By Tyler Versluis on October 29, 2015
The annual TSO reading is always fascinating to witness, a twofold joy of hearing a new piece being brought to life and seeing the efficient artistry of a world-class musical ensemble.
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By Tyler Versluis on October 9, 2015
Esprit Orchestra unleashed their 33rd season Sunday evening at Koerner Hall with a strong, colourful programme of works by Di Castri, Adès, Daniel and Widmann, generating a sparkle of intrigue for the resilient new music orchestra’s 2015-16 ventures.
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By Tyler Versluis on June 11, 2015
The Thin Edge New Music Collective is a young-ish contemporary music ensemble regularly engaged in promoting young and emerging artists in Toronto. Thin Edge’s final concert on June 12th, Premieres IV, features newly commissioned music by four young composers, Annie Hui-Hsien Hsieh, Colin Labadie, Sophie Dupuis and Jenny Beck. We asked co-artistic directors Cheryl Duvall and Ilana Waniuk a few questions about the exciting and often challenging processes involved with featuring new music.
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By Tyler Versluis on April 12, 2015
"Professor Bad Trip" – Difficult to perform, difficult to love and impossible to ignore.
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By Tyler Versluis on March 6, 2015
March is the month for Toronto’s new music warhorses, with our concert recommendations coming from New Music Concerts, Tapestry Opera and Continuum Contemporary music. From the intrigue of unusual collaborations- including unusual percussion and organ group Duo Szathmáry/Tzschoppe and “opera singer/DJ” pairing Carla Huhtanen and Nicole Lizée, to the 30th anniversary concert of Continuum Music, this month’s concert recommendations celebrates both the unfamiliar and the established in Toronto’s new music community, as well as one lone pianist who communicates with her fists and arms rather than her fingers...
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By Tyler Versluis on February 18, 2015
From his irreverent early work with Bang on a Can in the late 1980’s, to his more recent appointment as professor of composition at Yale University, David Lang juggles a dual role as an iconoclast and respected new music figure...
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By Tyler Versluis on February 5, 2015
The month of February provides a handful of new music experiences to beat the cold weather. Three out of four concert recommendations involve out-of-town ensembles, while jazz-contemporary classical group Spectrum Music gives us an opportunity to contemplate the cosmos- anything to distract Torontonians from trudging through rivers of grey slush on our way to a TTC stop...
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By Tyler Versluis on January 30, 2015
In general, I find the best concert-going experiences are when not only the music is excellent but when the experience delivers a revelation. A presumptuous attitude, perhaps, but I feel this is what divides an entertaining experience from an artistic one...
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By Tyler Versluis on January 19, 2015
Last week the Canadian Opera Company revealed a surprising series of commissions from Canadian composers: Barbara Monk Feldman’s Pyramus and Thisbe paired with Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento de Tancredi e Clorinda and Lamento d’Arianna in October and November 2015, Harry Somers’ monumental opera Louis Riel for the 2017-2018 season, and finally a new opera by Serbian-Canadian composer Ana Sokolović for the 2019-20 season...
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By Tyler Versluis on January 8, 2015
January starts off slow with contemporary music features, but by the end of the month we’re rolling with a handful of exciting experiences. January’s concert recommendations include orchestra concerts, intimate solo recitals, an amassing army of flutes, and Cellophone(?!)...
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