New Wave Festival, presented by the Esprit Orchestra, Wednesday night at the TD Music Hall. Works by Roydon Tse, Salvatore Sciarrino, Sophie Dupuis, Chris Paul Harman, Claude Vivier, Akira Nishimura. Mark Fewer, violin. Alex Pauk, conductor.
Some rooms enhance the concert experience. Others get out of the way and let the music speak for itself. I think it is fair to place the TD Music Hall in the second category on the basis of the opening on Wednesday of the Esprit Orchestra’s New Wave Festival.
Adjacent to Massey Hall, this facility is a basic black box with a bar at the back. Officially it accommodates 500 although it is clearly suitable for chamber events attracting a couple of hundred or less. A window at the stage end offers a view of a skyline. This disappears when the curtain is lowered.
Seats are of the stackable office variety. The floor is not raked, so all it takes is one Raptors prospect in front of you to compromise the visual experience. Overhead lighting is studio style and rather harsh (not to mention variable). I was glad I wore a baseball cap. Acoustics are dry, naturally enough, since the venue was designed with amplified pop acts in mind. Balance rather than blending was the order of the day.
Most engaging of three premieres was L’histoire que les vagues racontent by Sophie Dupuis of New Brunswick. Bearing a title that could adorn a newly-discovered movement of La mer, this piece for an ensemble of 14 had something of Debussy’s romantic turbulence, albeit in a more dissonant language. Electronics were effective at the beginning. I wonder if the composer could be persuaded to produce a purely acoustic version. She is certainly an imaginative orchestrator.
The concert began with another premiere, Mobilize by Toronto-based Roydon Tse. Starting with gamelan-flavoured pulsing, it soon went in other directions without establishing a clear trajectory. There was a quirky interlude for piano. According to the composer’s terse program note, the 2019 protests in Hong Kong were a source of inspiration.
Yet another premiere was Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin by Chris Paul Harman, a McGill prof and old friend of Esprit. As the title implies, this was a tribute to Bach, and a relatively orthodox one by new-music standards. Mark Fewer, wearing a mask, played the more athletic of its eight movements with striking virtuosity.
Paradoxically or otherwise, the established composers on the program summoned the more experimental sounds — although two of them, as the keynote speaker John Rea pointed out, wrote the pieces in question in their twenties. From Claude Vivier (1948-83) came Pulau Dewata (1977) in Rea’s time-tested orchestration. This great Canadian was certainly a master of the art of sounding spontaneous. Coordination under the baton of Alex Pauk was excellent. Perhaps the wildest scores need the most careful preparation.
To end the evening a sextet of percussionists gave vent to Kecak, a 1979 evocation by Akira Nishimura (now 69) of the Balinese dance drama known as the monkey chant. The music was as much vocalized as played. Fierce shouts competed with pounding drums (including timpani) for our attention, to thrilling effect.
With the exception of a brief pop tune that had no business on the program, the above selections clocked in at 11 or 12 minutes. Estimating the number of musicians on stage is difficult when the view is limited. Esprit could do worse than to list the instrumentation of each piece, even in shorthand.
The second instalment of the festival takes place Sunday at 7 p.m. in the TD Music Hall. On tap are works by Misato Mochizuki, Julius Eastman, Andrew Staniland, Julia Mermelstein and Stephanie Orlando. Esprit returns to Koerner Hall on April 23 for a program including Max Richter’s The Four Seasons Recomposed and John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1. Tickets [HERE].
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.
Sign up for the Ludwig van Daily — classical music and opera in five minutes or less HERE.
- SCRUTINY | Moussa Concerto Sounds Strong In Toronto Symphony Orchestra Premiere, Paired With Playful Don Quixote - April 4, 2024
- SCRUTINY | Esprit Orchestra At Koerner Hall: Ligeti 2, Richter No Score - April 1, 2024
- SCRUTINY | Sibelius & New Cello Concerto By Detlev Glanert Offers A Mixed Bag From The TSO - March 28, 2024
