scholar and Author Ellen Exner “Toronto is fortunate to be home to brilliant period music performers, such as those participating in the Toronto Bach Festival.” – Toronto Concert Reviews, 2018 “Seventy per cent of Bach’s music is unknown to the average music…

Credit: Cylla von Tiedemann

Old meets new as Tafelmusik unveils 2019/20 Season

By Newswire on 12 February 2019 Baroque and Early, Newswire

Tchaikovsky on period instruments Elisa Citterio’s new orchestral arrangement of Bach’s Goldberg Variations Six new commissions by living composers The Indigo Project, Alison Mackay’s new multimedia program Christmas program with Vesuvius Ensemble Europe tour with soprano Karina Gauvin Elisa Citterio’s debut Tafelmusik recording Toronto, February 12, 2019… Today Music Director Elisa Citterio unveiled Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s 2019/20 season, which highlights the freshness and vigour at the heart of everything Tafelmusik undertakes. Old meets new in unprecedented ways, including Tafelmusik’s first-ever foray into the music of the late Romantic composer Tchaikovsky, a new multimedia program by Alison Mackay, the return of…

Tafelmusik Announces New Executive Director Carol Kehoe

By Newswire on 14 November 2018 Arts Industry, Baroque and Early, Canadian Music, Newswire

Toronto, November 13, 2018 … David Kilburn, Chair of the Board of Directors of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, is pleased to announce the appointment of Carol Kehoe to the position of Executive Director. Ms. Kehoe is an accomplished leader with more than 25 years of management experience at senior levels, most recently as the Executive Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, where she led the organization through an impressive financial turnaround. Carol came to Tafelmusik in August as Interim Executive Director and will transition to her permanent role immediately. “We are delighted to have Carol join Tafelmusik as…

Baroque Opera and the Harpsichord

By Luc Beauséjour on 5 November 2018 Baroque and Early

My maternal grandmother introduced the sound of the harpsichord into our home. When I was still a child, she gave us records and her turntable. In quick succession, I discovered Bach’s Fourth and Fifth Brandenburg Concertos and, not long after, his famous Toccata in D minor for organ – preludes to my first listening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It was only much later, during a stay at the music camp founded by Father Lindsay, that I first laid my eyes on a harpsichord. We young campers were learning about musical history in a modest chalet nicknamed the Sorbonne – it…

Baroque Montreal: A Scene to Reckon with

By Olivier Brault on 5 November 2018 Baroque and Early, Violin

In a little less than 50 years, Montreal’s Baroque music scene has produced a steady flow of activities. It has delighted itself by mining the past and taking cues from many a fine role model. Initiatives are so numerous that the scene is now bursting at the seams while consolidating its reputation as one of the best of its kind on the continent. I have come to this conclusion in my travels as violin solo of the Cleveland-based Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra. While Montreal may be far removed from the European soil that gave rise to this age-old music tradition,…

Baroque Passion

By Mélisande Corriveau on 5 November 2018 Baroque and Early

Baroque music, in my view, addresses the passions of humanity. In its heyday, it was a music of sophistication, elegance and exuberance, its essence profoundly humane. Those who expressed themselves through this medium were craftsmen who influenced its development, each honing his abilities according to whims and inspirations. As a genre, Baroque music is coded. There are certain ground rules, to be sure, but they are neither stringent nor imposing, simply understated. They constitute more of a framework for performers to engage with others with increased spontaneity and creative input. Ornamentation, dynamics, agogics, tempo, even the instrumentations themselves, are left…

Hank Knox, claveciniste

Hank Knox: The Paradox of Baroque Music

By Carol Xiong on 5 November 2018 Baroque and Early

One might assume a leading expert on Early Music to be esoteric. Hank Knox shatters this assumption. An entire side of Knox’s McGill University office is plastered with what he calls his “wall of shame,” posters of productions of students and himself, that by the looks of it, he had thumbtacked organically through the years on wherever there was still space. Knox has been director of the Early Music Program at McGill’s Schulich School of Music for more than 20 years. He is godfather of the school’s Cappella Antica (which is now directed by Grammy-award winning soprano Suzie LeBlanc) as well…

Soprano Hyunah Yu in the middle, flanked by players from Piffaro and Prism, at the premiere of “The Anchoress” at the Kimmel Center (Philadelphia); photo by Pete Checchia/Philadelphia Chamber Music Society

“The Anchoress” – Songs of a Soul in Solitude

By Charles Geyer on 4 November 2018 Art Song, Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Classical, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Experimental Jazz, Interviews, La Scena Online, Music Competition, Musical Theatre, Opera, Theatre, Vocal, World Music

REVIEW: of The Anchoress, a world premiere of a new musical monodrama/song cycle composed by David Serkin Ludwig with text by Katie Ford, performed by soprano Hyunah Yu, accompanied by saxophone quartet PRISM and ancient-instrument ensemble Piffaro; on Wednesday, October 17, at the Perelman Theatre of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, and on Thursday, October 18, at New York City’s DiMenna Center for Classical Music (the latter performance reviewed here); and INTERVIEWS: with composer David Ludwig and poet Katie Ford. The impulse to retreat from the world in search of spiritual insight or purity has manifested throughout human history. Twenty-one centuries of Christianity…

Photo : Simone Poltronieri

Anne Azéma, A Devotion to Medieval Music

By Benjamin Goron on 31 October 2018 Baroque and Early

In a career spanning 30 years, soprano Anne Azéma has been one of the most significant figures in medieval music. As artistic director of the Boston Camerata, this singer and musicologist brings passion and rigour to her mission of promoting medieval music. Oct. 13: In the intimacy of Westmount Park United Church, Azéma shares a special moment with the audience. Alone, she sings stories of a past that resonates within us like the echo of renewed universal emotion. La Dolce chose plunges us into songs from 1200 to 1400, focusing on feminine figures. “We find the usual themes of medieval…

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