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By Arthur Kaptainis on February 19, 2015
New Works from East and West was the well-travelled theme of the New Music Concert Saturday at the Betty Oliphant Theatre. You could certainly tell them apart without a program, even if there were some instances of what sounded like cross-hemispheric dialogue...
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on February 15, 2015
San Antonio, Texas | Even part-time Texans like myself (my wife and I have been living part of each year in Austin since 2005) tend to forget that San Antonio is the second largest city in Texas. Houston is No. 1 with about 2.1 million people, but San Antonio is not far behind at 1.3 million. In the latest census, Dallas came in at 1.2 million. Actually, the Dallas-Ft.Worth Metroplex is over 2 million. That said, San Antonio is still one of the largest cities in Texas and growing rapidly...
(Continue reading)By Michael Vincent on February 12, 2015
If art is the decoration of space, then music is the decoration of time. And in mid-February, time can seem as bland as the three-month-old piles of brown-coloured snow at the corner of the driveway, which makes a concert at this time of year particularly decorative...
(Continue reading)By Colin Eatock on February 12, 2015
Jack Diamond isn’t a musician – but he’s been a big influence on the classical music scene in Toronto. Many opera fans will recognize him as the architect of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, where the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada perform...
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on February 12, 2015
Tchaikovsky wrote ten operas, but only two of them, Eugen Onegin and Pique Dame, are performed with any regularity in opera houses outside Russia. His last opera, Iolanta, composed just before the Pathétique symphony, has recently received a good deal of attention, thanks to Anna Netrebko’s interest in it. In addition to being the subject of this new recording starring Netrebko, the opera is currently in production at the Met and will be screened Feb. 14 (encore/Feb. 18) as part of the Met’s Live in HD movie theatre series. Finally, tenor Sergey Skorokhodov will appear in a Dallas Opera production of Iolanta conducted by Emmanuel Villaume (April 10-18)...
(Continue reading)By Lev Bratishenko on February 10, 2015
Wear a down parka to the Met in winter for a Slavic double-bill like Iolanta and Bluebeard’s Castle and you feel like the only caveman too stupid to club a mink. A sweet Russian lady handed me her spare with maternal concern, but if I felt any embarrassment it vanished in the dead animal’s embrace, and people stopped staring...
(Continue reading)By Michael Vincent on February 9, 2015
Despite being billed as a concert by the National Arts Centre Orchestra, it really should have been named the Pinchas Zukerman, Amanda Forsyth and Yefim Bronfman show...
(Continue reading)By Colin Eatock on February 9, 2015
So what was music like in the Austrian court, back in the 1600s? Turns out, it was really quite marvellous – according to the evidence presented in the Toronto Consort’s program at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church on Friday night...
(Continue reading)By Neil Crory on February 2, 2015
On Saturday, January 31, the Canadian Opera Company officially launched the revival of its lauded 2006 production of Richard Wagner's epic Ring Cycle with seven performances of Die Walküre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. The production runs through February 22nd...
(Continue reading)By Robin Roger on February 2, 2015
Presumably, the theme for the Feb 1 Syrinx Chamber Music Concert, “Passion, Possibility, and Pleasure” was chosen to dispel some of the deep winter gloom with which music patrons struggle, including the inertia that makes coming to the concert hall a challenge in itself. Passion is warm, pleasure is consoling and both can make these dark days seem endurable, and the possibility of a better season believable. Gathering in the intimate space of Helicon Hall can further create the sense of a community of like-minded music lovers huddling together to warm their spirits by listening to beautiful expressions of anticipation of brighter and happier days...
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