{"id":37341,"date":"2016-06-16T11:56:57","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T15:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=37341"},"modified":"2016-06-16T11:56:57","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T15:56:57","slug":"preview-tafelmusik-the-hearn-luminato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/06\/16\/preview-tafelmusik-the-hearn-luminato\/","title":{"rendered":"PREVIEW | Tafelmusik Goes Au Natural At The Hearn For Luminato"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra prepares to take the stage at The Hearn, acoustically naked but unafraid.<\/h3>\n
\"Hearn
Hearn Generating Station (Photo: David Leyes)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

T<\/span>his weekend, during a performance for the Luminato Festival<\/a>, the musicians of The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra<\/a> are going naked. That is, they are performing without any \u2026 amplification.<\/p>\n

Unplugged is a normal state for this award-winning ensemble of musicians. However, with Luminato using the old husk of The Hearn Generating Station<\/a> on the Toronto waterfront as their venue, sound quality is a concern.<\/p>\n

Mara Brown, Tafelmusik\u2019s operations manager, went down and checked out The Hearn before construction started in May. She walked around the 250,000 square foot former coal-burning plant \u201cjust taking the time to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI walked through to assess what each space felt like,\u201d said Brown. \u201cWhen I got to the main stage area I tried to envision how sounds might travel through the buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s fear, besides the fact that even a slight breeze can throw their 17th<\/span> and 18th-century instruments right out of tune, was the echo. According to Luminato\u2019s website<\/a>, The Hearn can fit the Statue of Liberty inside its walls both vertically and horizontally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is such a buoyant space, I wanted to make sure they could hear themselves,\u201d said Brown. “There was a massive debate about whether or not to amplify. Caroline Hollway (a producer at Luminato) said \u2018why don\u2019t you just go naked? Just go for it!\u2019”<\/p>\n

In the end, Tafelmusik decided their concert this weekend would be au natural because, as Brown said, \u201cthat\u2019s the way it was intended to be shared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cristina
Cristina Zacharias, Violin (Photo: Sian Richards)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cristina Zacharias, who has been playing the violin with Tafelmusik for 12 years, said the orchestra spends most of their rehearsal time in irregular spaces playing their instruments to get a feel for what they hear back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe send someone out to listen from the audience to see what\u2019s coming across. Sometimes we have to change how we\u2019re standing in relation to each other,\u201d said Zacharias. \u201cTafelmusik has played a massive variety of concert spaces all over the world. All that touring makes us adaptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon reflection, Zacharias is able to divide the places the orchestra has played in into two categories: \u201cPlaces that teach us how our music should sound and places where we make the decision about how our music will suit the space.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Royal Palace at Versailles, a venue the orchestra has performed in several times, is an example of a space for which the music was intended. Playing there is an experience Zacharias calls \u201ca real thrill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou suddenly have a sense of what the music sounded like when the ink was still drying on the page. You\u2019re getting an idea of what the composer and audience heard at that time. This teaches us a lot about how the music that we\u2019re striving to produce should sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for spaces that force the orchestra to adapt, a good example is The Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis. The church\u2019s interior is lined with one of the largest collections of mosaics in the Western Hemisphere. Tafelmusik was warned that the decay time (how long you hear the note after it is played) was 5.4 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had a huge impact on our show,\u201d said Zacharias. \u201cThe sound became so confusing. As soon as the orchestra started to play all the sound was still in there, bouncing around off of the walls. The result was, we played everything slower.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to their stage manager, they had added 15 minutes to the show that night.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just the venues that force the orchestra to adapt. Many of the musicians are using instruments that are centuries old \u2014 the oldest being a violin from 1625. Zacharias\u2019 own violin was made in 1776.\u00a0 Both Brown and Zacharias agree that sudden changes in temperature and humidity are the instruments\u2019 worst enemy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur strings will go wildly out of tune,\u201d said Zacharias. \u201cWe\u2019re playing on strings that are made of gut so they\u2019re more susceptible to changes. You might see a violinist take a little one second moment on their own, when they find a spot, that they can just kind of quickly make a little adjustment. If things are getting really bad, then we\u2019ll take a moment between pieces to check our intonation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when it comes to instruments that can\u2019t be tuned easily, like the harpsichord, Brown expects the problem of the weather to become a major factor. \u201cIf there\u2019s too much of a breeze from being on the waterfront that could persuade it to go out of tune. That will influence the entire show.\u201d<\/p>\n

On performance day, Brown is hoping for \u201cnot too much wind, not too much water, not too hot \u2014 that would be my wish list for the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter what happens on stage, however, the musicians are professionals who have each other\u2019s backs. Brown described a tense moment at a concert at Trinity-St. Paul\u2019s Centre last June in which a violinist broke a string.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe turned around, switched instruments with another player, turned back and continued playing. He didn\u2019t even miss a beat. The three violinists who were off stage had all offered him their violins. There was no question. It was just like \u2018take mine\u2019 and he chose one and off he went. Their nonverbal communication is something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the question of why Tafelmusik would push its musicians to play outside their comfort zone in the cavernous and damp Hearn when they could be somewhere like Koerner Hall, which has zero sound decay and the perfect amount of humidity, is still hanging in the air like a note in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if Telemann has ever been played in The Hearn,\u201d Zacharias laughs. \u201cWe have our golden ideal and tailor it to make it work in whatever space. There could be echoes or sound decay issues that could really impact the way we\u2019re able to perform and could add some interesting aspects we might not have thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTafelmusik is continually challenging itself,\u201d Brown adds. \u201cSome spaces aren\u2019t always conducive to putting on a masterful performance, but it introduces the music to new audiences. Luminato is fresh and exciting, but it\u2019s also something that supports the community here in Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday<\/a>, The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra will take the stage at The Hearn, naked but unafraid. \u00a0The musicians and audience will be in that space, experiencing it all for the first time together. What will happen that night no one knows, but this talented and malleable group is ready for anything \u2014 whatever the weather.<\/p>\n

For tickets and concert details, see here<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Want more updates on Toronto-centric classical music news and review\u00a0before anyone else finds out? Get our exclusive newsletter\u00a0<\/em>here<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/a><\/span> for all the latest.<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra prepares to take the stage at The Hearn, acoustically naked but unafraid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":37344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,4967,29,4557,59],"tags":[6210,6209,2032,6208,3223,6207],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/06\/The-Hearn.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-9Ih","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37341"}],"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\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37341"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37351,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37341\/revisions\/37351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37341"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=37341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}