{"id":49075,"date":"2017-11-14T15:59:07","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T20:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=49075"},"modified":"2017-11-15T10:14:08","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T15:14:08","slug":"zero-in-tafelmusiks-jennifer-nichols-on-why-its-important-to-get-out-of-the-way-of-the-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2017\/11\/14\/zero-in-tafelmusiks-jennifer-nichols-on-why-its-important-to-get-out-of-the-way-of-the-music\/","title":{"rendered":"ZERO IN | Tafelmusik’s Jennifer Nichols On Why It’s Important To Get Out Of The Way Of The Music"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jennifer
Jennifer Nichols (Photo: Rob Campbell\/Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

W<\/span>hen dancer, choreographer and now director Jennifer Nichols first heard early baroque music as a child, she became instantly obsessed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t like, \u2018oh, this is nice,\u2019 it was so far beyond that,\u201d the director of Tafelmusik\u2019s upcoming Haus M\u00fcsik concert<\/a> describes. \u201cKind of like a feeling of coming home.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this sense, it\u2019s fitting that Nichols\u2019 first foray into directing will be a sort of homecoming for the multitalented performer. Nichols has danced for Tafelmusik for many years as part of Opera Atelier.<\/p>\n

The Collingwood, Ontario-native has garnered quite the diverse resum\u00e9 since moving to Toronto in 2000, with choreography credits including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Against the Grain Theatre, Bicycle Opera, the CW network\u2019s Reign<\/em>, managing her own successful ballet fitness studio, the Extension Room in Corktown and Pointe Break Retreats business, as well as performing as a dancer.<\/p>\n

When asked what taking full reigns as a director feels like for Nichols, she laughs. \u201cI\u2019ve wanted to do it since I was young. I have an overall vision for things, not just the movement, but how it is influenced by the context and the music. I love to write, and when I was young I painted and drew. I\u2019ve been involved in so many artistic disciplines that I wanted to throw it all in the pot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crossing\/Travers\u00e9e<\/em><\/a>, the title for the Tafelmusik concert Nichols directs, will be a multi-sensory evening in Toronto\u2019s Great Hall. Digital projections, spoken word, dancing, live music and spoken word will feature, while lavender from a Creemore, Ontario farm, used in cocktails as well as the space, will evoke the French countryside. The evening sounds much more like an underground warehouse concert than something one would expect from Canada\u2019s premiere baroque ensemble. But Nichols feels otherwise.<\/p>\n

\"Haus
Haus Musik April 27, 2017 at Longboat Hall (Photo: Jeff Higgins)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe irony is that presenting it in an intimate surrounding or our version of a salon [Longboat Hall in Toronto\u2019s Great Hall], is kind of how the music would\u2019ve been presented back in the day,\u201d she explains of the evening. \u201cPeople didn\u2019t go to concert halls to hear this type of music; it was done in homes, salons, party-environments that were social gatherings, not sitting down in a proscenium-style theatres and watching from the outside. You were immersed in it. In a sense we\u2019re staying more true to what environment the composers were writing for than how you\u2019d find this music presented nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nichols also doesn\u2019t believe in modernizing art solely for the sake of keeping up with the times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a clich\u00e9 to say to keep the art form alive you have to modernize everything,\u201d she relates. \u201cI don\u2019t think modernizing things means changing it or altering it so much that it\u2019s not recognizable or respectful of it. It\u2019s a matter of layering some supportive material there to give it a bit of colour in a different way. To reflect something or bounce something off it that would help it convey the beauty of the music to an audience in a different way. Maybe a more palatable way or a more accessible way; it really depends how you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Nichols has been asked to enhance already beloved pieces of art. She choreographed and performed with the violinist and composer Edwin Huizinga<\/a> for the Art Gallery of Ontario\u2019s Mystical Landscapes<\/em> show earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [art or] music spoke first, which was how I started with this,\u201d she describes of the two experiences. \u201cWith the AGO I didn\u2019t have as many elements to play with, like the luxury of adding film and lights, it was more a question of, what can I add in this space? More of a vague sort of narrative and an interaction between me and Edwin. It\u2019s sort of playing, shaping the elements that have been added to the music and seeing how that takes shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Crossing\/Travers\u00e9e, <\/em>Nichols has utilized a similar approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy big task was that I didn\u2019t tamper with the period of music,\u201d she says of the French baroque music that will be performed on Thursday. \u201cBy adding all these elements, [the piece] is about Tafelmusik and their repertoire and them as an orchestra, first and foremost. It\u2019s about enhancing or supporting in a way that\u2019s not just about what I\u2019ve added.\u201d<\/p>\n

The word Tafelmusik comes from the German for, \u201ctable music\u201d or \u201cmusic for the feast,\u201d and in a sense this sort of casual approach has been Tafelmusik\u2019s vision for all of its almost forty years of excellence. Under Jennifer Nichols\u2019 imaginative and sensory direction, we can be sure that Thursday night\u2019s performance will certainly be a fest.<\/em> I wouldn\u2019t miss it, if I were you.<\/p>\n

Haus Music:\u00a0Crossing\/Travers\u00e9e<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0takes places at The Great Hall Toronto on Thursday, November 16 at 8 p.m. For tickets see haumusikTO.com.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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How Jennifer Nichols plans to take Tafelmusik’s Haus Musik to a new level without tampering with what makes the music great in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":49085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6439,29,4557,63],"tags":[6079,13601,3223],"yst_prominent_words":[9944,13585,8684,11597,7202,13604,6985,6733,13603,10549,13605,10451,13586,6616,13584,7291,13588,13587,6618,6741],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/11\/Jennifer-Nichols-photo-Rob-Campbell.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-cLx","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49075"}],"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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49075"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49105,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49075\/revisions\/49105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49075"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=49075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}