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Editorial (November 2024)

By Wah Keung Chan on 9 November 2024 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, Education

Welcome to the November/December/January national issue of La Scena Musicale, which features our annual special on Higher Education. This is also a special issue on Early Music and Baroque, a focus we began with our November 2018 issue dedicated to this fascinating period. Our French cover features harpsichordist, singer and dancer Dorothéa Ventura, the newly-minted artistic director of Montreal’s Les Idées heureuses, taking over from retired founding director Geneviève Soly who is also profiled. From the West Coast, our English cover artist is soprano Suzie LeBlanc, who heads up Early Music Vancouver. Our themed issue also shines a light on…

Dorothéa Ventura. Photo: Tam Photography

Dorothéa Ventura : At the Crossroads

By Justin Bernard on 8 November 2024 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Interviews, Piano, Vocal

Dorothéa Ventura knows how to do almost everything: dance, act, sing, conduct. The versatility of this artist is such that today she is employed as a harpsichordist, soprano, dancer and actress—and sometimes does double or triple duty! Her preferred repertoire, however, remains Baroque music. Meet the woman who has taken over the reins of Les Idées heureuses, succeeding the ensemble’s founder, Geneviève Soly, as artistic director. Snowy wedding, happy marriage Dorothéa Ventura remembers the first concert of Year 1—38 years ago, in the middle of a snowstorm. “At the time, I was Geneviève Soly’s harpsichord student. She introduced me to…

Geneviève Soly. Photo: Robert Etcheverry.

Geneviève Soly: Looking back at an outstanding musical career

By Viktor Lazarov on 8 November 2024 Baroque and Early, Interviews, Piano

Surrounded by her books, her harpsichord, and furniture dating back to New France, the founder of Les Idées heureuses and specialist of the works of Christoph Graupner, Geneviève Soly, reviews her musical career. People of the soil, music in their hearts “I come from a farming family,” she says. “My ancestors were profoundly musical people and like many country families in Quebec, everyone sang.” Growing up with her twin sister Isolde and brother Éric, her family wasn’t typical of the 1950s and ’60s. Their father, Bernard Lagacé, taught the organ at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal (CMM) and their…

Francis Colpron. Photo: Hugo B. Lefort

Les Boréades: The Age of Reason

By Justin Bernard on 8 November 2024 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music

Composers of Western music have long been torn between two contradictory forces: order and reason on the one hand and passion on the other. At their concert on Nov. 28, Les Boréades de Montréal will choose to side with reason, says Artistic Director Francis Colpron. “On this occasion, I’d like to demonstrate a rather rational, almost scientific, approach to the art of music to convince people that music is a universal language—a product of human genius and, therefore, a science. It’s about understanding that sometimes this language can be obtuse, expansive, hermetic, scholarly. In any case, what’s important to remember…

Crédit photo: David Mendoza Hélaine

Les Violons du Roy: 40 Years of Musical History

By Justin Bernard on 8 November 2024 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Romantic

The 2024-25 season marks the 40th anniversary of Les Violons du Roy. Founded by Bernard Labadie in 1984, the Quebec City chamber orchestra first made a name for itself with concerts and recordings of Baroque repertoire, before tackling a whole range of works from different eras—from classical to contemporary to Romantic—over the past few decades. The programming of this new season is a tribute to the diversity of the ensemble’s repertoire. Les Violons du Roy opened its current season with Mozart quartets and quintets. Next came Bach cantatas with countertenor Hugh Cutting, followed by a touring Handel program with the…

Musica Pacifica. Photo credit: Claudine Jacques

Review | Musica Pacifica – Rockstars of Early Flemish Music

By Heather Weinreb on 1 November 2024 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, Concert Reviews

On October 23, 2024, the stage of Bourgie Hall was graced with the presence of one of America’s premiere baroque ensembles, Musica Pacifica, which presented a repertoire of music from the 14th-17th century Dutch provinces. The music by the night’s composers —Tarquinio Merula, Jacob van Eyck, Nicolaus À Kempis, Jan Pierterszoon Sweelinck, Bernardino Borlasca, Johannes Schenk, Philippus van Wichel, Carolus Hacquart, Cornelis Kist and Johann Jakob Walther — is largely unknown, even by early music aficionados. Judith Lindsberg (recorder) and Alexa Haynes-Pilon (viola da gamba) are the core members of Musica Pacifica. For their Montreal premiere, they were joined by…

Ensemble Scholastica Invites Montrealers to Discover Our City’s Hidden Medieval Treasures!

By Newswire on 21 October 2024 Baroque and Early

Montréal, October 21, 2024 – Ensemble Scholastica is pleased to announce its upcoming concert McGill’s Special Collections. The concert offers its audience the chance to discover Montréal’s hidden medieval treasures and will be held on Sunday, November 10 at 7:30 p.m. at the Notre Dame de Bon Secours Chapel. Musical notation was first elaborated in Europe during the early Middle Ages. It continued to develop throughout the period to reflect the increasingly sophisticated musical tastes and skills of medieval musicians, composers, and scribes. Their legacy to the modern world is both a universal method of notating music and an immense collection of manuscripts that provide a record…

Photo: Grégoire Mabit

Les Idées Heureuses | In the Name of the Rose: Traditional Songs and Medieval Chants

By Viktor Lazarov on 8 October 2024 Baroque and Early

More than 30 years ago, in a small apartment located in the heart of Montreal’s iconic bohemian quarter, the Plateau-Mont-Royal, three young musicians gathered around a spinet (i.e. a small harpsichord) and an ice cream to rehearse a piece by M.-A. Charpentier (1643–1704). The fortuitous meeting of Dorothéa Ventura and Jean-François Daignault within this small group sparked a friendship and collaboration that would leave an indelible mark on the Canadian and Quebec early-music scene. Co-founders of the Alkemia Ensemble with vocalist Ghislaine Deschambault in 2002, Ventura and Daignault have since worked on numerous projects amid several Baroque and early music…

La Route des concerts: Paving the Way for Regional Presenters

By Justin Bernard on 8 October 2024 Baroque and Early, Interviews, La Scena Spotlight

Established in 2022, La Route des concerts continues to expand. It now welcomes an increasing number of partners into its network of concert halls across the province and has caught the eye of established musical institutions. Chantal Boulanger, organist and project co-ordinator, admits being surprised by this inexhaustible resource. “We have come to realize that there are many small classical music presenters who are unknown,”she says. “I’m still discovering them, even after working in the field for a long time. By bringing them together, we provide more visibility. “Shortly after we started in Estrie, Laurentides, Beauce-Appalaches, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, and Côte-Nord have…

Toronto Consort: Ensemble Members & Scholars. Photo: Aleksandar Antonijevic

Toronto Consort Appoints Dame Emma Kirkby as First-Ever Honorary Patron and Daniel Taylor O.C. as new Artistic and General Director

By Newswire on 25 September 2024 Baroque and Early, Newswire, Toronto

Toronto, ON, September 25, 2024 – Heather Turnbull, President of the Board, The Toronto Consort, today announced the appointment of Daniel Taylor, O.C. as the company’s new General and Artistic Director, Dame Emma Kirkby as the Consort’s first-ever Honorary Patron, and the launch of the Consort’s 2024-2025 Season: BLESSED LIGHT – BLESSED ECHO. The Consort’s five-concert season kicks off on October 11. Visit TorontoConsort.org for more details. “This is an extraordinary moment in the history of The Toronto Consort,” said Turnbull. “Daniel Taylor is a beloved Canadian singer, a leading figure in the field of opera and early music, and noted…

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