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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...
(Continue reading)By Michael Vincent on January 30, 2015
A lot of people talk about how lucky we are to have a boutique orchestra devoted to the performance of contemporary work. And we are. The problem is, Esprit Orchestra only produces four concert per season and, by those numbers, there is a lot riding on every show...
(Continue reading)By Michael Vincent on January 23, 2015
Over the last quarter-century, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra has enjoyed the kind of PR that other arts organizations can only dream of. But to compare it with other orchestras is unfair, or is it?
(Continue reading)By Menon Dwarka on January 23, 2015
The Afiara Quartet has one of those reputations that immediately make them suspect. There’s an almost universal stamp of approval for what they do, from festival, schools, and various other cultural institutions, that one might suspect them of being little more than masters of political machinations...
(Continue reading)By Colin Eatock on January 21, 2015
Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer is more than four decades older than the young Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov – but they saw eye-to-eye in their Thursday evening recital at Koerner Hall. The varied program started well, and only got better when the duo was joined by cellist Giedre Dirvanauskaite...
(Continue reading)By Michael Vincent on January 17, 2015
There may have been no birthday cake served for Mozart’s party on Thursday night, but patrons at Roy Thomson Hall were treated to fulsome cuisine, complete with one serenade, one piano concerto, one sonata and, for dessert (flambéed, of course), a symphony...
(Continue reading)By Lev Bratishenko on December 7, 2014
How do you bring a 188-member orchestra and chorus, their equipment and a dozen soloists from Italy to North America? You buy a ship, crew it, and like the Ark, stock two of every musician. Half will be eaten on the journey. Though historical precedents suggest it may be unsustainable, such extravagance was worth it. To the families of the eaten: we salute you. William Tell was a triumph.
(Continue reading)By Michael Vincent on November 24, 2014
What do you get when you combine one of the world’s great violin virtuosos with a string orchestra of young green hopefuls? A masterclass for certain, but how on earth were they going to keep up? Since 1997, Anne-Sophie Mutter has been dedicated to fostering the Mutter Virtuosi, a small string orchestra formed as a way to give real-world performance experience to young hand picked players from the Mutter Foundation. Guided by Ms. Mutter, the idea is to give them a taste of what it means to tour, and perform in some of the world’s finest concert halls.
(Continue reading)By Michael Vincent on November 14, 2014
A symphony concert featuring Beethoven and Mozart is as regular as regular gets. But when you combine it with the young piano dynamo Jan Lisiecki, visiting Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard and clinch it with Carl Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony, you have something much more interesting.
(Continue reading)By Robin Elliott on November 14, 2014
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