{"id":48606,"date":"2017-10-26T11:29:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T15:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=48606"},"modified":"2017-10-26T11:29:38","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T15:29:38","slug":"preview-rashaan-allwood-the-wonder-boy-and-his-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2017\/10\/26\/preview-rashaan-allwood-the-wonder-boy-and-his-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"PREVIEW | Rashaan Allwood: The Wonder Boy And His Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rashaan
Rashaan Allwood (Photo: Jeremy Elliot)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In music school, students whispered his name with either reverence or jealousy. Though he lived among gen-Xers and saw the birth of Millennials, his incredible compositional output, heavily saturated with exoticism, Catholicism and nature, always felt antiquated, if not completely insane.<\/p>\n

Messiaen was a boy genius (entering the Paris Conservatoire at the tender age of 11 and collecting a handful of first prizes).\u00a0 He wrote God\u2019s name using the majestic organ of \u00c9glise de la Sainte-Trinit\u00e9. He wrote his own book of Revelation in a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II: Quartet for the End of Time. His legendary synaesthesia is only imaginable for mere mortals.\u00a0 The first glance at a Messiaen score was usually enough to scare any serious young music student with its complexity and technical demand: Hence, Messiaen\u2019s music remains a cult-classic for both performers and audience.<\/p>\n

However, this week, Rashaan Allwood<\/a> is making it his challenge to present Messiaen,\u00a0For the Birds<\/em>, first show at the CMC on October 27<\/a>, then second show at the Heron Park Baptist Church on the 28th.\u00a0 The program consists of a rather challenging set of piano works:\u00a0 Catalogue d\u2019Oiseaux<\/em> (1er Livre) and Petites Esquisses d\u2019Oiseaux<\/em> of Messiaen and Alondra Vega-Zaldivar\u2019s Two Cardinals<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Torontonians may remember Rashaan from two news articles \u2014 the wonder boy who scored a perfect 100 in his ARCT Piano Exam<\/a> in 2012, and from the list of 30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30<\/a>, 2017 edition, as organist.<\/p>\n

This may be enough to raise an eyebrow already: is he an organist or a pianist?<\/p>\n

Rashaan walked into his first piano lesson at the Mississauga School of Music at age six \u2014 he does not know yet to this date why piano<\/em>. His father, Filmore Allwood, a classical music fanatic, grew up listening to that<\/em> one single classical music station in Jamaica and he was determined that his boys will learn to read and play classical music.\u00a0 Rashaan sang in his church, played the piano and noodled around on his keytar as a teenager. And in 2012 Fall, he came to study piano with Jamie Parker at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto.<\/p>\n

\"Rashaan
Rashaan Allwood (Photo: Bellande Montour)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his first year at the University of Toronto, two things happened: He casually signed up to receive lessons as part of the organ pedagogy course at the faculty with Kevin Komisaruk, and in the mid-year, the Toronto Star published an article about the magic 100.<\/p>\n

The article had an interesting effect. \u201cEveryone works super hard in piano, and sometimes this competitiveness leads us to be negative\u201d: Allwood\u2019s world was suddenly invaded with calls for concert contracts and the quiet jealousy from the other students \u2014 it was all bit too much, so he took a step back, distancing away from the piano in his second year. He zoned in on organ as main interest, going proper crazy with the exciting world of organ literature \u2014 \u201cIt was all new, so different from piano world. I jumped right into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a sabbatical<\/em> second year, Rashaan came back to serious piano study, along with his organ pursuit.\u00a0 As a natural extension of keyboard idiom, Rashaan explored the harpsichord with Charlotte Nediger in Tafelmusik Summer Baroque Institute 2015, and participated in the early music ensemble under the direction of Ivars Taurins, 2015-16. In 2016 Fall, he went off to study organ at McGill with Hans-Ola Ericsson. Since then he has won many prizes, including first\u00a0prize in Concours d\u2019orgue de Quebec (2017), Canadian National OSM Manulife Competition (2016), second prize in the Wadden Sea International Organ Competition (2017) and the Lynnwood Farnan Organ Competition (2017).<\/p>\n

It was his study of Messiaen\u2019s Meditations on the Mystery of the Holy Trinity<\/em> on the organ that ignited his ‘For the Birds’<\/em> program.\u00a0 Notorious for its technical and semantic demand, Rashaan spent significant solitary hours wrestling with the work. This Jacobian wrestle with the angel did give him a revelation: it was not the technical difficulties or complexity of Messiaen\u2019s philosophy that drove people away from Messiaen\u2019s music.\u00a0 It was lack of familiarity.<\/p>\n

Rashaan admits with laughter that he quite hated the Catalogue of Birds<\/em> for at least for a year and a half.\u00a0 \u201cI realized that just listening to them is too confusing. There is nothing to hold onto.\u00a0 Even when you are familiar with his bird motives, it is almost impossible to identify the birds through listening only.\u201d\u00a0 So he went on to learn these birds- the first book of the Catalogue<\/em> (1956-58) and Small Sketches of Birds<\/em> (1985), and he wants you to come, the Messiaen apprehenders and fanatics, as he\u2019s fully ready to show <\/em>you these birds.<\/p>\n

Avery Kua, a Toronto-based illustrator, was commissioned to create artwork to accompany these birds along with photos and videos of Canada\u2019s nature. In the simplest sense, Messiaen\u2019s birds are now set in these fresh visuals with a tribute to the beautiful Canadian landscapes, giving us a new chance to interact with these exotic beings.<\/p>\n

Are you ready to gaze at these striking birds? Any serious birdwatcher will tell you that actual birdwatching relies heavily on patient waiting and careful listening.\u00a0 Well, Toronto, the bird whispering boy is here this week<\/a>.\u00a0 Get yourself a comfortable seat and open your eyes wide for this wild journey.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/i>
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Rashaan Allwood: a master of all keyboard forms? He’s a bit special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":48609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6439,44,47,4557,63],"tags":[2480,9533],"yst_prominent_words":[10028,12788,12754,6767,6715,12756,12763,12761,12758,6616,12755,12757,12753,7141,12760,12764,12787,6741,7549,12016],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/10\/rashaan_allwood_jrephotography_hi_res.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-cDY","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48606"}],"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\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48606"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48621,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48606\/revisions\/48621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48606"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=48606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}