ENGAGED AT THE SHAW FESTIVAL: HILARITY IN THE HIGHLANDS……..AND LONDON

Posted on July 24, 2016 by strecker

In the Shaw Festival’s program for Engaged, we read the “Notes” of director Morris Panych on this play by W.S Gilbert of ensuing G&S fame. Panych comments how “we are all subject of the ongoing farce” and how “the characters in this play will last forever, slipping on the banana peels of time. …. reinterpreted, replayed…their words respoken by generations of actors to come; not from some sense of duty or academic curiosity… (or) as an exercise in nostalgia … but because they are funny and life is not.”

Theatre, we conclude, doesn’t avoid life or forgive it, but it sure allows us to mine the absurdities and occasional beauties that we are. We can relax as ourselves sometimes without too much judgment and laugh as well, for that too is what we do. And thanks to Panych, his well-brewed cast, his well-seasoned production team, we laugh a great deal during Engaged. Who wouldn’t, when we begin with two in your face music hall numbers, the first confessing “My mother doesn’t know I’m on the stage.”

The second number, performed somewhere between broad and floozy by Diana Donnelly, mentions “witin’ et the cherch” which you’ll easily translate for yourself and includes the offer to a chap in row three “You married? Busy after?” And where do you think we go after that? Nope, not a room in Soho- we are off to Scotland!

There we get to hear Comin’ through the Rye. It is sung timid at first by the timid Angus, endearingly underplayed with oozing sincerity by Martin Happer, along with Julia Course’s captivating Maggie. Then it is sung ballsy with heels dug into the earth, as only Mary Haney, here as Mrs. McFarlane, can do it. We find we must speak Scottish here – eee for eye, pairidge for porridge, hairts for hearts, — and we also discover that country folk shrewdly mess with the trains so the “well paying passengers” will need lodging as a result.

These latter folks include some of the starchiest from London society. Jeff Meadows’ Belvawney is a contained but wired fellow who makes his 1000 pounds by keeping Cheviot Hill single. The latter arrives with his broadly dramatic Belinda . She is a lady of “impetuous passion” who, though not “mercenary,” does insist on a husband with substantial income. Alas for Belvawney, Cheviot tends to propose to every woman he meets, a la running gag.

Cheviot then arrives with Sean Wright’s Mr. Symperson at which point he shows himself as broad in emotion and over the top in declarations of love for Minnie back home. Cheviot is a self-dramatizing romantic playboy to whom Gray Powell brings charm and a hilarious ongoing dash of not quite tongue in cheek rote. We eagerly await his next proposal. He knows it by heart.

So we have the country poor, blunt in gesture and, like Angus, of innocent values, matched against the moneyed Londoners. Money certainly is the raison d’etre for both these rich and poor except for Cheviot. It’s the ladies who make him into a man of instant turn on. In a few minutes he is blown away first by Maggie and then he is smitten with Belinda, partly because Belinda seems an ever-ready body lurking for another.

What’s a fellow like Cheviot to do but a romantic spiel, some faux poetry, some smoother than smooth convincing, some anxiety, all with exaggeration as his driving force. And, of course, a kilted Ric Reed as Major Mc Gillicuddy arrives sporting not one but two pistols in pursuit of Cheviot. Meanwhile Angus, adoringly bumpkinish and innocent, speaks with his ever ready axe in hand.

While in Scotland, in the “garden of a humble cottage near Gretna on the border between England and Scotland,” Cheviot may now be multi-betrothed or even, thanks to a local custom, unintentionally wed, and then we next find ourselves in a London home. We meet Minnie, who sits on a sofa whose cushions are punitively garish, before friend Belinda enters to ask as she gorges on prepared desserts, “What have I in common with tarts” This must be an in joke – we think of prostitute Mrs. Warren also played by Nicole Underhay. Belinda tends to endlessly rattle off all the possibilities of a situation and this she does as Cheviot enters to worry about marriage as 50 years with one person. An air of idleness prevails in all these Londoners.

With Cheviot, Claire Julien’s maid Parker sends out a mercilessly flirtatious invitation to lust, one so brightly projected that it is probably seen in Buffalo. Cheviot is not unreceptive throughout his rote routine yet pulls back, to which Parker complains “not so much as a shilling and that man is worth thousands.” We also find, cheap as he is, that his wedding cake is made mostly of wood. Minnie and Cheviot discuss their impending marriage and sound horribly dull, no matter that she declares how happy she is, albeit while he remembers that “girl in Scotland.” But being cheap, he will marry so as not to waste the already spent 25 pounds.

As we can see, most of these folks are self-serving, gung ho in artificiality, shallow of purpose, and adaptable. Belvawney will love one of two women and it doesn’t matter which. Cheviot sees himself engaged to two women and will “share” himself with both. There is much “incessant crowing over money” throughout and everything is business. Minnie is called a “mercenary little donkey.”

What makes this production so engaging, entertaining, funny, lively and for all its exaggeration and stereotyping, not unbelievable? Partly it’s the uncondescending tone established by director and cast. Partly it’s the relish of the latter as they inhabit their parts. Yes, these often purposeless and pointless individuals could be poo-pooed in a sententious quest for deeper human values, but save Angus and Mcfarlanes up in Scotland, these folks are quite incapable of them.

These folks are played as absurd but without self-mockery in the mix, played as shallow as the only game in town, and we come to take them for what they are – funny and funny again. Otherwise, they are stuck with themselves and we with them. If Engaged is not “a well-known play” it should be, when done so cleanly and clearly delightful as this. Again the Shaw company proves itself outstanding.

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JOYFUL FUN IN “THE ADVENTURES OF THE BLACK GIRL IN HER SEARCH FOR GOD” AT THE SHAW FESTIVAL

Posted on July 20, 2016 by strecker

At the outset of The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, Guy Bannerman’s crusty G B Shaw, whose short story is the springboard for Lisa Condrington’s adapted play before us, is determined to have a Preface. He is threatened by Black Girl, however, that unless he behave he will soon have his name removed from his festival just as the powers in charge did with the festival of that other author not too far away in Stratford. Of course, we in the audience are wearing party hats given to many seated here by this same Mr. Shaw and, yes, a good time is being had by all. Well, maybe not by Black Girl who, after all, is off to find God, which in many quarters is an entirely speculative venture, though not all.

I doubt that this production will later transfer to, say, the “Amen!” circuit of the deep south. After all, it implicitly spoofs the deniers of Darwin and the oratorical zeal of Bible-toting fundy preachers that passes there for religion. And isn’t all the reference to religion done with one part Shavian twinkle and three parts mockery of the rigidly fanatical who, when their beliefs are taken to logical conclusion, become absurd. Indeed, Ravi Jain directs at times with a “just this side of the Keystone Cops” knack for frenzy that deftly paces absurdities for inevitable laughs. Indeed Jain’s cast chomp vigorously with individual comic smarts at their specific parts. Indeed we don’t stop laughing.

The tale goes like this: Black Girl –not the one from Leadbelly’s song- has been instructed by Tara Rosling’s White Missionary and has demolished her teacher with infinite questions that the unthinking never, well, think to ask. Black Girl is White Missionary’s only convert because of her incessant and time-consuming “incessant inquiries” and her “Why? Why? Why? Why?” give the latter no extra time. Finally, when as something of a last resort Black Girl asks “Where can I find God” set designer designer Camellia Koo has provided a stage-spanning Bible on which Black Girl stands and can read, “Seek and ye shall find” as she walks upon these enormous pages.

Inevitably she finds there are “lots of old ass men pretending to be gods in this forest.” She also finds Guy Bannerman as Lord of Hosts, he with a resounding echo, no less, and of course frustrates him too with inevitable questions about why evil exists. We then have Lord of Hosts (Bannerman) and The Almighty (a joyfully into it Graeme Somerville) having it out, And we then have Micah the Morasthite, a very no holds barred Ben Sanders, doing verge of hysteria stuff as he joins in before Solomon arrives. The new arrival observes, “We are all headed to the gates of nothingness” and later notes “that’s one of my 3,000 proverbs. It’s all done in the spirit of tongue in cheek in vigorous momentum.

Black Girl realizes, “Maybe I have to be more like God so I can find him” which sounds profound, but we also hears things like “It’s just a metaphor” –take that, you literalists- and the crucifixion referred to as “that ridiculous position” and God as “an unnecessary hypothesis.” Graeme Somerville does a turn as a heavily-accented twit and Tara Rosling fusses as the busy-busy Mathematician and we hear the Bible is hopelessly pre-evolutionary. We are self-consciously told that this is a lunch time slot, in which the production occurs, and thus only a “quick look” at issue that have lived in human thinking for millennia.

Nevertheless, the show has time to turn quite sexy with Kiera Sangster’s Black Mamba Snake and Andre Sills’ Black Bearer. There’s a concise condemnation of symbolism in the defiant call to belief in “It’s a rod, not a stick.” Natasha Mumba is pleasantly riveting throughout –inquisitive, defiant, and take-no-shit unstoppable- and we enjoy the journey with her in a setting that is “The Darkest Africa and The Bible” All the actors use the set, dig into it, with gusto, and Ravi Jain helps his actors to go compellingly over the top to the pleasure of all.

I once heard a fundamentalist questioned thus: “Do you really believe this shit?” and here, at least during this thoroughly entertaining lunchtime fare, we can briefly laugh at the fact that too many, Republicans and Conservatives especially, maintain they still do. Now what would GBS say in his Preface about them?

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MRS WARREN’S PROFESSION AT THE SHAW FESTIVAL: PROSTITUTION, MALE HYPOCRISY, MOMS AND DAUGHTERS, AND AN ALMOST THREE DECADE BAN

Posted on July 4, 2016 by strecker

Mrs. Warren’s Profession ends with daughter Vivie seated – or is it reborn? – behind a desk. Her blooming manner of efficiency is striking, as if in performance for her new self. She seems self-satisfied and seems washed clean. After all, she has terminated connection with her mother, Mrs. Warren, a former prostitute and now an owner of brothels. But in Eda Holmes terrific production of Shaw’s play, four men surround Vivie and move in closer as if for the killing of female willpower and self-reliance. Will she become a sacrifice to these embodiments of patriarchal society with its economic and male suppression of women? Indeed, at very least, their presence does seem ominous.

In Mrs. Warren’s profession, the tale runs like this: Mrs. Warren, born into hopeless poverty forgoes the inevitable life of deprivation and in time, with support of “capitalist bully” Sir George Crofts, her business partner, now owns five brothels across Europe. Such impressive success allows her to give daughter Vivie the finest education, although the latter, isolated in academia, is very innocent, very unaware of what a cruel place the world is. She has opinions but no wisdom. Her many judgements have not been earned by living an unsheltered life. She has hit the books but the realities of life have never hit her.

In Jean Renoir’s great film, La Regle du Jeu, Octave played by Renoir himself declares, “Ce qui est terrible sur cette terre, c’est que tout le monde a ses raisons. » This famous line certainly resonates throughout Eda Holmes’ evocative, sensitive and implicitly challenging production. We understand Vivie’s shock at her mother’s revelation that she operates a prostitution business, that she works within a male-serving morality which, like today, uses women sexually but then hypocritically degrades them for it. We understand that Vivie is losing her cocoon and all the fantasies left unexplored within it. But ……. Mother too has had her reasons which daughter will probably never understand.

Who then is Vivie, the one who responds “So do I” when Praed declares, “I like hard chairs?” We find she is testy about men‘s assumptions and unquestioning about herself, yet self-assured. She has a strong handshake, yet remains inflexible “She is better than any of us” declares Praed, played subtly worldly and shielded at one time by Gray Powell. “She has such character” says the almost hyper Wade Bogert O’Brien’s Frank, “such sense”. But then, what do men who have benefited from the patriarchal system, as a matter of course, know about women who, albeit their present confidence, very soon won’t? These men can be perceptive and realistic, but only as far as naiveté allows. Inherent in their way of life remains an exploitation of women.

Vivie does feel that people have choices. She values purpose and character and believes that people can change their circumstances. She is abrupt and unbending and her sarcasm is polite but sarcastic none the less. Others have come to see her as a “steamroller” in her intention to be self-sufficient. She does indeed feel “shame” on hearing the truth about her mother and, set on protecting herself, doesn’t want to be sentimental ever again. Thus her parting of her ways with her mom. “There is no beauty and romance in life for me” she declares. Vivie is a complex character and Jennifer Dzialoszynski ably reveals her many sides and tendencies. Vivie is charming and hateful, wounded and determined, full of purpose and naïve. Dzialoszynski delivers her with intense focus that is unsettling.

Nicole Underhay’s Mrs. Warren is ripeness itself. She is a woman of broad gestures and she is physically effusive, as if her body and the air around it share one sensuality. She seems physically close no matter where she stands, always on the verge of writhing and surprisingly sometimes tomboyish. She is passionate and has no desire to inhibit her ample self. We sense well-honed survival skills in her, and also that she has taken ownership of her self-respect from a society of her childhood where women faced lead poisoning, alcoholic husbands, very low wages, and dead end slavery jobs. She now can say “the life suits me” and we believe her. Without question, this lady knows her stuff as she delivers a luscious devouring kiss on .Frank’s mouth.

In her confrontation with her daughter, Mrs. Warren is presented in an audience-draining performance of high pitched emotional intensity. The verbal battle between the two is genuinely disturbing. Vivie shows no mercy for herself or anyone else according to her mother and she certainly will not look after mom in her old age. Their verbal battle is especially heartbreaking because neither has resolved much emotionally, before, during, or after the encounter. Both women need to be active and working, and neither is adept at negotiating human relationships. Vivie says goodbye for good, Mrs. Warren slams the door, and both go to lives where, wounded, they can feel worthy.

The performance of Shaw’s play takes place in the New Lyric Gentlemen’s Club- men’s world equals men’s club- and although we hear reference to hashtags of “oldest profession” and watch selfies being taken, there are 78 rpm recordings available. The world hasn’t changed in all these years. And we do know that this is a male society that wouldn’t allow Shaw’s controversial play to be performed in a public theatre, saddled as it was with 27 year government ban. Mrs. Warren, after all, is an unrepentant prostitute who succeeds in a man’s world.

In the four male actors we have depiction of distinct variety among men. In Tom Marriott’s flexible Sir George, we have a capitalist, perhaps more pragmatic than cruelly exploitive, at least as we see him. Shawn Wright’s Reverend is crabby-looking, flustered, bullied by his son, and more a fellow going through a personal hell of some kind than preaching about it. Gray Powell’s Praed is generally likeable and level headed, like one standing almost safely back from emotional chaos. Wade Bogert O’Brien’s Frank is boyish, charming, and irresponsible, obsessively disrespectful to his father, and full of inner energy akin to popcorn popping.

These four men could easily be simplified types, but here they are very believable as individuals with personal histories. Each is a nuanced performance, full of unresolved qualities, and to condemn any of them we must condemn ourselves. “Tout le monde a ses raisons” after all. But the troubling thought remains that each fares well in the world, at least better than women, because he was born a man.

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ALICE IN WONDERLAND AT THE SHAW FESTIVAL: SPECTACULAR SETTINGS, INTRIGUING CHARACTERS, CONSTANT FLUX

Posted on July 4, 2016 by strecker

In adapter-director Peter Hinton’s take on Alice in Wonderland at the Shaw Festival, Tara Rosling’s Alice brings an intriguing ambiguity of person to the table, with child and adult both decidedly present. Alice the intended child is unstoppable, a self-propelled energy incarnate in a 10 year old girl. She is delightfully animated in voice and body, with speaking that has the momentum of imagination. A child’s sense of discovery prevails in her, also a high-strung enthusiasm and a childlike sense of self-importance but without self-indulgence.

There’s a strong unbending presence in Alice that bursts girlish in her girlish bobbing about. But there’s also an assertive bite in her delivery, one that echoes adult experience. If her energetic moves take us playfully into a playful realm of odd beings, all without condescension to anyone younger who watches, Alice does so with firmness of purpose that shows adult confidence. When she declares, “grown-ups are ridiculous,” we hear both the child and the grown up Alice speaking of those elder to her and of those like herself. We, in a world of Trump and Brexit and Harper, welcome such thoughts. We too do not know how to handle our very crazy world.

In a society of vindictive Victorian propriety, life as it is denies the realities of the imagination, some of which this production allows us to experience in physical form. Identity is of necessity thus fluid, freedom is realized in a context of oppression, and one eagerly follows the inner logic of this unpredictable place wherever it goes. And in the boat we hear the exchanges of Charles Dodgson-Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell that reveal how imagination is spoken and written down in this limiting world, darkly lit on this stage, that craves another.

These exchanges of Alice and Dodgson show them as deeply connected, perhaps where imagination and human need and a male-female bond overlap and become conspiratorial in a constraining world. We hear this exchange: “I don’t feel I am anywhere” “Nor do I” No wonder the many characters are made as free as the mind to go their own route and not the way of social habit and its stubborn need to suppress anything but itself. Before coming, I had played two recordings of Alice in Wonderland, those of Michael York and of John Gielgud, and each time I was taken over, enriched by Carroll’s imagination, wit, and language. Here too I felt enriched –and awed- albeit with Carroll taken off the page and plunked interpreted on the stage in dazzling theatrical terms.

The players are many in this production of Alice in Wonderland and the Charles Dodgson we meet here implies a reaching beyond himself to some kind of fulfilling connection or state of being. Indeed, we meet the variety implicit in “being” once it is freer of the world. The French Mouse of Neil Barclay is self-assertively very French, the Caterpillar made of several pliable humans is imaginatively choreographed into delightful contortions, and The Duchess played by Donna Belleville is assertive with her authority and presence. A Bo-Peepish sextet prints an alphabet they can’t see as they write on slates. These are all real because they are imagined.

Graeme Somerville’s Mad Hatter comes across as blunt and seemingly punch drunk, Jennifer Phipps’ Cheshire Cat implies worldliness through her challenging air of mischief and as she changes one’s sense of reality on a whim. Moya O’Connell’s Queen of Hearts is gushy and growling, with a delightful self-parodying quality, and she struts in a procession that is plush, lush and colourful. And what Gryphon do you know who is made like Kyle Blair’s and can walk on legs like that?

The Shaw Festival’s Alice in Wonderland is many things at one time. It is theatrically spectacular, emotionally consuming, challenging to one’s imagination, unsettling and delightful. William Schmuck’s costumes are eye-commanding and delicious with variety, while Kevin Lamotte’s lighting, sometimes low and shadow-rich, creates a compelling psychological context from which imagination can escape. In the projections by Beth Kates and Ben Chaisson, enormous projected monarch butterflies do heavyweight flutter, a huge projected face of Alice comes at us bigger and bigger and bigger until it is an overwhelming eye, cards and tea cups blow about in in wind stormy chaos, and Alice is submerged under water. All this brilliantly done technical stuff that takes us in completely.

In the stage setting sensitive music of Allen Cole, a chamber group creates a persistent feeling of immediacy, and it is wistful, gloomy and hopeful. The songs are atmospheric and feel inherent in the narrative and not imposed. With sound by John Lott, voices get pinched into Carroll’s progression into more lunacy. One doesn’t sense constraining physical limits here as things expand and contract in Eo Sharpe’s very busy setting where things become energies of transformation. We constantly check out all the nooks and colours in Sharpe’s setting, all in a spirit of going with the tide, and there is always more here than the eye can categorize at one shot.

In Lewis Carroll’s book adapted for the stage by director Peter Hinton, spoken word is also naturally forefront and, although not always decipherable, familiar lines throughout give us fresh pleasure, especially when they are pun-infected. This is not Carroll’s tale as such, where spoken words feed the listener’s imagination, but a theatrical adaptation with license for the director to follow his own imagination as it is inspired to do so by Carroll. In this happily overwhelming production, an energetic cast each creates a private world for us to enter. Things change shape and size at will and through the perspective of Alice we do too. We are made the same size as Alice, as projected plants and butterflies overwhelm us, and we thus live her experience. Cards are leaves are cards in this place.

Hinton’s take on Carroll may not be totally reflective of the author’s text, but it does offer a vigorously realized surprise at every turn. We have before us spectacular settings in constant flux and these gear our states of mind into high drive. The narration for us is what we make of all these experiences fed to our senses and our minds. And when I asked a group of young people in the lobby if they enjoyed the show, they beamed with smiles that, it seemed, denoted blown away minds.

Yes, I’ll return to Carroll’s spoken text again and allow my imagination to do its own Peter Hinton gig with the author’s tale. But I’m also returning to see this Alice and note if I once again smile, thoroughly delighted, throughout. And since there is still little vegan food in Niagara on the Lake on which to dine beforehand, perhaps I’ll find a vendor of mushrooms, on the tourist-crowded streets, to help prepare me for another go at this splendidly theatrical show. Maybe I’ll invite Grace Slick.

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UNCLE VANYA AT THE SHAW FESTIVAL: VERY HUMAN AND POETIC AND REAL

Posted on June 29, 2016 by strecker

Moya O’Connell as Yelena and Neil Barclay as Vanya in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya

The Shaw Festival’s production of Uncle Vanya is top-notch for a number of reasons. We believe these lives before us as lives actually lived in what they reveal. They indicate themselves to be complex lives and, in what remains unknown to us, these characters exist just as much. We look at these people not with judgment but with acceptance that we could do no better. We detect precisely and sensitively rendered truths in each performance and in Jackie Maxwell’s direction a keen ability to find poetry that lives and breathes in the ways of the world. This is poetry that knows honesty and no easy answers, if any.

Overall, this memorable production has the quality of a musical composition, one filled with distinct statements developed and blended into a conceptual whole. And like great music, the unspoken prevails as much as what is said. We know we’ve been reached and been moved, as a result of all the parts speaking individually and as one, but like these characters before us we constantly feel so much and cannot quite say why. This production of Uncle Vanya proves that theatre, once experienced, can remain in each and all of us. After all, it depicts what we are.

Gently insistent music by Paul Sportelli hangs wistful, subdued and lingering. Individual lives drift into view, the ones of this world who pass with time but never move that much. In Rebecca Picherack’s subdued and sunless lighting, we hear conversation of an insulated and isolated world. It is spoken with inherent affection and familiarity. These people, we find, breathe in and out the same air and the same hopelessness. It’s a constant same old same old as people get old. It’s “Life is boring and stupid” and “I’ve become a creep.” There is little to observe happening here. These are all people who fuck up in their lives without doing that much. And people feel their lives fading away. The Shaw company cast under Jackie Maxwell’s direction of Uncle Vanya makes all of this very human and poetic and real.

Annie Baker’s adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya is refreshingly colloquial and less formal than I remember some other translations to be, all without pandering but with the immediacy of language one might overhear at interval in the lobby. Baker’s skill, at least as directed with unwavering human insight by Maxwell, is that these words sit comfortably with the characters before us and, through them, we gain new insight into characters we know from seeing them before. Would a Russian of circa 1900 say “creep?” Would Marina call Astrov “sweetie pie?” Don’t know, but with the precisely perceptive actors in this production, the words work evocatively. The characters seem to feel them naturally, hand in glove, a perfect fit.

In any case, from what they say we still wonder if these people really care about anything at all. Or are they, like Yelena or Vanya, self-indulgent because there ain’t much else to do? Chekhov subtitled Uncle Vanya “Scenes from Country Life” and sometimes we do indeed look at these characters as lives like random trees growing here and there that to some, like Astrov, take on metaphysical value while others remain less than indifferent.

However, we experience a number of deeply touching scenes in this production, say the potent human connection of Sonya and Yelena, an energetic bonding of two women who each one lives a dead end. Their bond seems to bubble from inside as they get endearingly pissed together although, nevertheless, Sonya has to come to terms with enduring her unhappiness. She delivers a broken-hearted and heartbreaking declaration to this effect at the play’s end. What she wanted before didn’t happen and now it can’t. The way Marla McLean balances the stifled life force within Sonya with a tentative expression of its joyful abandon is painful to watch yet assertively poetic.

To be sure, these aren’t lives merely of quiet desperation since, after all, this is Chekhov and his people do talk a great deal as they get in tune with the realities of hopelessness. People here are assaulted by the needs of others and remain numb to them. They are always on the verge of playing games with each other, but games do not serve their purpose very long. These lost souls need cradling and don’t get it. And in this world, diversion or escape, when found, brings only another kind of pain to endure. Maxwell’s sensitive direction helps us to sense real lives and not simply a performance of them. Each of these lives takes a subtle hold of our feelings.

Neil Barclay’s Vanya is a man of inherent whine and a self-propelling sense of drama, a man with an inner energy and nowhere to go. His is a self-indulgent air of resignation, an assertive but love-hungry cynicism. His is a compelling resonating vocal presence, but one that declares futility, frustration, self-deception, and idleness. He brings flowers like one who wants his boredom to be passion. He is strongly present to us but in truth we find him intriguingly elusive to explanation of his character.

Marla McLean’s Sonya is a young woman full of hopeful love whose world will not allow her to feel it as she needs. She is wide-eyed about a man, Astrov, who feels and practices his ideals and she remains devoted to him, protective of him, but again she is let down by a world indifferent to her responsible and dedicated nature. To Sonya, McLean brings an appealing directness, a warm but no-nonsense quality. She seems clean with purpose and is obedient to her circumstances. Her youth, like her hair, is pulled tight and remains contained by practicality and subservience to others. She doesn’t seem to feel she deserves anything.

Moya O’Connell’s Yelena is a woman of off-handed delivery and condescending patience who can’t seem to imagine that other lives exist beyond her own, all as she hangs in her own ennui. At times, she seems ready to lose her bearing and perhaps her mind. She sees herself as a character in a play, craves order, and with an elderly husband can only declare that she will hang in because “in 5 or 6 years I’ll be old too.” On one hand, she sits securely in pointlessness and on the other is full of passion she almost dares to feel. She is unsettling to men –and to herself. She’s a magnet to the passions of others.

Astrov, played engagingly by Patrick McManus, like the rest, is untested and unrealized. Like the rest, he is part full of purpose and part lost. He is frustrated by those who do not share his ecological concerns, the one area where his passions do not waver or compensate for emptiness elsewhere in his life. “I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone,” he declares to Sonya, who treasures him, and thus kills the possibility of love that could -or should– happen between them, but won’t. Meanwhile, his sexual attraction to Yelena is sometimes partially received but then deflected, even as he acknowledges her cancerous effect of others. In the end, he seems helpless to his aging.

David Schurmann’s Serebryakov is an index of aches and pains and ensuing complaints that, for one, he is “nearly a corpse. He is an academic who is out of touch with the world about him, self-absorbed, and spoiled by the acquiescence of others. Pain consumes him, we are led to believe, and he milks it. He is pampered like his wife and they seem infected with their uselessness as they infect others. Donna Belleville’s Maria eagerly caters to him and expects others to follow her lead. She speaks with a sense of authority that seems humanly empty, as if laying claim to other lives when she hasn’t one of her own.

Sharry Flett’s Marina is aged, somewhat stooped, and quite perky in attitude if not as securely in body. She shows the wisdom of age in her words and in her actions, both finely tuned. She almost seems to embody a Taoist clarity in her life and we wonder what has made her so. Her wisdom is unobtrusive but strong. Meanwhile, Peter Millard’s Telegin declares satisfaction with his life but facial lines and troubled eyes declare emotional scars. Always ready of guitar, he speaks the interconnectedness of lives through his instrumental commentary. Implicit in him, we sense that existence is a struggle, and a sad one.

Highly recommended.

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JAMES EHNES: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE ACCLAIMED VIRTUOSO VIOLINIST DUE TO APPEAR WITH THE TORONTO SYMPHONY ON JUNE 9, 10, 11

Posted on June 6, 2016 by strecker

Photo: Benjamin Ealovega

James Strecker: You are certainly a presence as a musical figure in the media. Your concerts, recitals, and recordings are frequently reviewed and you often participate in detailed and probing interviews and presentations. Does your existence as a public entity in any way intrude upon or influence your making music as you would wish?

James Ehnes: Honestly, I think that the two things are very separate. I have a business, I am a business. There are times when the public—the PR side of my life—is engaged, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a large part of my career. I feel lucky that I like meeting people. I like talking to people, and I like interesting discussions about the career, the business or the music itself, so I don’t find it a huge burden. It’s actually a great luxury.

JS: You’ll be joining the TSO for the Elgar violin concerto on June 9 to 11 and it’s one that you’ve recorded also with Sir Andrew Davis. What pleasures and challenges does this concerto offer you as a violinist and what does it offer a listener in the audience?

JE: Elgar’s Violin Concerto is a tremendously challenging work. Elgar himself was a violinist, but somewhat of a frustrated violinist. I think he poured all his desires for the violin (and possibly for his own dreams) into this piece. Musically, it’s a really epic journey. It’s such a musically and emotionally ambitious piece. It tries to say so much, and, when it succeeds I think that it has a very profound effect on the listener. I feel it’s an honour to get to play it.

JS: Is it discernible that a composer does or doesn’t actually play an instrument for which he or she has written? For a composer, are there any advantages to not being influenced by a player’s view of an instrument?

JE: The composer’s experiences certainly shape his or her music. Elgar’s understanding of the violin does add something to the piece. The violin was his voice, in many ways. It’s interesting to me that two of the most demanding concertos in the repertoire were written by Elgar and Sibelius: both composers played the violin and had aspirations for important performing careers that never materialized. You get the sense that they wrote things thinking, “I know it’s possible. It’s too hard for me to do, but surely someone else will figure out how to do it.” If a composer doesn’t have an understanding of the instrument, he or she might be afraid to push the envelope with what is possible.

JS: Several musicians have described for me the difficulty of being restricted within a specific instrument’s limitations. Have you ever had a similar experience and, if so, what did you do about it?

JE: I will never be a good enough violinist to feel like I have reached the expressive ends of the instrument. I aspire to be able to bring out as much expressive emotion from a violin as possible. In absolute terms, the instrument will always be greater than any player that chooses to play it.

JS: You’ve made mention elsewhere of the “personality” of your Marsick Strad, so could you describe some specific aspects of this personality and also tell us, in turn, what aspects of your own personality work well with these?

JE: The instrument is very adaptable. Its most remarkable quality is that it can sound a lot of different ways, and it can go in a lot of different musical directions. The tone of the instrument is very focused (and this is typical of Stradivari’s instruments in general) and encourages the player to seek ever more focus and beauty in the sound. It’s always difficult to put these things into words, but that’s the type of tone that really appeals to me, something that has a very dense and beautiful core of sound.

JS: You connected with Bartok’s music as a ten-year-old and it seems the experience was quite a revelation to you. Now you’re involved in an ongoing project on the Chandos label of his music, so could you tell us about that first experience with Bartok and how your relationship has developed over the years? What in Bartok is meaningful to you?

JE: I was exposed to so many great composers through my parents. What reached me with Bartok’s music is a combination of factors: It is emotionally direct, while also being incredibly brilliant. It’s so well worked out, so well written. Bartok and Ravel are two composers that I greatly admire. Their music is so meticulously composed, yet maintains such a total freedom of expression; it never seems the least bit contrived. Also, the use of polytonalities in Bartok’s music fascinates me. The layering of harmonies upon harmonies is extremely colourful.

JS: In what ways do you find a composer’s biographical information useful to you when you perform his or her music? Any examples?

JE: It’s a very difficult question to answer because I’m tempted to say yes. However, I feel some people spend a lot of time and energy trying to explain genius instead of just recognizing the fact that these composers were just really great at what they did. So, as interesting as it is, there needs to be a musical reason for doing everything, not just because you read some story in a book that makes you feel justified in doing it that way.

JS: What have been three of the most challenging positive experiences you’ve faced in your musical career?

JE: With Elgar’s music on my mind these days, I’d say my first performance of the Elgar concerto. I remember the first time I performed it. It was at the Brighton Festival with the London Symphony Orchestra. As a young man, playing the Elgar concerto for the first time with the LSO was absolutely terrifying. That music is part of their cultural identity—they know it inside out. There was a huge feeling of responsibility, and, the fact that the performance went well, and the players of that orchestra were so warm and supportive, was tremendously encouraging to me. But there are no easy concerts. I would say that often the projects that have been the most rewarding in the end are the ones that were the most complex while I was going through them.

JS: Likewise, what have been your most dispiriting experiences that you’ve had to endure as a musician and how did you resolve them?

JE: There are always times that you don’t play as well as you wish you did. Of course, there are little disappointments and little frustrations. In every concert, there’s something I wish I’d played better than I did, but, deep down, even if I’m not feeling particularly confident, I trust there’s value in what I have to say as a player.

JS: I gather that your teachers, although certainly crucial to your development, were able as well to let you discover what you needed to learn for yourself. How did this approach influence you as a student and you as the musician you are today?

JE: Ultimately, a teacher’s greatest responsibility is to teach the student how to learn on their own. I’ve had great teachers, including Francis Chaplin and Sally Thomas, who knew me very well. They allowed me a great deal of freedom.

JS: What psychological smarts does a musician like you require to function, first, as the leader of a quartet and, next, as one who gives masterclasses?

JE: In our quartet, I happen to play the first violin parts, but this is very much a meeting of equals where no one is guiding anyone else. I’ve learned from my teachers that one should be flexible, and you can’t approach every student in the same way. There’s no formula for teaching music or teaching how to play the violin.

JS: Which composers and musical works don’t get programmed or recorded enough to give them the exposure they deserve? Why is this so?

JE: By and large, historically speaking, the pieces that have become famous are famous for the right reasons. There are pieces that I really love that I feel don’t get played as much as they might deserve, but what can I know? You can only really know things through your own perspective. There are no rights or wrongs in the music world: everyone’s entitled to their opinions. That’s what’s wonderful about it. There’s room for different tastes, and people that feel different ways. For example, this tour program that I’m doing has such a wide variety of music—from a towering masterpiece such as a major Beethoven sonata to new music to fun little encore pieces. It is so much fun! As a listener, I like going to concerts where I hear a variety of things.

JS: A singer who had lost his voice for a disturbing period of time once told me that he was then forced to ask himself, “Who am I if I can’t be a musician?” and thus faced some existential issues about himself. Have you ever had an experience in some way similar to this in that you questioned how your human identity was bound to your identity as a musician?

JE: For me, it’s not so much identity, it’s more outlet. We all need to find ways of expressing ourselves, to articulate our thoughts and our emotions. I imagine being without that would feel very painful, but I don’t think that I would feel like I was losing my own identity. Whether or not I could play music, music would still mean the same thing to me. I think I would retain those same feelings of who I am and how I relate to the world.

JS: I’ve just been enjoying again your CD/DVD titled Homage on which you play and explore “12 of the greatest instruments ever made.” One thing that soon becomes obvious, beyond the unforced grace of your virtuosity, is your poise and what seems an inherent sense of discretion in using your skills and your energies. So, what might a young violinist do to learn to use his or her energies effectively as you do? What does this young violinist need to learn?

JE: Physical economy is important. Playing the violin is really hard. In most activities that require skill or concentration, we tend to develop funny little physical ticks that are completely unnecessary. The act of concentration often gets wires crossed within the body, creating tension. The young violinist needs to be aware of this. Why are you spending so much energy tightening up major muscle groups that don’t even need to be engaged right now? Try to remove any extraneous issues.

JS: Finally, you get to ask three different questions, one each to three different composers, so what would these questions be?

JE: That would take an awful lot of thought, and it would be one of those things where, as soon as you asked it, you’d realize it was a stupid question. It’s funny. There are very specific questions that I find very frustrating. I would be tempted to ask really nerdy questions. I would ask Mozart what exactly he meant when he was 19, writing appoggiaturas the way he did. I would ask Shostakovich what those couple of questionable notes are in the first Violin Concerto. I would ask Bach if he really did want the harmonies that he wrote in Sheep May Safely Graze. And then I would ask those questions and they would disappear back into the genie bottle, and I would feel like a complete doofus for not asking them much more meaningful and important questions. It would be pretty hard not to ask Brahms if he hooked up with Clara, right?

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BUD ROACH: AN INTERVIEW (PART I) WITH AN EARLY MUSIC DYNAMO ABOUT HIS WIDE-RANGING MUSICAL CAREER AND HIS HAMILTON CONCERT SERIES “HAMMER BAROQUE” (TAFELMUSIK COMING ON MAY 25 AND LUTENIST SYLVAIN BERGERON ON MAY 28)

Posted on April 30, 2016 by strecker

James Strecker: I did quite a double take last year on discovering your Hammer Baroque series of musicians and singers all of international stature and just a mile from my home in Hamilton. Why exactly did you initially establish this musically rich series and what are your present goals with it?

Bud Roach: I love to hear stories about how people first come to know Hammer Baroque, because everyone talks about it as though they’ve found some sort of secret doorway, and this is part of the reason why I thought of creating a monthly series. My ensemble Capella Intima has been presenting some really great programmes in Hamilton since 2009, but not many people have been there to hear them. I accept much of the blame for that situation, because promotion is one of my weaker spots, but it has always seemed to me that Hamilton’s classical music scene was a bit disjointed.

Pockets of activity have always been going on, but we just aren’t a large enough city to support something like our own WholeNote Magazine. Or perhaps it’s not a question of population, but more one of proximity to one of the most vibrant music scenes in North America! At any rate, I felt that if a consistent early music audience could be cultivated by running a series, then Capella Intima concerts stood a better chance of being community events, rather than an ensemble that pops up three times a year, then slips back into obscurity.

Currently Hammer Baroque is a monthly concert series, and it is a huge undertaking. But the response of both the early music community and Hamilton audiences has been very enthusiastic. What I would like to see with Hammer Baroque is a “tiered” system of sponsorship, where a budget exists to bring in guests for a guaranteed fee. This way, more international artists could be booked. It would be nice to be able to form partnerships with organizations that are unable to take the risk involved by participating on the series.

Right now it operates on a “Fringe Festival” basis, where proceeds from the box office go directly to the artists. There is no budget, and the minimal expenses involved (thanks to the amazing generosity of the Church of St. John the Evangelist) are covered by about the first fifteen or eighteen patrons. After that point, what the people around you in the church have donated is what the artists are leaving with. So although artists will always walk away with some compensation for their efforts, it would be a risk for any group that doesn’t operate as a collective, and offers the performers a set fee. Having sponsorship for that would allow for a few more ensemble appearances that are out of reach at the moment.

JS: One thing I love about the series is the opportunity to get acquainted with composers, especially pre-classical, who are new to me. It reminds me of the good old days when I would buy LPs on the Vox label and make all manner of musical discoveries. What type of response have you had from your audiences regarding repertoire and performers in your series?

BR: Well, the goal was to increase Capella Intima’s audience, and that has certainly been achieved. The mandate of the quartet is to perform relatively unknown music from the early Baroque. Most of the time when people attend a Capella Intima concert, they are hearing music that has never been heard in Canada. Or, in more than a few cases, it’s likely that our repertoire has not been heard anywhere in the world for several hundred years! This makes for very special performances, in my opinion.

It is a very different feeling, for both performers and audiences, to experience music that is unfamiliar, and I really enjoy presenting programmes where no one really knows what’s coming next. There could be unexpected humour, or a surprisingly touching moment. The emotional heights of music from the Baroque era are the essence of its appeal, and there were many, many composers who were very good at conveying that drama. So having a wide array of performers and programmes to bring an historically informed sensibility to the music of the period (with a bit of stretching on both sides of the “Baroque” timeline) makes sense, and patrons seem to enjoy that as well.

We’ve had a medieval programme (Tales from the Decameron) presented by Sine Nomine, all the way to Beethoven with the Eybler String Quartet. Some patrons have made specific suggestions, and I always consider that in the programming of the series. As an example, the concert this weekend will feature the amazing Alison Melville on recorder. Alison is a friend and colleague, and I was really thrilled when she asked about performing, because Hammer Baroque patrons have requested a concert featuring the recorder since the very first event (Spoiler alert: Alison will be back next season with her recorder quartet!).

We present instrumental and vocal music, from solo voice to 18th-century choir and orchestra, from a wide swath of Western musical history. If I expect an audience to come each month, then care must be taken to ensure that the variety in the programming makes attendance worthwhile. As for your question about how the performers have been regarded, I can say that patrons have always been demonstrative in their praise. Spreading the word means larger audiences, and larger audiences lead to the highest level of performers, so Hammer Baroque’s growth is a very good thing for the quality of concert presentation in Hamilton.

JS: At a recent concert, one which featured violinist Edwin Huizinga and harpsichordist Philip Fournier, you referred with some delight to “Hammer Baroque audiences” and I wonder who the people who attend your concerts might be. Are you surprised by the obvious success of your series? How in fact, other than with your own efforts, do you make such a series happen?

BR: I am absolutely amazed at how the community has welcomed and embraced Hammer Baroque. Every concert has had a special kind of atmosphere, and no matter how much work is involved in putting things together, it’s a wonderful reward to have patrons thank me for organizing the series. But of course, it does not happen by my efforts alone. Steve McKay (formerly the Technical Director for Tafelmusik) and his family have a special relationship with the Rock on Locke venue, and he has guided the congregation through the process of becoming a serious venue for classical music in the city. He built the stage, and also installed the lighting, which happens to be Tafelmusik’s old lighting system from Trinity St. Paul’s in Toronto!

So Hammer Baroque came into existence because the Rock on Locke became a suitable, affordable venue, and I had the desire to start a monthly series. And as for making each concert a reality, I can say that it gets easier for almost every event, but is still a considerable investment of time and energy. The website must be updated, emails answered, Facebook page kept up to date, concert listings sent out, a monthly mass email, posters designed, printed, and posted locally, programmes designed and printed, slide projections for each concert designed, coordinating with the performers, contacting volunteers to help me with front-of-house….it is a lot of work, but with every concert, I feel as though the local audience for early music is being broadened, and that is a rewarding development.

I want the audience I sing and play for to be enthusiastic, open-minded, and educated, and by establishing a series like Hammer Baroque, that’s what I can help to build. The people you may see helping out with cash or selling cd’s, I should add, are not volunteers I have sought out. They are Hammer Baroque patrons who have shared with me that they are willing to help! My long-suffering partner has taken on the lion’s share of this, but there are many patrons who have offered their time and expertise. I’m still learning how to delegate, so some folks haven’t been called into service yet. However, with Tafelmusik returning in May, I think it will be an “all hands on deck” situation.

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LEILA JOSEFOWICZ: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CELEBRATED VIOLINIST AND PROMOTER OF NEW MUSIC, DUE TO PERFORM A CANADIAN PREMIERE WITH THE TORONTO SYMPHONY IN TORONTO, OTTAWA, AND MONTREAL IN MAY

Posted on April 21, 2016 by strecker

James Strecker: You’re widely respected as a champion of new works –compositions by Adams, Ades, Knussen, and conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, to name a few- so please tell us what such works bring that is distinctive to the canon of violin music. What are your reasons for promoting new music as you do?

Leila Josefowicz: When I was in my late teens and performing a lot around the world, I started to have the feeling of questioning myself. Playing standard works for my lifetime, is this what I wanted to do? I realized that there are many people playing the same works over and over, and that adds to the mode of comparative listening that many classical music fans have. I started hungering for more spontaneity, more adventurous thinking in music, I wanted to be known for repertoire that is more daring, more unexpected, and not following in the path of many other musicians. My first experience playing a living composer’s work was John Adams, and it was as if the whole world opened up in front of me, for myself and my own creativity and inspiration, but for my career path as well. I decided at that point when I was in my very early 20s that this was the way I need to go musically as well as spiritually. I then worked with many composers that conduct such as the ones that you listed so that I could perform with them as well on the stage. I could write a whole book about how each composers’ aesthetic is and how they have made their mark on 20th and 21st century composition. But it was an amazing experience and continues to be as I collaborate with them.

JS: Let’s talk about violins. In 1993 and 1994 you had the loan of the famous “Ruby” Stradivarius, which you used on your first CD –the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius concerti. Since 1995 you have used Dr. Herbert Axelrod’s Guarnerius del Gesù instrument known as the “Ebersolt.” What do these instruments each uniquely offer and how does it feel to be playing them? What do you learn from them and how easily does a classic violin become your personal voice of expression?

LJ: It might be mildly amusing to some people, but I am not a player that is very much thinking about his equipment, other than am I comfortable, and is this working for me. I feel very lucky to have played some great Strad and Del Gesu. But truthfully they were never a perfect fit for me, either it was not quite comfortable with the size of the instrument or the sound maybe wasn’t quite powerful enough. The violin I play now by Sam Zygmuntowicz, made in 2013, is actually the perfect fit for me. We worked on the instrument together in that I gave him the exact measurements of a Bergonzi I was playing before and we had many sessions in different halls to get the sound of the different ranges of the instrument perfectly tailored to my needs. It really makes a big difference when something is made exactly for you! I feel very lucky and I couldn’t be happier with my instrument now. There is also something special about specializing in more contemporary works, and having a violin that is also contemporary.

JS: I’ve heard that you love jazz, people like Sarah Vaughan and Miles Davis. Why do you love jazz, why do these two matter to you, what other jazz musicians do you enjoy, and for what reasons?

LJ: Amy Winehouse is my favourite singer for right now. She has this incredible soul, but a sizzle in the sound that is so special. But there is also something very unapologetic about how she delivers everything she sings and I find that so amazing and admirable. It is so essential for me to have the sounds of these great singers in my ear, I love to try to bring that freedom and soul to the music that I play. And even if it doesn’t sound quite like it in a certain passage of contemporary music that I play it is always in the back of my mind. I want to try to replicate the same freedom that they have. I feel that a lot of the classical repertoire has not encouraged freedom in music making and I want to try to rectify that as much as I can.

JS: Developing as a professional musician and at the same time as a person with something akin to a life that other people call normal ………Does it all work out in trying to do both, does damage get done, how does one get through the hard times? I ask because, for one thing, you have a very demanding schedule and also because you are quoted as saying: “I sometimes think all artists need to have their hearts broken to become real – I have more self-understanding, and that comes out in my playing.”

LJ: I need to dig into the depths of my being and my personality and my soul to get the most out of my own capabilities as a musician, and if one hasn’t lived there isn’t much to play about. One can never pretend that they have lived in music!

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ANGELA HEWITT: AN INTERVIEW WITH “THE PRE-EMINENT BACH PIANIST OF OUR TIME” JOINING THE TORONTO SYMPHONY FOR THREE CONCERTS ON APRIL 13, 14, 16 IN TORONTO AND APRIL 15 IN ROCHESTER

Posted on March 30, 2016 by strecker

James Strecker: You’ll be in Toronto and Rochester in April to perform the Bach Piano Concerto in F Minor BWV 1056 and the Bach Piano Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052. To begin, I’d love to know what each concerto means to you, both as a pianist and as a lover of Bach. Any chance you might squeeze in the 1058 which so long ago was the first Bach LP I ever bought?

Angela Hewitt: The TSO asked me, I suppose about two years ago when we first discussed this date, to specifically play some Bach Concertos, conducting myself. They also gave me a specific time limit within which to stay! The D minor is not just the greatest of the Bach Keyboard Concertos, it is one of the best concertos of all time. So of course I chose it. That meant that I had to choose one of the shortest ones as its companion. I went for the F minor rather than the A major -the only two that were short enough- because I adore its beautiful slow movement. It’s one of Bach’s most magnificent creations. They have both been in my repertoire for a long time and I have conducted them from the keyboard for well over 20 years now. So I think they were the best ones to choose.

JS: When you are the soloist with an orchestra, what do you expect of a conductor in this collaboration? What can the conductor expect of you?

AH: At its best, one adds to the other. A great conductor will inspire you, make you play your very best, add excitement, wit, tenderness….whatever the piece requires. And in turn he can expect the maximum commitment, sensitivity and knowledge of the entire score from me. But that really only happens very rarely on the highest level. Usually one just hopes to get through it more or less together, sometimes given the very short rehearsal time they have allowed you!

JS: Could you describe several such situations in your concert history when the collaboration was especially rewarding and –no names needed- when the experience was much the opposite.

AH: For sure, no names will be mentioned! Well, once I was given 15 minutes to rehearse the Schumann Concerto which takes 32 minutes to play through. That was interesting -not wanting to use stronger language! Once, because a conductor had taken too long over his Mahler Symphony, we had to stop before playing the final pages of a Mozart concerto because time ran out. He asked the orchestra if they would continue to the end, since it was really only a matter of a minute and a half, and most of them said OK, but a few walked off stage.

Some of them in the past have purposely ignored my requests, which I always try to say very diplomatically. It’s not an easy situation, I admit, because one is thrown together with somebody you’ve often never seen before in your life, and have to produce something very intimate. But when it works well, usually you feel that immediately, and it’s a great joy. A lot also depends on the orchestral musicians themselves, and their attitude. If they want to make it work, they will.

JS: I’ve heard from a number of long-established opera singers that young singers too often do repertoire beyond their physical conditioning, beyond their technical abilities, or beyond their personal maturity, and can sometimes thus do damage to themselves. Is there any way that this kind of situation is similar in any way to that of pianists and, if so, how is it so?

AH: I think it’s a bit crazy now how pianists want to play Rachmaninoff at age 12 or 13. I don’t think the body, let alone the emotions, are ready for it. What was exceptional at 17 years old in my day is now done age 12. Kids are forced too early into playing the big romantic pieces.

I was glad that I had teachers, beginning with my parents, who realised the necessity of studying first Baroque and Classical periods—and the ‘moderns.’ In my day ‘moderns’ meant Bartok, Kabalevsky, Canadian music. And then when they are in their early teens they would get into the big romantic stuff. I really didn’t do that until I was 15 years old which was quite soon enough. That said, I think it’s important to learn as much repertoire as you can when you’re young—especially in the years from say 15 to 21 years old—because that is what you will remember your entire life. Those pieces will always be a part of you.

JS: Two weeks before you arrive in Toronto, you’ll be in Beijing and Shanghai and on your day off between performances in Toronto you’ll be in Rochester doing another concert. And then a week later you will be doing a masterclass and recital at that wonderful Wigmore Hall in your own city of London. What I’d like to know is -with all your recitals, concerts, lectures, and masterclasses in a very busy schedule- what survival skills did you have to learn to keep your music at a desirable level and what kinds of personal adjustments have you made in order to keep going?

AH: I’m answering these questions sitting in Hong Kong Airport, having left Macau on the ferry this morning. Since I am on a long stopover, I found a wellness place here in the airport and had 45 minutes of massage. That’s how I keep going. Not much sleep last night or the night before, so I hope to make it up tonight. I’ve had a 13-hour time change this week. Plus I think I’ve picked up some parasites as I usually do when in Asia. But don’t worry—I travel with my anti-parasite pills, mostly garlic powder. We all have the special things that keep us going.

It’s amazing how you can still stay focussed and perform well even when you’re tired, though I try of course to avoid that. The music carries you through, and all the careful preparation you have done. I work very consciously on the memory now—I know exactly what I’m doing, though that’s not saying it’s foolproof. I’m only human! “Personal adjustments”? One starts to become a concert pianist at the age of 3, and then you never stop. It’s not a life for everybody. And you can’t have a normal home life. If you want that, don’t become a concert pianist or a travelling musician at all.

JS: Gramophone magazine named you ‘Artist of the Year’ in 2006 and you are internationally esteemed as a pianist. The Guardian in 2001 called you “the pre-eminent Bach pianist of our time” and London’s Sunday Times called your recordings of all the major keyboard works by Bach for Hyperion “one of the record glories of our age.” What I wonder is if such acclaim imposes on you a feeling of stewardship regarding how Bach should be interpreted. Do you feel responsible to be definitive and get Bach done the “right” way? Or is it a matter of each of your recordings being a step toward a better understanding of Bach’s music?

AH: There is no “right” way. I have worked hard—all my life—to develop the way I play Bach on the piano. It’s great that so many people have liked what I do, since you can never please everybody, and I don’t try to. In my masterclasses around the world, I simply try to pass on to students and music lovers what I have discovered, and to help them know what to do when faced with a page of notes but no markings, as is the case with Bach’s music and baroque music in general. Mostly it’s to do with articulation, phrasing, clarity of lines, tempi, the influence of the dance, making it sing. These are all things that help you be a better musician, and that also help you with the rest of the repertoire. I’m still “progressing”, I hope!

JS: Are there any mistakes or misjudgments that pianists sometimes make in their interpretation of Bach? Why do they do so?

AH: Well I suppose those pianists who play Bach with a lot of pedal and without a good rhythmic sense—these are two things that I find hard to accept. You need the clarity and the buoyancy in the playing. And when every beat is accented in the same way—that is terrible! Why do they do so? I don’t know—perhaps they don’t listen to themselves properly. It’s much easier to play with the pedal. Far less work!

JS: You have been asked this before, since you own a Fazioli, but what makes this increasingly popular piano so special? And in comparison with the Steinway piano, are we saying that one is better than the other or is it a case of each having its own uniqueness that brings something distinct to musical interpretation?

AH: The Fazioli piano is a remarkable creation. Not only is it beautiful in design, but it is a piano on the very highest level. Mr. Fazioli is constantly thinking of how to improve on his already marvellous design, and the quality of each instrument is extremely high. He tries each one personally -he is not only an engineer, but a pianist. The action is incredibly responsive to every variation in touch, and everything I imagine in my head I can produce with my fingers. It gives me complete freedom to play as I wish. The sound is also very coloured. Other pianos can have a beautiful sound but are much less interesting because the sound cannot be varied to such an extent as on a Fazioli. With the Fazioli you can get great power but also wonderful delicacy which, nevertheless, does not lose its brilliance. The high frequencies and reverberations are always there. This is a great feeling! It has wonderful clarity, especially in the lower register.

Of course each piano, even within the same make, is different. There are just too many variables. But I find with the Faziolis, especially the ones he is producing now, that they are all of an extremely high quality.

The other day in Manchester I played a very beautiful Steinway—a German one. But the American ones I can’t get on with at all. They require a far too heavy touch and have none of the subtlety and beauty of tone the Fazioli has. I am always totally exhausted afterwards.

JS: As well as your many Bach recordings, you have been enthusiastically appreciated for recordings of music by a number of other composers as well, none of whom there is time to discuss in detail. But let’s try it this way: for each composer named, please say briefly why you yourself appreciate this person’s music and also what you found especially interesting in recording it. Here we go: Mozart?

AH: The theatrical element, and the comedy/drama. The piano becomes a singer as well as a comedian.

JS: Beethoven?

AH: He is human. For his great range of expression—from the most tender feelings that are completely heartbreaking to the most exciting stuff—also incredibly noble.

JS: Schumann?

AH: His huge imagination into which you can completely throw yourself. And the expression of his love for Clara in his music.

JS: Ravel?

AH: Ah, Ravel! The spicy harmonies, the sensuality, the pianistic brilliance, the sense of the dance.

JS: Messiaen?

AH: The colour and the structure. Plus, like Bach, his faith gives his music great strength and moves me.

JS: Couperin?

AH: The various moods he creates. But those damn trills…!

JS: Debussy?

AH: Pianistic effects, but also the great clarity of his writing -which might surprise people. It’s not all impressionist stuff. Plus he wrote some good melodies!

JS: You’re an Ambassador for The Leading Note Foundation’s “Orkidstra” which is, I quote, “a Sistema-inspired, social development program in Ottawa’s inner city which, through the joy of learning and playing music together, teaches children life-skills such as commitment, teamwork and tolerance.” What does that mean, how successful is it, and why are you involved?

AH: It means exactly what it says. It’s a fantastic project that takes kids from the poorer areas of Ottawa, many come from abusive homes, and gives them a reason to smile, and something to look forward to every day, and something to accomplish. It’s wonderful to see them singing and playing together. There are some very gifted kids there who will go on to make music their life. These kids need a chance. One shouldn’t be prevented from learning a musical instrument just because one’s parents can’t afford it. The skills they learn in music help them with life in all its aspects. So I support them wholeheartedly.

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DIANA PANTON: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CANADIAN JAZZ SINGER ON HER JUNO-WINNING CD “RED, HER LATEST CD “I BELIEVE IN LITTLE THINGS” AND ITS 2016 NATIONAL PARENTING PRODUCT AWARD

Posted on March 21, 2016 by strecker

James Strecker: Much has been written about the uniqueness of your voice and its emotional flexibility and truth with a lyric, so let’s ask you yourself to describe your voice and how you use it -in language that feels right to you. Did you develop the vocal qualities you have over time or did your voice and style feel natural as they are now right from the start?

Diana Panton: A voice is as much a part of your body as your spirit and as such, I think that it is natural for the voice to develop over time, just as a person develops both physically and spiritually. That said, I think my style and approach to music has been very consistent over the years. I’ve always tried to sing with honesty and I think that was evident even on my first solo release. I first started performing with a large 25 piece ensemble, but I’ve always felt smaller musical combinations are a better fit for my voice, hence why I opted for a trio for my debut album.

JS: How exactly did you get into singing jazz, what happened, and when was that?

DP: I heard a lot of classical music in the house growing up. My dad enjoyed Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, so this was what got played on the music system, which belonged to him. There was, however, an evening, when I was about 17, when he played a record by Ella Fitzgerald. I expressed such a keen interest in this music that my dad revealed a hidden collection of jazz records that had laid dormant in this house since before I was born. It was a surprise for me to learn that my dad had been a big jazz fan. Since that day, he has rarely played his classical LPs and now almost always listens to jazz.

JS: What are five major events in your development and career that made you the jazz artist you are today?

DP: 1. The just mentioned discovery of Ella Fitzgerald’s music in my dad’s record collection, followed by weekly visits to the public library where I discovered Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and others and lots of original sheet music.
2. Attending the “JAZZ Camp” in Northern Ontario where I was able to do a workshop with the wonderful Canadian jazz singer Ranee Lee. Phil Nimmons gently pushed me on-stage for my first jazz performance in front of a live audience. I recall bassist Steve Wallace and trombonist Dave McMurdo paying me a compliment afterwards that really helped bolster my confidence.
3. My several years as vocalist with the Hamilton All-Star Jazz Band under the direction of Russ Weil. I had the opportunity to perform with budding young jazz artists, such as Adrean Farrugia and David Braid with whom I would go on to collaborate in smaller group settings. The HASJB took me on my first trip to Europe to perform at various festivals, including the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. We also opened many shows for professional artists, including Trudy Desmond with Don Thompson as her bassist.
4. I met the legendary Don Thompson backstage after an opening set with the HASJB. He suggested I attend the Banff Centre for the Arts where Norma Winstone was the vocal instructor. There, Don and I had the opportunity to perform at the famed “Blue Room” and this prompted an invitation from Don that we record together. I didn’t take him up on his offer until about ten years later, but since then, Don has appeared on all of my seven recordings to date, along with the fabulous Reg Schwager on guitar.
5. On a subsequent visit to the Banff workshop, I studied under the great bebop singer Sheila Jordan. Sheila has been an inspiration to me ever since. At 87, she is still touring solo all around the world. Despite some hard times during her career, she has never given up or lost her love for music. She solidified in me the belief that all I need to do as a singer is just be myself and keep singing.

JS: You’ve had some jazz biggies in your corner all along, people like Sheila Jordan, Don Thompson, Yusef Lateef, and others. Which support meant most to you and how did it influence you?

DP: All of the above-mentioned supports meant a lot to me for different reasons. I am a largely self-taught jazz artist and it really helped to encounter some key artists -who know what they are talking about- along my path to assure me that I was heading in the right direction. All of them just told me to be myself and never change that, but they gave me the reassurance that I was doing the right thing.

JS: Tell us about your Juno-winning CD “Red.” How personal do you get in this recording and did you ever surprise yourself, or are you more a singer on top of her craft who can create the moods she wishes?

DP: Conceptual albums that create a mood have always been of great interest to me. Sinatra was an expert in this field and provided me with some inspiration. From the moment I had the idea to record the pink album -a collection of songs about new love- I knew there would eventually be a RED album, a collections of songs about a serious love relationship. I wanted RED to be an unapologetically intense album that avoided trite love songs. I don’t think the album was a surprise to me, though it may have been to some listeners. I created the album fully aware that it might not appeal to a mass audience, but the artist in me was compelled to make it regardless. Of course, it was lovely for it to be acknowledged with a JUNO award in Hamilton, my hometown.

JS: I really enjoy listening to the musicians you had with you on the CDs, with their sophisticated chops and seemingly instinctive feel for supporting you musically. Tell us about them.

DP: I have been blessed to record with phenomenal musicians. Don Thompson is always the first person to hear my secret conceptual ideas and song selections. We have a mutual admiration for many of the same songs which makes our collaboration very organic and fluid. Don has also encouraged me to write lyrics to some of his beautiful compositions. He lends his multiple talents to our recordings as arranger, bassist, pianist and vibraphonist.
Reg Schwager is another exceptional musician who has appeared on all of our CDs. From the first recording, I knew that Reg was something special. We never met or rehearsed before heading into the studio. After a simple “hello”, we began recording and after two takes we moved on to the next song. His instinctual feel of where we wanted to go with a song was quite remarkable. Don and Reg formed the basis of our trio and we have since toured the world together.
We have been fortunate to have some wonderful guests join us over the years – for example, we invited horn player Guido Basso to solo on pink. His humour and expression were perfectly suited to the mood of that album. For RED, Phil Dwyer’s saxophone playing added emotional intensity and passion appropriate to the theme. There have been many other wonderful guests who have joined us – all specially chosen for their ability to enhance the chosen theme. Most recently, the cellist Coenraad Bloemendal added some lovely atmospheric playing to “I Believe in Little Things”.

JS: What makes a good jazz accompanist and how does such a person affect what you do vocally? What exactly does a good accompanist give you as a singer?

DP: An excellent accompanist is a humble player that doesn’t always need to be centre stage. Great listening skills are paramount, as well as the ability to engage in a musical conversation that is free to unfurl as it goes along. If there is a good musical relationship between the singer and the accompanist, there is an unwavering feeling of support and trust that, no matter what happens, everything will be all right. When I work with great accompanists, such as Don and Reg, I feel most free to be myself artistically. Nuances, emotions and spirituality are enhanced and heightened by this musical exchange and this is when magical things can happen.

JS: One of my favorite cuts in “Red” is the duet with Harrison Kennedy. Will you be recording any more duets together and did you have as good a time doing this one as it sounds? What’s one of your favorite cuts on “Red” and why is it so?

DP: Harrison Kennedy is a fantastic vocalist. Our first duet appeared on the Christmas Kiss album singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside”. Our voices matched up so nicely that we decided to record again together on the RED album. Glad you enjoyed that track. The fun you can hear on this track was totally real -everyone in the studio was laughing and having a great time recording this song. Of course, it would be nice to record with Harrison again, so we’ll see what the future holds. Aside from the aforementioned track, another favourite off the RED album is “The Island,” a gorgeous song by Ivan Lins with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman. This is an intense song lyrically that perfectly sums up the intent of the RED album.

JS: How natural to you is the compelling image you’ve established for yourself on your CD covers? Are you creating an image or are you simply being yourself? Who did the photography and design for you?

DP: I’m very involved with all the cover work for my albums. I always propose the conceptual idea and clothing/hair/makeup for the shoots based on what the theme of the album requires. I often think about album artwork at the same time as I select the tunes. I always try to be myself, but in truth I’m not always comfortable in front of the lens. That said, a good photographer can pull good photos out of me. The RED album was photographed by talented Hamilton photographer Jose Crespo. I always make the final selection on what photos get used in consultation with my sister, mom and close friend, because they know me and know what the best representation of my true self is. For the final design layout, I work -closely with a graphic artist. You may notice I have taken different approaches with my various album covers; however, I’m a multi-faceted person, so each cover is a true representation of myself.

JS: Your latest CD is “I Believe in Little Things” and it’s both a collection of favorite children’s songs and just as much a fine jazz album. Why and how did this CD come into existence?

DP: I had a number of moms emailing to tell me they had favourite songs from my existing repertoire that they would use to put their children to sleep. This spurred the idea to create an album with young listeners in mind. I also wanted the album to appeal to adults as well.

JS: “I Believe in Little Things” is very successful in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, to name a few, so, first of all, how do you explain your popularity in Asia and, secondly, are there any ways in which Asian audiences differ from North American or European audiences?

DP: It’s always difficult to fully ascertain why something is successful or popular with a particular audience. That said, I have noticed that my audiences in Asia seem to enjoy calm, quiet music that relaxes the mind and my music is a natural fit for this kind of listener. In addition, there is a larger CD and Vinyl buying jazz market in Asia. Fans in Asia are more likely to invest in a collector’s edition album and thus hard copy sales are stronger than in the North American market where downloads are becoming more and more popular.

JS: Tell us about three songs on this CD that mean a great deal to you and why is that so?

DP: I have a soft spot for A.A. Milne’s -author of Winnie-the-Pooh- “Halfway Up the Stairs” as I like the simplicity of the duo instrumentation and I like the lyrical message reminding us to enjoy the process rather than always focusing on the end result. Kids often do this naturally, but some adults need to be reminded to stay in the moment. “Sing” is a favourite from my own childhood and it was fun to give this song a jazz treatment. It was extra special to be able to speak directly with the son of Joe Raposo, composer of the title track, who was pleased we would be doing a jazz version of his father’s song “I Believe in Little Things”. The Sesame Street songwriter was interested in exposing children to a variety of different musical genres and he would often write songs with jazz, funk, Brazilian influences.

JS: You do some lyrics in French on this album -which seems natural since you teach French at Westdale High School- but I’d like to know what you enjoy about singing lyrics in French as compared with singing lyrics in English.

DP: It’s always a treasure discovery when I find good French lyrics to a song we hope to record. I really enjoy singing in French. The consonants seem softer than English and thus are very singer friendly. Portuguese is also a beautiful language for singing, but sadly I don’t speak this language. Fortunately, I learned French at school, so it does feel more natural to sing in French because I know what I’m saying so I can really tell the story.

JS: What is the hardest thing about being an independent artist nowadays, one who records and does many gigs each year?

DP: I think the shifting landscape of the music industry is the most unpredictable part of being an indie artist these days. One wonders, with the advent of downloads and now streaming, if CDs will become obsolete within the next decade. The vinyl market is experiencing a renaissance, but this is still a niche market. Without CD sales, it will become more and more difficult for indie artists to fund future projects with the declining revenue from hard copy sales. Unfortunately, streaming sales don’t amount to much, even if the music is reaching a larger audience.

JS: What do the next twelve months or so look like in terms of your musical career?

DP: I have some interesting gigs coming up, including the gala fundraising event at the Hamilton Art Gallery. I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with several art galleries this year, which combines two of my interests, music and art. I will be appearing at festivals in Orangeville and Waterloo. There is a possible tour of Japan this summer and I’m really looking forward to being a guest performer at Writer’s at Woody Point in Gros Morne National Park this August in Newfoundland. I intend to record a new album at the end of the summer.

JS: Any advice for younger singers who would like to do what you do?

DP: Be yourself. The primary goal should be to make music because it brings you joy. The other stuff requires diligence, hard work and some luck. It doesn’t hurt to have a secondary source of income aside from performing, because making CDs is costly.

JS: What’s the importance of jazz for you and for our culture?

DP: Jazz brings me joy and solace. I feel better when I listen to jazz and when I sing. Jazz enhances my life and I would like to think that my contribution to the genre enhances the lives of others too.

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