{"id":116508,"date":"2025-08-05T13:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T17:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=116508"},"modified":"2025-08-05T13:01:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T17:01:27","slug":"scrutiny-lauren-margisons-classical-jazz-concert-showcases-stunning-versatility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2025\/08\/05\/scrutiny-lauren-margisons-classical-jazz-concert-showcases-stunning-versatility\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Lauren Margison\u2019s Classical And Jazz Concert Showcases Her Stunning Versatility"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Soprano
Soprano Lauren Margison (Photo: Valerie Kuinka)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lauren Margison, soprano; Timothy Cheung, piano \/ Jason Jestadt, piano; Tom Jestadt, drums; George Koller, bass; Rob Piltch, guitars. Koerner Hall, August 2, 2025.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Like father like daughter, you say? Absolutely.<\/p>\n

I am referring to celebrated Canadian tenor Richard Margison and his daughter, rising opera soprano Lauren Margison. They both have wonderful operatic voices, combining beauty of tone with hall-filling volume, a surfeit of squillo supported by solid technique and enviable musicality.<\/p>\n

Father Richard, now retired, enjoyed a distinguished international career while his daughter Lauren is following in his footsteps. Equally remarkable is their versatility. Father Richard began as a folksinger-songwriter, singing Gordon Lightfoot tunes in local cafes in his hometown of Victoria BC, before embarking on a big opera career.<\/p>\n

Similarly, daughter Lauren began in folk and jazz. When she was still in high school, she was a member of the jazz group Real Divas. There\u2019s a wonderful video clip of a very young Lauren with her pals in Tea For Two here<\/a>. Now in a full fledged classical career, Lauren Margison continues to include jazz and folk in her performances.<\/p>\n

Lauren Margison<\/h3>\n

I first heard her sing jazz and pop in a noon-hour concert at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, maybe as long as fifteen years ago. I knew nothing about her at that time. I was extremely impressed by her amazing voice and her remarkably idiomatic delivery. If truth be told, with very rare exceptions \u2014 Eileen Farrell comes to mind \u2014 very few classical singers can cross musical genres with such ease.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard her several times in opera, but not in a mixed program like this one. Luckily I was invited by Adrianne Pieczonka to attend this concert at Koerner Hall, presented as part of the International Congress of Voice Teachers\u2019 meetings in Toronto. It was a program of classical songs and arias and pop and jazz standards. Given it\u2019s an audience of voice teachers, I can only imagine how nerve-wracking it could be!<\/p>\n

Performance<\/h3>\n

With Timothy Cheung<\/strong> at the piano, Margison opened with that solemn ode to the power of music, Schubert\u2019s \u201cAn die Musik,\u201d a song that never fails to move me. It was followed by the great aria \u201cDo not utter a word,\u201d sung by Vanessa in Samuel Barber\u2019s opera by the same name.<\/p>\n

Her full lyric soprano sounded great in Elsa\u2019s Dream, a role tailormade for her. For a big voice, her agility is impressive, as evidenced in \u201cCome scoglio,\u201d with runs up to a high C, no less. The first half concluded with a brilliant \u201cSong to the Moon\u201d from Rusalka.<\/p>\n

The second half of seven songs opened with the familiar \u201cLosing My Mind\u201d from Stephen Sondheim\u2019s Follies. Margison sang it with warm, unforced, mellow tone, altogether a fabulous rendition. She\u2019s not afraid to bring the chest voice up high, necessary in pop singing but basically verboten in classical voice. The use of a mic meant she didn\u2019t have to push the chest register.<\/p>\n

I am being totally honest when I say that her \u201cFly Me to the Moon\u201d was as beautifully delivered as any I\u2019ve heard. This song also showed off the wonderful Jason Jestadt Ensemble<\/strong>, a band that Margison has worked with a great deal. She also sang one of her own pieces, a heartfelt \u201cChasing Shooting Stars,\u201d well applauded by the enthusiastic audience.<\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/h3>\n

The formal part of the program concluded with \u201cMaybe this Time\u201d from Cabaret, with Margison showing that she can belt with the best of them.<\/p>\n

She was brought back repeatedly \u2014 and when you\u2019re so loved by an audience of voice teachers, you know you\u2019re doing something right!<\/p>\n

Her encore was one of my favourite arias, \u201cEbben? ne andro lontana\u201d from La Wally, ending with a huge B natural, a fantastic end to a great recital.<\/p>\n

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Rising soprano Lauren Margison has a wonderful operatic voices, combining beauty of tone with hall-filling volume, a surfeit of squillo supported by solid technique and enviable musicality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":116514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41660,76,19,32,43,52,63],"tags":[16869,42157],"yst_prominent_words":[6767,10607,6606,12911,16850,16853,6886,22839,9958],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/08\/Copy-of-REVIEW-17.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-uja","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116508"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116508"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116517,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116508\/revisions\/116517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116508"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=116508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}