LAUGHTER UNCONFINED: SHAW’S YOU NEVER CAN TELL AT THE SHAW FESTIVAL TO OCTOBER 25

Posted on June 12, 2015 by strecker

A few seconds of animation footage of a boat directed full speed ahead at the audience, a floating inflated fish and bubbles ascending merrily, and one feels present here the spirit, perhaps, of Terry Gilliam of Monty Python days. And then a music track that is playfully percussive and hip-tossing friendly, with a set and costumes designed in rich hues of inviting and quite light-hearted absurdity. And then an often erratic movement of bodies, much in high gear and spiked sometimes with the vigor of farce. Some characters are tripping out while others seem bent psychologically askew and wanting out of what they presently are.

And is that not William the butler who enters blowing a kazoo? Does he not have a twinkle in his eye? And doesn’t director Jim Mezon’s production of Shaw’s You Never Can Tell follow suit and have its own, well, twinkle? Are we not being asked to lighten up and put habitual expectation of Shaw aside so we might feel the unspoken heart of his characters in their diverting world that never diverts quite enough? Appropriately, the lawyers and the father, those who advocate rules, end up with ridiculous masks to wear while William, with his sagacious sense of place, proves the world-wise heart of this production. He knows his place well, nd he wants it to remain undisturbed, while the others often don’t know where to place themselves and are conspicuously disturbed.

There’s a telling moment in the fourth act when William, played by Festival treasure Peter Millard, re-enters a situation of hostilities and general upset. All the participants in this noisy scene pause into quiet, as if their servant’s efficient deference is conferring upon all an identity, one above his station to be sure, that demands a dignity they can’t seem to muster. William is an age-brewed butler who by his presence implies the roles that others are expected to play. He is also a beneficent presence who manages each conversation as he wishes and when he says “Sir” -which is often- he hits home the fact that the others are unworthy of such respect. He is adept at getting in his subtle barbs too, at speaking the truth without giving too much offence and if he claims, “being a waiter is born in the character” he is, in turn, considered, “the most thoughtful of men.”

Tara Rosling is Mrs. Clandon, a mother of three who declares, “I married before I knew what I was doing and have never been in love.” Rosling’s animated voice and physicality are certainly a delight to behold, mixed as they are with an almost regal poise, motherly authority, and vulnerability too. We sense in her a life, long lived but still on hold, with much of her heart unrealized, unknown, yet always, it seems, vaguely present in what seems a quiet longing. Patrick McManus is Fergus Crampton, the husband from whom she long ago took flight with the kids. Crampton is a man of grumbly bitterness who snarls and quietly snorts but is not too explosive. As a self-proclaimed “properly hardened man,” he feels he should endure the pulling of teeth without gas, walks slightly bent with self-consuming bitterness, and fears to present a bad image in public and with his family. He seems much an ordinary guy on the verge of breakdown. His skin is too tight. This Crampton is a ton of cramp, thank you, GBS.

The twins, Dolly and Philip, will annoy some, I’m sure, with their hyper, unstoppable, skit on a dime, and very with it manner, but they are having a fun time and –how dare they?- they are getting away with it. To the adults, they are “clever children” who can’t “hold their tongues” and “barbarian children” according to their mother. These twins, played by Jennifer Dzialoszynski and Stephen Jackman-Torkoff, are dotty in high drive, their spoken delivery revved up a notch, their animated bodies quite pleasantly extravagant with gestures in all directions. These twins are precisely synchronized to each other and they prefer to improvise scenes imbued with a sense of delighted self- mockery and hyper chatty dramatics. They may play the game of life, when needed, but certainly delight in games as they feed any lunacy –this along with an attitude of not taking “this island seriously.” Did I mention that he is black and tall while she is neither? Both, in their imaginative self-indulgence, are a lot of fun to watch.
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Also delightful are Peter Krantz as Finch and Jeff Meadows as Bohun. Finch is paunchy in manner if not in belly, a man of premature stuffiness and a voice that seems to moan from afar. As we see in this production, humans play roles, play games, and Finch seems to ascend and descend in the role of authority like a wave on the shore of this “seaside town.” He fumes and he is snickered at, his voice glides with implied judgement on others, and he is a man who is easily vexed and hurt. He is deemed as “old- fashioned” and admits that he is “indulged as an old fogey.” Meanwhile, Jeff Meadows’ Bohum is a self-propelling super-wiz lawyer whose father is William the butler. If the latter reflects the class system and is a butler and man who almost craves the societal confines of his position, his expansive son is much otherwise. When allowed to serve, William is content. But enter his son, now a prestigious lawyer of society’s prestigious echelons, one who stands impossibly tall, takes thrusting steps, and is garbed in black, and we have –what is it?- a Svengali to the multitudes who seems, as played by Meadows, on the verge of a vaudeville dance. Or is he a societal Ubermensch,, given to bombastic authority in voice and grand gestures, a man with penetrating understanding whom others heed. In any case, Meadows-Bohum here is funny as hell.

The odd love angle of You Never Can Tell involves Gray Powell’s Valentine, a dentist whose “business is to hurt people” but -since we meet him with just his first patient- he hasn’t really had much such business thus far. Over time, we find that he is a game player, a self- indulgent pursuer of women who now finds one in Gloria who won’t play such a game because she never learned how -or did she? He is also a self-confessed fortune hunter who is much attuned to ‘the duel of sex,” a man who calls himself a “butterfly” and who “plays with women’s affections.” Almost as soon as we meet him, his first outburst is animated and pointed towards hysteria. Later we see how, as he tries to gain the trust of Julia’s mother, he reveals a busy seducer’s past by saying, “You’re very different to all the other mothers that have interviewed me.”

If Valentine does a lousy job of concealing who he is –or is it that he conceals himself best by apparently revealing himself so much?- Gloria seems an unreachable severity wrapped and concealed at first in a coat from neck to toe. Gloria, played by Julia Course, seems a dehumanized robot of her mother’s making and her mother echoes in Julia’s annoyed indignation, defiance even, at all the artificiality that women are supposed to be. “How I love the name of mother,” she exclaims. She finds love “vulgar” and has no intention of getting married in this “convention ridden world.” However, in Act 4, she enters red gowned with long gloves and finally we can see she does have a woman’s hips. She still agonizes about “my miserably cowardly womanly feelings” but it is also revealed that she did have her list of guys back in Madeira. Valentine may say, “You are a clever girl, but you have not been awakened yet” but when she reverses roles and becomes the aggressor, he is rather wiped out and unsettled. If he is unprepared for this Gloria, so are we.

Valentine and Gloria are funny in their remoteness from each other. She doesn’t seem to possess an undercurrent of human heart beneath her imposed, and maybe accepted, party line, but this absence adds to the farcical element of Valentine’s attraction to her. Powell’s Valentine is decidedly mercurial, a man who changes tactics as needed, and we can’t even pin his self-awareness on him as a constant truth about the guy. Gloria seems immovable while he is movement itself, and both are very much in the head, cerebral. We wonder if his male attraction to females is a male self-indulgence, since all the chemistry is concocted in his own head, no matter who or what she might be. So it’s interesting that Gloria, who seems to have no passion other than the one that mirrors her mom’s beliefs, does cough up a past of some kind with men in Madeira and is quite adept at coming on to Valentine. Or is she an innocent gone wild? After all, when Gloria was kissed, “she appeared to like it.” And does this all seem rather arbitrary? Or is life itself, over and over, a farce of arbitrariness as depicted here? You never can tell.

This good time had by all production is designed by Leslie Frankish, with lighting by Kimberly Purtell, projections by Cameron Davis, movement by Jane Johanson, and original music and sound designed by John Gzowski, each one with imaginative clout and beach ball seats included.
According to director Jim Mezon’s notes, this production is dedicated to the memory of actor Jack Medley who worked at the Shaw Festival between the years of 1964 and 1995 and, yes, we all do miss his presence there very much.

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VALERIE HARMS: AN INTERVIEW WITH AN AUTHOR-CONSULTANT CALLED “A MOST REMARKABLE WOMAN” BY THE UNITED NATIONS

Posted on June 4, 2015 by strecker

Valerie Harms’ ten books include Your Soul at a Crossroads, Dreaming of Animals, The Inner Lover, Tryin’ To Get To You/ The Story of Elvis Presley, National Audubon Society Almanac of the Environment/ The Ecology of Everyday Life, Stars In My Sky/ Nin, Montessori, Steloff, Unmasking: Ten Women in Metamorphosis, Celebration with Anais Nin, and –for children under ten- Frolic’s Dance. She has worked with a number of publishers including Putnam, Random House, Atheneum, W.W. Norton, and Shambhala. As co-founder and publisher of Magic Circle Press, a press intended to publish works by women, she produced a number of award-winning books. As a journalist Harms has appeared in a number of publications including The New York Times and at present she edits Distinctly Montana Magazine. A longtime scholar of Carl Jung, James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, and others, Harms has been an Intensive Journal consultant and given workshops for several decades. This interview took place in May of 2015.

James Strecker: In total and in its many intriguing parts, your rich and varied life is almost too abundant to discuss in a brief interview, but let’s bravely proceed to condense it, if we can. To begin, you are an Intensive Journal Consultant in a method created by depth psychologist Ira Progoff, so let’s ask you to describe five “stepping stones” -as Ira called them- of your own life and their importance to your developing existence in this world.

Valerie Harms: 1. Growing up in Chicago where I learned about horseback riding and rode in shows. My parents divorce.
2. Going to Smith College. Exposed to hard work, living in a house in which I had my own room. Wrote and read till early morning.
3. Married Larry Sheehan, also a writer. Had two children. Constituted family life. Challenges.
4. National Audubon Society (more about this later)
5. Move to Montana. At first I traveled to great places: Galapagos, Bali, Costa Rica, Morocco. I was part of the Montana Wilderness Association and film society. Now I don’t travel and connections are dwindling.

JS: What have you done as a “scholar” of Carl Jung, James Hillman, and Joseph Campbell? Why do these thinkers appeal to you and why are they important for people in today’s world?

VH: All three churn my depths and imagination though in different ways. I became a Jung scholar back in the 1970s, only 20 years after he died, and now 45 years later still resonate with his work. When I worked in New York City, the C. G. Jung Center at 39th and Madison was my place of restoration. There was a great library of psychological and philosophical works, but even better was ARAS (Archive of Research in Archetypal Symbolism), a photo library of the world’s art, sculpture, and spiritual icons. I spent many hours poring over pictures. I gave workshops at the Center. I researched my books there.
When I moved to Montana in 1995, I joined a newly formed Montana Friends of Jung organization and soon became president of both the local and state boards. We sponsored programs with Jung analysts and we slowly read Jung’s works, including the difficult Mysterium Coniunctionis and more recently The Red Book, Jung’s journal.
James Hillman is an archetypal psychologist whom I heard lecture many times in NYC and Montana (he came here at elk rutting season because he liked to watch them in Yellowstone Park). He did not like the term “psychologist” or “therapist”; he was a theorist of the imagination. His method was philosophical. His books made thoughtful contributions — from the soul of cities to people’s fascination with the trimmings of war.
Joseph Campbell, of course, specialized in the world’s mythologies, all of which are related to the spiritualism of cultures.
These three men are important to the world because they emphasized the images that came from a person’s life, dreams, fantasies, thoughts. These images are the basis for one’s personal meaning and unique spiritual life.

JS: One of my favourite books of yours is The Inner Lover, a wise volume I have shared with many others. In it, as with other of your books, you make substantial reference to your own life and I find this a courageous thing to do. Please explain the intention of this book and also, as an honest writer and therapist, if you feel that it is your duty to use psychological self-exposure as one of your underpinnings.

VH: This book arose from a deluge of realizations made during my private therapy and passions. I felt I had to use my life in order to illustrate my points. I knew no other life as thoroughly. I wanted to document how our ideals in love objects evolve as we mature — from parent to teenage crushes and so on. I especially wanted to show how the love we feel is within us and does not belong to the other person no matter if they die, don’t love us back, or are our marriage partner. I wanted to show that we could use our grief, anger, and longing as creative nourishment. I urged people to write, draw, build something. I also wanted to show how our passions sprout spiritual buds. The most passionate spiritual poetry originates in love, regardless of its state. For instance, the oft-quoted Rumi was in love with a man whom he could not be with after a time, so he wrote to address the man and found his subject morph into a spiritual Being. When I give workshops, I often find it helps others if I share a personal anecdote.

JS: Your Dreaming of Animals is both fascinating and moving because, in part, it considers our relationship with animals and our inner psychological/spiritual existence in this connection. Please explain what this book is telling us.

VH: I am desperately concerned about the extinction and threatening of species. Ecology or the links among all species — i.e. the harmony of the spheres — means all beings are connected. Many people don’t feel that. Because of my psychological bent, I was aware of how our dreams tell us about our relationship to animals — from domestic cats to cheetahs — in our own lives or the state of the world. Sometimes dreams of animals tell us something about our behavior or attitudes and sometimes the dreams instruct us about what we can do to help them thrive better. I gave many examples of the most charismatic animals in the book — from a psychological to ecologic point of view.

JS: What impact did knowing and working with Anais Nin have on your life? Please tell us about the two books Celebration with Anais Nin and Stars In My Sky: Anais Nin, Maria Montessori, Frances Steloff and also your connection with the latter two women.

VH: I just came back from California where I talked about my relationship with Anais. Here are notes on what I said:
At a women artists Consciousness Raising group, a friend says read Diaries of Anais Nin; I was used to the diary style of Samuel Pepys, being taught that diaries weren’t literature. I read her stories first and found them daunting. Her diaries then consumed me – they focused on her desire to be a great writer (mine too), inner conflicts, art, relationships.
I wrote her & and she invited me to a book party for Vol. IV at Gotham Book Mart founded by Frances Steloff. In late 60s, she was the second oldest woman there and the loveliest – long clingy velvet dress, gold lame slippers, coppery hair swept up with ribbons braided through it. Her grace & elegance influenced me.
She invited to the apt in NYC she shared with husband Ian Hugo (former banker & filmmaker); I knew more about him more than her life in CA with Rupert.
I wore turquoise kohl for a while. I had a husband and two children, not exactly like her life. I acquired a majestic cape. My stationery letterhead was in purple ink.
My friend and I planned a Celebration weekend—Anais wanted it small. We held it in 1972 over 3 days, 30 people, highest energy. Anna Balakian (Breton, Surrealism), Frances Steloff made presentations.
I had a lot of correspondence with her. I read everything she wrote. Novel of the Future heavily underlined.
The friend & I started Magic Circle Press, based on Anais’ Gemor Press. We published a book on Celebration weekend. Party at Gotham Book Mart.
I go to Chicago and comb Northwestern U special collections. I publish a book of her early stories, Waste of Timelessness.
I wrote an essay about her relationships with analysts Allendy & Rank, both of whom broke the boundaries.
I organized a program at NY U with Anais and Ira Progoff, founder of Intensive Journal Method and a book about Otto Rank, among others. He was irritated that she got most of the attention.

Donna Ippolito in Chicago was an editor at Swallow Press and later Ohio University Press. Swallow Press published my first book called Unmasking: Ten Women in Metamorphosis – based on the consciousness raising group.
The best Web site on Anais, www.anaisnin.com, was started by two friends and I at my house on the patio. This patio was central again as after Anais’ death, the publication of Vol. VII came out and both of Anais’ husbands came – Hugo and Rupert — came to a party we gave on the patio.
I went to Bali and Fez, Morocco in her footsteps. In Bali I stayed at the same place she and Rupert stayed and talked to the owner about her.
Death ends a life but not a relationship. I still dream about her. She is a guide, now about aging. The gifts that Anais gave me were contained in her lines: “proceed from the dream outward”, “the personal life deeply lived contains truths far beyond itself. Also, her emphasis on love, nurturing creativity, beauty, literature, art, heart to heart conversations, and harmonizing relations.

Frances Steloff I knew because of Anais. Her bookstore in NYC, Gotham Book Mart (Wise Men Fish Here), was a literary hub. Poetry occupied a huge space. On the second floor literary parties were held. The James Joyce Society met there. Interested in spiritual writings, Frances held Gurdjieff audiotape listening discussions. I knew her through her 90s when she had a straggly white bun and very kind face. As a teen she had left a mean stepmother to be on her own in NYC and had grit and smarts. She lived on the third floor of the building in a one-room studio. She was a vegetarian who loved cats. “Putsy” sat on her desk downstairs. She was known for putting the book a person unknowingly needed into their hands. She died when 100. The iconic shop no longer exists.
Maria Montessori’s self-directed method of education inspired me when my children were young. I helped found a school. She had a theory of “cosmic education” which was about the unity of all cultures. She taught techniques for children to bring about peace in their everyday lives. She thought teenagers should be managing small business ventures to gain independence. She was Italy’s first woman doctor. Mussolini burned her in effigy. She was a woman with great foresight and many of her gifts have yet to be developed.
My book Stars In My Sky included long personal essays on Anais, Frances, and Montessori.

JS: Your National Audubon Society Almanac of the Environment/ The Ecology of Everyday Life is certainly relevant in our present zeitgeist of doom about our future. In what ways is this book important to us and what does it mean to you?

VH: This book shows how everything we do is linked to a nature cycle — solar, carbon, water, nitrogen, and the food web. For instance, the fibers for the clothes we wear may originate in plants. The book encourages us to look at and ask how that plant is grown, whether are pesticides used, how is it harvested, how transported and what fuel used, how processed and distributed. A big push has been to make companies responsible not only for sales but also how products are produced, who produces them, right back down to their origin as well as the cleanup after use. Same with our appliances and forms of recreation. It’s an extremely comprehensive book, bringing in all the experts I could find. It goes into ocean and land ecology as well as politics and media. It really enabled me and others to see the patterns in nature and to get a large perspective.

JS: The description of your Tryin’ To Get to You, The Story of Elvis Presley implies that there was more of substance to the man than the idol-worshipping masses know. Please tell us about your connection with Elvis and why you wrote the book.

VH: I first heard Elvis in my high school auditorium in Texas when I was 15. I had never seen nor heard anything like him. He looked like an Adonis in loose cream shirt and slacks, and buck shoes. His voice instantly excited me. I never stopped admiring what he could do with a song, especially the raunchy ones or the spirituals. I hated the movies and the sappy tunes, though I did like “Love Me Tender” and “Old Shep.” He was rock n roll to me even though I also listened to black stations in Chicago. After his performance, he stayed overnight in our town and when he and the other two band members were having breakfast, two friends and I rushed to the cafe. They invited us to sit down. He had jiggly energy and was always kind and sincere. Later after starting a fan club, he signed a bunch of membership cards and gave us photos. Until superstardom took over, he invited us backstage where he often was jamming with someone like Faron Young.
I wrote the book when Elvis died as a way to assuage the mourning process. I listened to my favorite songs all day. It was a rich time! You’ll have to read the book to find out what I thought about the rest of his life.

JS: Your latest book is Your Soul at a Crossroads, with Steps You Can Take Not to Lose It and it seems something of a compilation and summary of key elements from some of your books. Why does this book contain the material it does and what is your intention for the book as a whole?

VH: I have taught many psychological/spiritual workshops. I wanted to create a short book based on my experience with the exercises, which readers could use as a guide. So, it’s a combination of things I’ve learned and instructions.

JS: How do you like writing for children? What’s hard and rewarding about it?

VH: Two of my children’s books were done “for hire” so I felt pressure from the bosses. For both I had to do a lot of research. One was about an Arctic Hare and the neighboring animals. I had to learn all about them. One delightful fact was that the hares gather in full moons and dance around. I named the main character Frolic and called the book Frolic’s Dance. A stuffed animal was sold with it.

JS: You also provide consulting services for people wanting to be published. If people have a manuscript that they want to see in print, what do you do for them and with them? Other than payment, of course, what do you yourself derive from such work?

VH: Normally I provide evaluating, editing, and suggestions regarding publishers and/or agents. I enjoy reading what engages people and how they express their thoughts. I like seeing all the different styles.

JS: You have lived in many places including France, Connecticut, Montana now, and other places, so tell us what different geographical locations do to you and how they have impact on your psychological situation and your creativity.

VH: I lived in France when I was newly married and had my first child. I was isolated in a small farm village with only a bicycle. I had lots of time to read and write, even interacting with my daughter. We had an orchard. The rhythm of the villagers was interesting. I loved learning to cook French recipes, learning about Alsatian wines & eau de vies, and traveling about. I still yearn for cafe life, outdoor picnics, croissants, and French bread.
Connecticut, a New England state, was a hub for good friends, modern activity, getting to NYC. We raised our family there and also divorced. I absolutely loved our second home there. It was the best I’ve ever been in. Several of my books were created there.
Montana is a place where the Indians were conquered by the Anglo settlers. The landscape is largely gorgeous with the Rocky Mountain range and the big open sky. I had hoped I and my writing would become wilder —I’m still trying.

JS: In this vein, you also currently edit Distinctly Montana Magazine. What do you enjoy about your current gig as editor? How does living in Montana feed your spirit?

VH: I always say that planning and editing a quarterly magazine is like throwing a party with different people each season. I have learned more about Montana’s history than I have any other place. It’s easier to be more involved in politics too.

JS: We first met when we were both attending journal-keeping workshops in New York and training with this method’s creator, depth psychologist Ira Progoff, to be Consultants using his approach, The Intensive Journal Workshop. Please tell us concisely what the Intensive Journal is, what it involves, its distinct approaches to the psyche, and what rewards it offers a human being initially and over time.

VH: That is an impossible question. You should direct people to the book At a Journal Workshop by Ira Progoff or to Dialogue House.

JS: I know you have the manuscript of your new novel on your desk. Is there anything you might share about the novel itself and your experience of writing it?

VH: The novel has been tough because all my published work has been nonfiction and I’ve had to adapt to this other genre. This time though I’m using my imagination totally. Of course, the plot centers around what I’ve absorbed from my life, some of it here. A father-daughter bond, a romance between the daughter and a Native Indian, ranching life, a fire, dispute over water use, a murder, and an artist and baby. I’m reading it over aloud for a final edit. It’s been years that I’ve been on it. It’s much harder to get time to write now.

JS: Opportunities for writers have decreased immensely in our lifetime, so what advice would you give to anyone seeking to be a writer and any writer seeking to get published?

VH: If you can’t find a regular publisher, explore self-publishing options but first develop a marketing plan.

JS: It’s obvious that you are “a most remarkable woman” but why did the United Nations say that about you?

VH: The UN committee on the Year of the Woman honored me because of my depth psychological journal workshops.

JS: Okay, let’s imagine that you have seven essential things you can say to express what you have learned to be of most value over your lifetime. What would they be?

VH: Find a practice that enables you to stay close to your inner process; pay attention to your dreams; be comfortable in solitude. Learning to work out conflicts with other people is a must. Beauty and music are necessary for healing and joy.

JS: Please tell us briefly about the impact five key people have had on your life and what that impact was.

VH: Anais Nin — as I’ve already discussed
Ira Progoff — I have used the Intensive Journal Method for decades and been grateful for it.
Aurelie and Alex Sheehan — My daughter and son, very different people. My daughter is reasonable as a lawyer, a very funny sardonic writer of fiction, a kind teacher, and a remarkable mother. My son parents three children (two stepchildren) and is loved by all. He was athletic. It was a privilege to grow up with them. In that vein I must give credit to their father, with whom I had a 20-year relationship. It was extremely hard to part ways.
Jan Beyea — he was Senior Scientist at the National Audubon Society and hired me after my divorce when it was a tough time. I learned so much about conservation and habitats. We’d met in college and are still friends. I enjoyed his scientific mind.

JS: How can people get in touch with you?

VH: Valerie Harms, valerie@valerieharms.com. See my Web site, www.valerieharms.com

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ADRIANNE PIECZONKA: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INTERNATIONALLY CELEBRATED CANADIAN SOPRANO DUE TO SING RICHARD STRAUSS AND WAGNER WITH THE TSO MARCH 11, 12, AND 14

Posted on March 4, 2015 by strecker

Photograph by Bo Huang

James Strecker: First of all, best wishes for your birthday of March 2. Since you’ll be fifty-two, I wonder how the Adrianne who will be singing with the Toronto Symphony on March 11, 12, 14 is different as a person and as an artist from the Adrianne of, say, twenty years ago.

Adrianne Pieczonka: I feel more and more like the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier! I first sang the role when I was about 33 and back then I couldn’t fully relate to Marie Therese’s concern about aging and mortality. Two decades later I do feel much more compassion with her! I am fit and healthy which is a blessing and I continue to try to stay active and in good shape. In many ways I am much happier now and definitely more settled in life in general.

JS: You’ll be singing Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss with the TSO and I wonder how the fact that this was the composer’s last composition and the fact that he died before its premiere, with Flagstad conducted by Furtwangler, influence your interpretation.

AP: I am privileged to have sung a great deal of Strauss during my career – mostly opera but I’ve also done a fair bit of lieder as well. The Four Last Songs hold a special place in my heart. They are iconic songs, loved by so many people. The poems are very beautiful and touching and it’s even more poignant to know that Strauss died before its premiere. The last song, “Im Abendrot” is probably my favourite and again it deals with dying and mortality. One senses Strauss also sensing his own imminent death perhaps.

JS: As a composer, what does Strauss demand of a soprano and what does he uniquely offer her?

AP: We know that Strauss wrote extremely well for the soprano voice. His wife Pauline was a soprano and his devotion and love for her was channeled into many of his greatest female roles. There are a few distinctions in his soprano writing: he writes often for the high coloratura voice as with Zerbinetta and Fiakermilli), the dramatic soprano of Elektra and Salome, but he writes most prolifically for the more lyric soprano voice with Marchallin, Arabella, Ariadne, Countess Madeleine and others. For these more lyric roles, which i have done a great deal, the soprano needs to be able to spin long lines of golden tones. There are often bits of conversational vocality here and there, but, as in the vocal line of the Four Last Songs, it is the beautifully spun legato lines which make the magic.

JS: Furtwangler in his Notebooks, like some other commentators, makes references to Strauss as –how do we put this?- a composer given to style over substance, as a man of some deficiency in expressing inner depth. You have sung a lot of Strauss, so could you give us your view of the composer and the man you hear in his music?

AP: I’m afraid I don’t agree with Herr Furtwangler’s comments. I find there is a deep humanity and tenderness in many of Strauss’ operas. Sometimes he gives over to frivolity or excess, but in his music I often get a sense of deep contentment and love.

JS: You’ll also be singing a selection of Wagner with the TSO and, as with Strauss, I’d love to know what unique challenges there are to his music for a soprano. For what reasons do you enjoy singing Wagner?

AP: I don’t think I can answer this question satisfactorily. Wagner’s genius -like Strauss’ and my other two ‘faves’ Verdi and Mozart- knows no bounds. His music, like the music of Strauss, seems to fit my voice and sensibility particularly well. I have done nearly all the Wagner heroines, bar Bruennhilde and Isolde, and I am excited to try Isolde’s ‘Liebestod’ with the TSO. It’s the first step toward potentially attempting the role in its entirety.

JS: You’re coming off a season of doing Senta in Wagner’s Der Fliegende Hollander at Covent Garden and it’s a role you’ve sung a number of times including Bayreuth. Please explain to us the effect of some of the opera houses in which you have sung on your performances of roles you did there.

AP: I’ll just speak about Bayreuth if I may. It’s a very special opera house, a special festival. I remember when I first set foot on the stage in 2006 for a rehearsal of Die Walkuere. I had goose bumps to stand there and look out into the auditorium.
The acoustics are unique in that the pit is covered, basically hidden from view when you are on stage or in the audience. Wagner designed this himself to ensure that the balance between the voices and the orchestra would be perfect. There is no other house like it in the world. The people that come to Bayreuth each summer are called ‘pilger’ – pilgrims. They often make the yearly pilgrimage to Bayreuth to hear the same operas over and over again. I think this would only be the case for the operas of Wagner. They evoke such devotion and obsession to many opera goers, me included.

JS: Louis Quilico once told me that “Mr. Verdi is very smart” and that the composer pretty much indicates everything the singer should do, so please tell us your thoughts on Verdi as a composer and a man of operatic theatre. Is doing Falstaff as much fun as it seems for the singers?

AP: Very briefly Verdi composes peerlessly for the voice in every range. The art of bel canto is dying out and the great Verdian interpreters are few and far between. There is nowhere to hide singing Verdi – prima la musica. The voice is exposed and first and foremost. You have to be technically very sound to sing Verdi. Falstaff is a hoot! I loved singing this role.

JS: Please tell us about your favorite experiences with directors in the theatre.

AP: Patrice Chereau for Elektra in Aix-en-Provence. His energy, drive, humour and charm were amazing. He was very ill when we were doing the production but he was so focused, even in the face of such terminal illness. Remarkable.
My other favourite director is German Willy Decker. We did many productions together in Germany such as Katja Kabanova, Pique Dame, Eugene Onegin. I just clicked with Willy on many levels. He was very anxious, worrying that that his concept was perhaps not good and this is common I find in great artists. They are not boastful or grand. They are self-scrutinizing and often very hard on themselves. I’ve enjoyed also working with Canadian Robert Carsen many times. I’ll do his production of Capriccio in Paris in January of 2016.

JS: One often reads about mistakes that younger opera singers make in pursuing their respective careers and, since you do master classes, I wonder what advice you would give to these singers so they might best realize their potential.

AP: There’s no magic bullet for success as an opera singer. Like every other profession, one must do the work! I find it common that young singers today want to jump right to ‘being a star’ instead of doing the many steps over the years to attain this goal. You need tons of discipline as a singer. Its like being an athlete and you must train, work hard every day. Rejection is part of the process. I often was rejected at auditions, but you must move past this and keep going forward.

JS: Please describe, say, three especially memorable experiences you have had in your musical career.

AP: Working with director Patrice Chereau, shortly before his death, as Chrysothemis in Elektra in Aix-en-Provence in the summer of 2013. Having private coaching sessions with Riccardo Muti in Vienna, with him at the piano, coaching me on the recitative for the role of Donna Anna. He was infinitely patient and kind. And singing at the Milennium Gala at Roy Thomson on New Year’s eve 1999. It was a thrilling night. It was the first time I sang ‘Vissi d’arte’ and it’s great to have the recording of that night and the audience’s wonderful response afterward.

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GEORGE BENJAMIN: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CELEBRATED COMPOSER, CONDUCTOR, PIANIST AND TEACHER -APPEARING AT THE TORONTO SYMPHONY’S NEW CREATIONS FESTIVAL FROM FEBRUARY 28-MARCH 7

Posted on February 26, 2015 by strecker

Photo by Matthew Lloyd

James Strecker: A Mind of Winter is the first of your three featured works in the Toronto Symphony’s New Creations Festival, so I’d love to know how introspective a work it is. A number of writers and actors have told me how they dig into their lives for material and I wonder if that is the case with you in the music for A Mind of Winter.

George Benjamin: While writing I devote my energies to just one thing: music. That’s enough! But, without the help of some expressive input, I would not be able to find the notes I need, though I would not be able to put such feelings into words. My approach is simple: musical emotion is discovered in the act of composition, and not imposed in advance by will. So no ‘digging’!

JS: How did the poem by Wallace Stevens, used as text, here influence how you set it to music?

GB: My piece is a portrait in sound of the extraordinarily evocative and mysterious Stevens poem, which I knew I wanted to set from the moment I first read it almost 35 years ago. The influence of the poem is evident in my score from the first note to the last, and affects everything from the smallest details to the largest structural element.

JS: I find it gripping, in the version I heard, how near the end the soprano sustains the word “behold,” all the while becoming engulfed by the orchestra and then freed from it before almost speaking the last line in a haunted and vulnerable voice. What response do you yourself go through, as the one who composed it, when you conduct the work?

GB: To serve the singer and the players to the best of my abilities, and to bring the notes I wrote on paper over three decades ago to life in the most vivid and precise way I can.

JS: What is there in your Duet for Piano and Orchestra, featured at the Festival’s second concert, that feels new and innovative to you in the context of your previous work? What about the piece gives you the most satisfaction?

GB: It’s my only concerto! Though, indeed, it’s more of an anti-concerto for the writing for the soloist, in the main, intentionally subverts the habitual requirement for such works to be vehicles for display and virtuosity.

JS: What were the main challenges for you in writing for a solo instrument and an orchestra and how did you effectively maintain the presence of each one?

GB: In terms of sonority my piece attempts to bridge the acoustic chasm between the piano and the orchestra by, in effect, trying to make one sound like the other. And I conceived this piece – like all my works – primarily in dramatic terms, while trying to avoid the conventional “individual against the mass” dialectic found in many works in this form.

JS: I’m sure you’ve heard many responses to your work in general, so could you tell us a few such responses that have pleased you and a few that have been less pleasing, perhaps even troubling.

GB: The response to my two operas has taken me by surprise, though I do feel that collaboration with the English playwright, Martin Crimp, has had something of a transformative effect on my work. But there is one specific incident I would like to recall. In 1993 I completed a complex orchestral piece “Sudden Time”, a score which took several years to conceive. One of its sources of inspiration was a fascinating short film I had seen, by chance, on television by the renowned Canadian animator Norman McLaren – something which I’d never disclosed to anyone. A few months after the premiere, I went to Mumbai and gave a talk about the work to a large and friendly Indian audience who, nevertheless, seemed baffled by what they heard. At the reception afterwards I therefore felt rather isolated – until an architect approached me, with considerably more enthusiasm than his compatriots, to tell me that that my music reminded him of Norman McLaren’s films – a comment I have never forgotten and which, in retrospect, seems to justify that whole trip to India!

JS: You have said that you spent two and a half years devoted solely to the writing of your opera Written on Skin and that you gave up everything else in your life to do so, so I wonder if you might describe for us your emotional and mental states during this time. This was a solitary and intensely focused experience, so how did you keep yourself going?

GB: I immerse myself in my work to a rather extreme degree. Once things begin, it’s very hard for me not to be inhabited by what I’m writing during all waking hours -and probably quite a few dreams too. A task as gigantic as an opera therefore requires uninterrupted concentration on the task in hand, so I virtually stop teaching, reduce my travelling to almost nil and refuse conducting engagements. The hope is to submerge oneself to such an extent that the compositional process begins to flow and, eventually snowball. Though onerous, it’s also a thrilling journey, watching the seasons pass as, scene by scene, the work expands.

JS: You have also said that “the challenge is to make opera seem natural in the 21st century, which is not necessarily so easy.” Please tell us more.

GB: We live in an era – now almost a hundred years old – which has been dominated by the movies. Modern opera can often seem arch or contrived in comparison and one of the challenges, I believe, is to by-pass the dominating influence of cinema and try to give opera – with its strange conventions, but also its uniquely magical potency – the illusion of naturalness. Acknowledging its artificiality from the first bar has been one of the approaches that Martin Crimp and I have adopted in the hope that, once achieved, expressive immediacy will – paradoxically – be strengthened.

JS: You talk about getting the singers to do what you want and I wonder if you might clarify with an example or two what you are requesting of them in Written on Skin.

GB: I designed the opera for the singers who premiered the work –so magnificently – in Aix en Provence in July 2012. And when I say “designed” I mean that: every line was conceived specifically to match and expose their vocal talents and strengths, their roles shaped according to what I discovered when we initially met and played through lieder together before I started composing. Two of these singers, I’m delighted to say – Barbara Hannigan and Chris Purves – will be appearing in the forthcoming performance in Toronto.
A specific example: Barbara has an exquisite high G#, while Chris’ “purple” note in is a top E. In response, these precise pitches are saved for specific moments in the work, and lines given to Agnes and The Protector frequently gravitate around them. In turn the orchestra – and the harmonic environment, a particularly important element for me- are influenced and shaped according to these notes, both short and long-term.
So the ramifications of my early contact with these singers were far from incidental. I should perhaps add, however, that other singers have taken all the roles in this opera in new productions since its premiere and in a highly convincing way too; that, for me, has been a very interesting process.

JS: Some composers have told me that it is sometimes very difficult getting musicians to understand what they specifically want of an orchestra. Have you had this experience?

GB: I have loved the orchestra passionately since my childhood and have conducted hundreds of concerts over the years so perhaps, by now, I know how to achieve what I imagine – though that doesn’t mean that, from time to time, I don’t still make mistakes! But I also often make contact with musicians, while writing, to see if things I conceive are both possible and effective.

JS: Since you studied with Olivier Messiaen in the 1970s, please tell us what that experience was like. Has there been any impact from knowing Messiaen on how you yourself teach?

GB: I cannot imagine myself – or, indeed, anyone – being able to match the subtlety, devotion, enthusiasm and wisdom that Messiaen was able to give his students. But, all the same, I do greatly enjoy my post at King’s College London and I try, to the best of my abilities, to follow the main tenets displayed by my beloved Maitre: to respect a student’s personality and specific talents, to increase their technical capacities, to open their minds and ears and, finally, to help them become themselves.

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BARBARA HANNIGAN COMES TO TORONTO SYMPHONY’S NEW CREATIONS FESTIVAL FEBRUARY 28-MARCH 7: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CANADIAN SOPRANO CONSIDERED BY SIMON RATTLE AS “ONE OF THE BEST MUSICIANS OUT THERE”

Posted on February 20, 2015 by strecker

Photo by Raphael Brand

James Strecker: Since you’ll be performing in three concerts of the Toronto Symphony’s New Creations Festival beginning February 28, I wonder, first, how it feels to have festivals like this that celebrate the contemporary music to which you have dedicated much of your artistry. Also, how does it feel to know that not a lot of such music is programmed into the seasons of major orchestras?

Barbara Hannigan: Well, I love to know that the music I believe in is being played, and that audiences are moved by it. But frankly, the works I am performing here are indeed programmed into the seasons of major orchestras. The Abrahamsen let me tell you was a Berlin Philharmonic commission (our premiere was Dec 2013) and in its first two years I’ll have performed it with 10 major orchestras. Written on Skin has been performed at major opera houses all over Europe, and we have consistently experienced sold-out houses, even at Covent Garden in London, where we’ll return in 2017 due to popular demand. There is certainly a place for modern music. This season I’ll sing Vivier with Vienna Phil and Grisey with Berlin Phil, so I do think the modern pieces are being played by the mainstream organizations. Sometimes I need to work hard in convincing the orchestras to programme the pieces, but that is getting easier.

JS: The first concert begins with A Mind of Winter for soprano and chamber orchestra by composer George Benjamin, a gradually haunting work which, from my first hearing of it, seems to suspend the listener in isolation. What does the work mean to you as an artist and, if such separation exists, as a human being?

BH: A Mind of Winter is the only “new to me” piece on this festival and I am totally enjoying preparing it. You are right – it is about isolation, solitude, and about deep listening. It makes me think a bit of Glenn Gould and his love of the Canadian North. There is a process of crystallization which I feel within it, and also a very human problem, that of loneliness.

JS: In the second concert, you’ll be singing Let Me Tell You by Hans Abrahamsen, an orchestral song cycle in which Ophelia from Hamlet “tells her story.” You premiered the work in Berlin just over a year ago and have performed it maybe eight times since, so how has your relationship with the work developed since then.

BH: This work fit me like a glove from the moment I started work on it. I remember opening the score and weeping for joy and something else, I don’t know what. I sang it from memory at the very first rehearsal with orchestra, and that was necessary, for me, but very scary. Now I feel as if I am improvising the piece, as if I am telling the story with a freedom -and accuracy, I hope- which only enhances the intimacy and poignancy of her story. And I love to perform it with different orchestras and conductors because every group is different and every conductor brings something special and new to it.

JS: Henri Dutilleux and Evelyn Glennie each once explained to me the process of letting a piece they composed or premiered, respectively, then go off into interpretations by others. How do you feel about a work like Let Me Tell You or Written on Skin having a life without Barbara, especially since you had so much to do with their birth?

BH: Indeed, both pieces are very personal for me. But what I wish for them is only that the other eventual singers will give them the care and attention that I did, and that they trust the scores. This is very important. The score doesn’t need “interpretation”, it needs to be bathed in light and seen.

JS: How have you become aware of new dimensions of being female over time through the roles and compositions you’ve taken on? How does such awareness make its presence known in your everyday life?

BH: I don’t think about being female, as a musician. Not very often, anyway. In music we are more like “creatures”, and even when I play a character like Lulu, known to some as a femme fatale, I do not think of her like that. She was neither seductress nor victim, she was much more than that.

JS: I’m also looking forward to George Benjamin’s opera Written on Skin which world-premiered in Aix-en-Provence, Britain-premiered at the Royal Opera House in London, and will Canadian-premiere in Toronto on March 7, all with you as Agnes. How is Written on Skin an important work, first of all for you and secondly for an average opera audience, if there actually is such a creature?

BH: I think it’s better that I don’t try to answer that in too much detail -who was it that said that “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture?” The piece’s success on so many levels speaks for itself. The staging is incredible and we will give the North American staged premiere this summer in New York. But even concertante, especially because we have the staging so deeply in our psyche as singers, it clearly is a powerful story, almost like a thriller.

JS: What should the audience give of themselves at this performance of Written on Skin?
BH: Well, they, like we, are witnesses. So listen, look, be open.

JS: What kind of training does one singer need to do both Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre? Are we dealing with the same vocal issues and the same issues of temperament in the performer in both cases?

BH: Absolutely, it is the same technique for all singing. One could never sing Ligeti or any other contemporary composer without the technique to back it up.

JS: What standards of personal integrity do you bring to a decision to perform a new work?

BH: Hmmm, I never thought of it like that. I am drawn to the composer’s voice, and the urge to collaborate together can come about it so many different ways. I am a muse for them, during the creative process, and later, as I learn and prepare to give the score its “birth” and bring it up through childhood, I become the composer and so many other references, as I give light and breath and voice to the page. The path I have been on these last 20 years is sometimes not easy – one doesn’t know what one will get- and it is risky, therefore, to agree, sight unseen, to give world premieres. Sometimes, right up until the premiere, I don’t know how I feel about the piece. And at other times, I am 100% consumed by it, heart and soul, from the moment I receive the score. It is an exciting path and a responsibility. If I only was performing music that has been tried and true, it would be a very different life.

JS: Does contemporary new music reflect the contemporary world, does it evolve from that world, does it lead that world?

BH: I think all music can reflect society and our contemporary world.

JS: In your experience of the more traditional repertoire, how does one keep the work fresh with its original life energy, all while bringing individual imagination to it and without violating the original in some way?

BH: I think the secret is always to go from the score, not from tradition or convention.

JS: You do conduct while singing and I wonder, as you do, how each benefits and what each might lose from these two persons in one. One gain I suspect is that, since you take the music through you as a singer, you can offer an inspiring presence in voice not available from most conductors. Please fill me in.

BH: This is hard to explain, because the audience only sees the finished product. First rehearsals with the orchestra are very different than where we end up in performance. Even though the body of the orchestra can be large, we try to achieve a kind of chamber music. The players have more responsibility than usual, and it works well. I have to be careful with my voice during these kind of programmes, as speaking to a large group and singing the repertoire takes a lot of my vocal energy, and I can find my voice much more tired than if for a “normal” concert. So, I try not to speak too much!!

JS: Some reviewers, at least as far as I’ve seen, tend to describe your performances in enthusiastic language that reaches beyond the complacency of habitual response to classical music and more into surprise. You seem to go places that one doesn’t see that often in concert hall performances. Since the word risk is common among artists, I’d like to know how that notion fits into your life as a performer. Or does it?

BH: Risk – yes, an important factor. Risk, realizing that things may not turn out as one might have expected, for better or worse. These kinds of collaborations are fresh air for all of us – onstage and in the audience.

JS: What do you find fruitful and what do you find difficult in dealing with students of voice and how do you find an effective means of communication with them?

BH: Last summer I gave masterclasses at the Luzern Festival, as part of my residence there as “Artiste Etoile” there, and was working with a hand-picked group of wonderful young artists. This was ideal for me since they were there to work with me and all were focused, prepared, eager, and open-minded. I think working with each person is different and we need to find the key to what works for us. With some singers, I want to communicate on a very abstract level and, with others, be very specific technically.

JS: You’ll be returning to Toronto on October 7 and 8 of 2015 in your Canadian conducting debut. Any comments?

BH: Looking forward!

JS: Finally, allow me to take this leap. From watching your performances as a conductor-singer, especially with your playful and physically articulate presence on stage, I suspect that you are leading us to future concerts where we as the audience will get up and move and dance to the standard classical repertoire as we listen to it. Does this make sense to you or is my morning coffee doing some kind of hallucinogenic stuff on me?

BH: You need to drink less coffee.

JS & BH: (Laughter)

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ALISON MACKAY OF TAFELMUSIK: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AWARD-WINNING CREATOR OF THE GALILEO PROJECT, HOUSE OF DREAMS (REMOUNTED FEBRUARY 11-15), AND THE UPCOMING J. S. BACH: THE CIRCLE OF CREATION MAY 6-MAY 10).

Posted on January 20, 2015 by strecker

Photo by Sian Richards

Alison Mackay is the recipient of the 2013 Betty Webster Award for her contribution to orchestral life in Canada. She has played violone and double bass with Tafelmusik since 1979 and is the creator of a number of multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural programs for the orchestra. Her creations have toured around the world and her Galileo Project has been “honoured in Australia with a Helpmann Award for distinguished artistic achievement, and by the International Astronomical Union with the naming of an asteroid, “197856 Tafelmusik.” I interviewed her in January, 2015.

James Strecker: The first of your multi-media creations I was fortunate to see was The Galileo Project and I got the feeling that you like to dive into an era or world and create from within it with a sensitivity to its many dimensions. I won’t use the term creative process, but is this what happens or is it something else?

AM: First of all, thank you so much for your interest in the Tafelmusik special projects! Yes, after the basic concept for a project is chosen, I spend a long time listening to repertoire and reading about cultural history in the University of Toronto library. For instance, I knew that our House of Dreams concert would be about painting and music in the 17th and 18th centuries, but beyond this I hoped to find a thread to give the concert more cohesion and focus. After doing quite a bit of reading about key players in the world of baroque art dealers, I began to see a pattern emerge about private collectors who also had musical connections and I decided to try and give our audience members a taste of the experience of being guests in the homes of art and music lovers.

Because I was able to choose five homes from the period that still exist today, we were able to forge partnerships with each of the present-day owners/administrators and we were able to go and take photographs of original rooms. Then we acquired high resolution images of the paintings that were originally in the rooms (all now in museums) and digitally put them back on the walls of the rooms. The final step was to put musicians playing live into the rooms, so that it would be possible to experience an amazing painting by Watteau at the same time as hearing the latest music by Handel.

JS: What kind human connection did you sense with the composers and with the authors of the texts recited in The Galileo Project?

AM: The composers and the scientists whose texts were recited in the concert represent the kind of striving of the human spirit that Galileo mused on in his Dialogue on the Two World Systems when he spoke about the written word and by extension written music being able to communicate important ideas and profound creations across barriers of time and place. At the same time, the fascinating detail of what scientists and composers ate and wore, what kind of paintings they loved and what kind of bequests they made in their wills helps us to enter their world in a more personal way and form an impression of their everyday lives. It’s fun for the musicians and the audience alike, I think, to feel this connection to the rich tapestry that the music we love is a part of.

JS: Is one correct in imagining that you changed in how you see life as a result of creating The Galileo Project and your other productions, or were these creations more of a continuum of who you already are?

AM: I have definitely changed! It’s been so energizing to work on these projects with my amazing colleagues and so inspiring to come in contact with theatre designers, scholars and scientists around the world. These projects are very much the product of the internet age since it’s now possible to immediately identify and correspond with experts around the world in many fields. My world view has been opened up tremendously and I am very humbled by the generosity of so many people who wanted to contribute knowledge or images to the projects.

As you can imagine, it’s very thrilling to have a chance to meet some of these people in our travels. For instance, in our recent tour of the Galileo Project to the U.S. there was a man in the audience at Penn State who was the co-founder of the Hubble Heritage Project and he was thrilled to see some of his own beautiful images of the night sky in the context of the performance.

JS: For productions like House of Dreams, the Tafelmusik musicians must memorize nearly two hours of music, so what is the impact on the individual and group by having to play without scores before them?

AM: Memorizing whole concerts of music has had a huge effect on our orchestral life. The countless hours people spend alone or with two or three colleagues working on sections of pieces; the experience of being able to communicate on stage without the barrier of music stands; the possibility of moving around while playing to be in the prime position for the ensemble needs of each piece -these aspects have all made us grow musically and become closer as friends. As you can imagine, there was a lot of hesitation about taking on such a huge task the first time we did it for the Galileo Project, but now we are busy memorizing our third programme, with all the music by Bach, and the musicians are so enthusiastic about the freedom we all feel in the end being able to perform in this way.

JS: I’ve always found visiting the homes of composers –Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn, Brahms and, more relevant here, Handel-to be both a thrilling and a profound experience. Could you tell us how it felt to give music a geographical location in the European houses you chose as well as a connection to specific paintings of the period?

AM: I completely agree that there is something very moving about being in the little study where Handel composed his oratorios or seeing where he slept in his red four-poster bed. I find it even more moving to perform a piece of music in the church or hall for which it was riginally written. We had that experience this summer playing the Bach Magnificat in the St. Thomas church in Leipzig.

JS: Speaking of buildings, what do each of Trinity-St. Paul’s and Koerner Hall do for the music you are playing there? Which do you prefer, or does it depend upon the music?
AM: Koerner Hall is a beautiful venue with gorgeous acoustics, particularly for the larger orchestra we have when we play Beethoven. But I think Trinity-St. Paul’s will always be our first love for baroque repertoire. The sound in the renovated space is incredibly beautiful and the seating in the hall makes us feel such a close connection with our beloved audience.

JS: The blurb for your new work, -J. S. Bach: The Circle of Creation -creation asks, “Who are the baroque artisans – the papermakers, violin carvers, and string spinners – who helped J.S. Bach realize his genius?” and one assumes that the answers will be revealed in May of 2015 when the work premieres. This sounds like a fascinating project, so please tell us about the work and how it developed.

AM: The Circle of Creation examines Bach’s material world and all the things that had to happen between the moment a musical idea came into his mind to the point of an actual performance for the public. So we take it step by step, first learning about the family of paper makers in a tiny Bohemian village in the NW corner of the Czech Republic who supplied Bach’s paper for five years -this is known because of research into watermarks in paper- and how the paper was made. We learn about how Bach made his ink and began composing by ruling lines on a page with a five-pointed “rastrum” to make manuscript paper. We learn about the Leipzig instrument makers who worked with Bach to create his instruments and we actually see a cello being created, specially by Quentin Playfair, from the plain cut wood to the finished instrument. This process will unfold while Christina Mahler and Allen Whear play some of Bach’s most exquisite music for solo cello. We’ll see amazing footage of gut strings being made from sheep intestines and the inner workings of harpsichord jacks. We’ll also learn about the financial aspects of musical life in Leipzig -the tax base which provided the funding for instruments, salaries and housing for the town musicians, and the debt which the city owed to highly-taxed Jewish merchants at the famous Leipzig trade fairs.

I’ve been enormously grateful to the Bach Museum in Leipzig for helping me with this project with images and advice. And while we were orchestra-in-residence at the Bach Festival in Leipzig last June, we spent a day filming the streets and buildings that Bach would have known. I’m hoping that the audience will be able to have a sense of what it was like to be a music lover in Bach’s Leipzig.

JS: What were your feelings about Bach at the outset of your career and what are they now?

AM: Bach has been my favourite composer since I was a child, long before I knew many of his works or anything about period performance. And now, the more I learn bit by bit about his music, the more astonished I am at his range of emotions and the complexity of his writing. Bach is especially rewarding for double-bass players because he writes more complex and interesting lines than any other composer of the time. You always feel that, as well as being a foundation for the orchestra, you are also a melody player in dialogue with every other player.

JS: I can’t leave without knowing what the initial inspiration was in each case for The Galileo Project, House of Dreams, and J. S. Bach: The Circle of Creation. What kicked each project into gear?

AM: The idea for the Galileo Project was proposed by eminent astronomer and long-time Tafelmusik supporter Dr. John Percy of the University of Toronto. He and the Dominion Astronomer Dr. James Hesser were part of the organizing committee for the Canadian activities of the International Year of Astronomy which marked the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the astronomical telescope. These two amazing scientists and wonderful friends had enjoyed some of our earlier narrated Tafelmusik concerts which had placed our repertoire in a historical context and they thought that we might like to experiment with the world of 17th and 18th century astronomers.

The Galileo Project was our first experiment with memorizing the music and staging the concert with a theatrical set and lighting design and when I saw the emotional impact that the combination of music, words and images had, I thought it would be very exciting to do a show about baroque painting. And set and lighting designer Glenn Davidson, projection designer Raha Javanfar, and stage director Marshall Pynkoski made such a wonderful team that I wanted to work with them again.
With the third project I thought it would be wonderful to be able to immerse ourselves in the music and world of Bach and at the same time introduce the audience to the way our instruments are built and how they work with each other in the orchestra.

JS: Any idea what your next projects will be?

AM: Our next project is the creation of a coffee house in the year 1740, which will magically transform back and forth from a cafe in Leipzig to one in the Syrian city of Damascus. Both of these important trade cities had a rich culture of coffee-house life where stories were told, music was performed and the daily newspaper was read aloud to patrons. We’ll have a guest ensemble of Arabic musicians and two narrators -there’s a great deal known about the social context for coffee drinking in both cities, so I think it will make for an interesting script.

JS: You have been with Tafelmusik for thirty-five years –congratulations- and I wonder what developments and changes you have perceived in the personality of the orchestra over that time. How have you developed as a result of being part of Tafelmusik?
AM: Yes I’ve been unbelievably lucky to be part of this wonderful ensemble for so long. We’ve had great opportunities for recording, touring and interesting projects since the beginning, but I think as the years have gone on there has been tremendous artistic and musical growth. Each musician in the ensemble has so much to offer in terms of knowledge, wisdom and performance, and Jeanne Lamon has been so wonderful at keeping the whole cohesive but allowing others to have strong opinions and make their contributions. For me personally it’s been a tremendous time of artistic growth because I was given so many programming opportunities.

It’s an exciting time as we discern our new path, seeking a new leader, and it will be fascinating to see what adventures the new person will take us on.

JS: Is it true that Tafelmusik has been nominated as the most magical band on the planet?

AM: Not that I know of! There are so many magical bands on the planet! But we did have an asteroid named after us, “197856 Tafelmusik – and that was very exciting!”

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THE ART GALLERY OF HAMILTON: 3 EXHIBITIONS AND A VISIT OF MEMORIES, AESTHETIC PLEASURES, AND DISCOVERY

Posted on January 13, 2015 by strecker

Some decades ago, even before the Leafs won their last Stanley Cup, I as a young fellow used to hop on my bike in Hamilton’s east end and peddle seven miles to visit the Art Gallery of Hamilton in our city’s far west. Over time, a number of works in the Gallery’s collection have become part of my aesthetic consciousness and, happily, some are currently on display in the AGH’s centenary exhibition -Art for a Century: 100 for the 100th. If you haven’t already met, allow me to introduce you to a few of these.

First The Grand Windsor Hotel of 1939 by Reginald Marsh, probably for a dreary- sketched depiction of solitude, poverty and hopelessness that makes one feel vulnerable. For some reason, I’ve always also connected with several American painters who were Marsh’s contemporaries –Ben Shahn, Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper and Charles Burchfield whose works, alas, reside elsewhere- maybe because the forties as a decade resonates most in my imagination. It was a hell of a time for the world, but at least the arts took a stand for being human.

Next we have Robert Whale’s view of Hamilton of 1863, probably because, at the time of my first viewing, Hamilton was not an environment of pastoral bliss depicted here but instead Steeltown where our industries dumped polluted smoke into the air each night. In 1863, one could probably inhale the lush growth of nature and not the foul choking fumes of industry, and it was striking to know that once it had been that way.

Forbidden Fruit of 1889 by George Agnew Reid, which depicts a young lad lying in the tallish grasses and intensely absorbed in a book, was and is a favourite of many from this collection, I am told. Who hasn’t had the experience of entering the world of books – especially if they are forbidden – and being so much consumed by the new realities offered there that one could not return to this world?

William Brymmer’s The Vaughn Sisters of 1910 still teases one’s curiosity about the two young ladies’ inner world. Who were they back then, when I first saw them, and who are they now? One pleasure offered by a portrait is how it demands that the viewer submit to the world of the painting’s subject. With The Vaughn Sisters we have two distinct personalities, certainly present but also seductive in the seemingly unreachable remoteness of their thoughts. One is drawn to their world, but one is always an outsider. Moreover, who understands women?

Such is the case too with James Tissot’s Le Croquet of 1878 when, at least in wealthier circles, one’s daily attire was not simply clothing but an event as well, an elegant one at that. With this Tissot, one has options in the degrees of charm, seduction, mystery, and aesthetic pleasure afforded by the painting’s subject. She is a young lady of black stockings, a misty vagueness in her eyes, and delicate fingers caressing a croquet stick as a medium sized white dog—Alaskan Husky? – looks on. Once in the 1980s, I discovered that a gallery in London had two engravings of the Le Croquet painting for sale and bought one. When I told friend Julius Lebow, owner of the then Westdale Gallery of my purchase, he immediately bought the other.

But not all of this visit was down memory lane. Joyce Wieland’s thoroughly enjoyable Swan’s Cupboard from 1990 proved that an installation, unlike some, can burst with life and humour and pure joy in its creation. William Kurelek’s This is the Nemesis from 1965 is fiery and apocalyptic and disturbing. Emily Carr’s Yan Q. C. I. from 1912 is atypically vibrant with singing hues and makes one want to give familiar and more darkly-hued Carr paintings another look. The Riopelle from 1960 feels bright and bold with its wider than usual white areas oozed across the surface and with its explosive and anti-stasis statement. It is also a pleasure to see Gustave Courbet’s Le Puits Noir of 1870, a Leger from 1947, and much else. There is also a delightful work titled Crème de la Crème de la Crème by General Idea. I smiled at this one–and I’m taking the tour next time to find out what those three poodles are doing? Runs until April 26,

Another current exhibition at the AGH until February 8 is Painting Hamilton. It is reassuring to experience ten such imaginative sensibilities as those whose works here display a compelling variety in intention, method, and attitude. Lorne Toews for one “is interested in depicting human form’ but what I also experience is four people, compassionately perceived by the artist, whose eyes penetrate through me. Manny Trinh states “these works come out of a desire to capture memories of my childhood in Vietnam” and, as he ably negotiates the shapes and lines and colours in which people live, he forces the viewer, overwhelmed by the dazzling complexity of edges and hues, to inhabit them too.

With Christina Sealey’s Anna, one anticipates intense gravitational movement in both space and emotion. One senses this: it’s happening and also about to happen. Catherine Gibbon, meanwhile, offers 16 square feet of ambiguous fire-bursting landscape in, surprisingly, chalk pastel and it really does burn. Charles Meanwell’s huge works offer an interesting interplay of method and depiction and can be massive and crude and undeniable, all with a touch of audacity. Five more artists -Jennifer Carvalho, David Hucal, Daniel Hutchinson, Matthew Schofield, and Beth Stuart- also bring creative issues to the fore with intriguing results that sometimes please and sometimes challenge. A good show here. Until February 8.

That most influential of artists, Paul Cezanne, painted over 300 still lifes in his day and The World is an Apple: The Still Lifes of Cezanne is, typical of the AGH, a rewarding plum of a show in concept and presentation, one that demands a repeat visit. “I want to astonish Paris with an apple” declared Cezanne, who came to Paris in early 1860s. One grouping of paintings here, four being examples of the more mainstream and au courant approach of others and three by Cezanne show the artist already contradicting the methods and attitudes of the conventional going rate of aesthetics

In the next room, second of two if you’re counting, there are three paintings by Van Gogh, Braque, and Emile Bernard, all intended to provoke comparative insights. Three of the paintings by Cezanne are not of fruit but of skulls, and this arrangement seems to declare both that a skull is an apple is a skull and Cezanne’s view that “Objects never cease to live.” Two paintings of flowers in a vase from 1880 and 1900 to 1903 respectively show the development of a driven painter’s mind to discover what he and his art can do.

During my visit, a large group of students went off individually to sketch specific paintings by Cezanne-and that is how it should be in any culture worth its salt. The arts, past and present, have much to teach us. Over and over in its many compelling exhibitions I’ve enjoyed during recent years, the AGH has made that point excitingly clear. I am indeed a junkie for art -and a good fix is always available, as it was many years ago, at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Cezanne runs to February 8.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH JOËLLE MORTON, MUCH-TRAVELLED VIOL PLAYER, PERIOD MUSIC SPECIALIST, SCHOLAR, EDUCATOR AND FOUNDER OF SCARAMELLA IN TORONTO

Posted on December 28, 2014 by strecker

James Strecker: To begin, thank you so much for Scaramella’s recent Hamilton concert of music by William Lawes, in the series created by Hammer Baroque. It was a night of revelations and of constant musical surprises and one certainly had to pay consistent attention to the creative mind of Mr. Lawes in action. It was delightful and fun and poignant for me, so what musical qualities and methods in his music do you respond to as a musician?

Joëlle Morton: The music of William Lawes is particularly appealing for musicians to play – perhaps even more so than for an audience to listen to – because of the melodic and harmonic twists and turns that he takes, and how he passes material back and forth among the various voices. It’s a little bit like an ‘inside joke’ and as a player you hear instantly when someone else quotes your line, or takes it away from you. In rehearsal I commented to our fabulous violinist Paul Zevenhuizen that it felt like we were an old married couple, because we kept ‘finishing each other’s sentences!’ Lawes is tremendous fun in that regard and, of course, when you enjoy your colleagues’ company as I do, these exchanges are particularly meaningful.

JS: I find that baroque music is very playful in its complexity, and dense with creative riches, and it often can transport me to an elevated and almost ethereal world. What is it about baroque music that fuels you as a baroque specialist and as a human being?

JM: What we nowadays define as the baroque era spans a period of close to 200 years (c1580-1760), so there is of course a huge amount of variety to the music that was produced during that period. The period started, and ended as most phases do, with rebellion against pre-established forms. But it’s more than just the ‘newness’ and ‘forms’ and ‘language’ of this 200 year period since, at that time, there was additionally great variety between different countries and cultures. Each region had its preferred instruments and combinations of instruments, as well as a vogue and taste for specific genres of music. So a program of music from the baroque era is as much an exploration of culture and style as it is a bringing to life music that has not been heard for several centuries. Of course, the fact that much of the music we play is not well known is also an added component to the ‘adventure’ and it’s very stimulating to blow the dust off a manuscript and come up with an interpretation for something you haven’t already heard many times!

JS: What can baroque music offer to a modern audience? Could you perhaps suggest three or four compositions that an uninitiated listener might give a go in order to become eternally seduced by baroque?

JM: As I mentioned just now, there is so much variety to the music of this period, that I believe there is surely something for everyone. I guess it’s a little like going to an art museum: you may not like every picture that you see equally well, but there’s surely something that will speak to you if you allow it the opportunity. By way of illustration, here are six vocal pieces from the baroque. Some people are pre-disposed against vocal music, but I hope even they might find something in this selection that appeals. Some of these performances are presented in a very historically pure way, as true to the original as possible, but others have playful elements, or add modern instruments, making them representative of our own time.

Claudio Monteverdi – Sì dolce è’l tormento: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6y6VToRwkw&spfreload=10

anon – Ciaccona del Paradiso e del Inferno (Milan, 1657): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ-VsKB_tNw&spfreload=10

François Couperin – Leçons de tenebre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RE3hy6PJaQ

Johann Sebastian Bach – Erbarme dich from the St. Matthew Passion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEHIgjoueeg

George Frideric Handel – Author of Peace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGXXLlvQXvM

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi Stabat Mater: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2zc0wTORSI&spfreload=10

JS: Please tell us about the instruments you play, their unique features and demands and what delights they offer to you as a musical interpreter.

JM: My areas of specialty are historical double bass instruments, and members of the viola da gamba family. My first musical training was as a modern double bass player, and so, when I discovered early music in grad school, I was first drawn to ‘large’ historical instruments, those that were either part of the violin or viol families. But increasingly I began to specialize on viols. The viol family is made in many sizes, from tiny through huge, and most people who play viols play more than one size. In fact, for many of us, that is part of the appeal. By changing what size instrument you play in an ensemble, you get to change what kind of ‘musical persona’ you embody. I of course still enjoy playing bass lines, but it’s also very satisfying to play melody lines on a treble instrument. And truthfully, in much viol consort music I find the best parts to be the inner lines! So this ‘keeps things fresh’ for me.

JS: Tell us about your musical background. What were the key points in your life as a musician?

JM: I was very serious as a modern double bassist, and for a long time expected to make a career as an orchestral player. In fact, I did play as a member of the Toronto Symphony for a short while, and I also studied ‘solo’ and ‘chamber’ double bass in Europe on a Chalmers fellowship. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I discovered early music, and it came as a revelation. Everything was chamber music oriented, and I found that the intellectual approach of this field –from preparing my own musical edition of a piece to reading about how instruments were played, and thinking about all kinds of questions of interpretation and presentation– was really appealing. I’ve never looked back.

JS: What makes a group of musicians function well together? How does fluid interaction work as it did in the group you had for the Lawes concert? What does a musician contribute and what does a musician receive back from the others?

JM: The beauty of chamber music is that it is so much more than the sum of its individual parts. Each musician practices at home and gets their part to the highest level of their ability. But it’s really in rehearsal with others –and also in performance, responding to an audience– that the ‘magic’ happens, learning from others’ insights and responding to different musical lines. In baroque music there is additionally an accepted level of individuality that is expected and necessary in bringing the music to life. Early music performers are expected to personally interpret the music, and to inflect it according to their own personal mood and taste. As a result, the piece can be quite different from one day to the next, because the performers themselves are different! And an audience gets something that is truly one of a kind.

JS: Scaramella is ten years old this year and I wonder how you have managed to keep it running. What problems have you had in drawing an audience for music that many do not know and in finding funding from sponsors and government bodies? I would assume that government bodies would be very supportive, or am I wrong to thus assume?

JM: Over the course of Scaramella’s ten-year history we’ve been extremely fortunate to draw the support of a loyal audience and private donor base. Much of our audience genuinely values the unusual programming and approach that Scaramella takes, one that is not available elsewhere in Southern Ontario. Our ticket purchasers have also been extremely generous with private donations. We are truly grateful for it, since public funding to Scaramella is negligible or non-existent. We have been consistently shut out of funding from the provincial granting agency and, though initially supported at a nominal level, we have also been denied the last two seasons by the municipal one. Our perception is that increasingly, taxpayer dollars are not being used to subsidize traditional European art music projects, and that large organizations are generally prioritized more highly than smaller ones. This is a huge challenge to us since even with maximum attendance, ticket sales cover only approximately one third of what it costs us to produce these events. For the past eight years Scaramella’s budget has remained constant, but it is increasingly harder and harder each year to raise the funds we need at this minimal level, and there is seemingly no opportunity for growth.

JS: The creation of Scaramella meant major changes for you, I assume, as a professional musician. What were they? Any regrets? For one, I imagine that you must coordinate a great number of people as well as maintaining your own career.

JM: A career in early music is necessarily quite different from an orchestral one, but I have no regrets. As a free-lance player I am able to work with many different ensembles and colleagues and that has proven a great joy in my life. For example, the recent Lawes program was inspired by my dear friend, Julia Seager Scott. Lawes’ Harp Consorts are truly a showcase for the harp, and I couldn’t/wouldn’t have programmed them without knowing that my very accomplished and hard-working colleague was willing to tackle them! In a similar vein, our talented theorbist Madeleine Owen was someone whose playing I’ve admired from recordings for many years, but we had never worked together before. This was the perfect opportunity to get to know her, and at the same time to introduce her to a Toronto audience.

JS: What’s up for Scaramella in 2015 and, since your musical activities are many, what will you yourself be doing for the coming year?

JM: There are two more shows programmed for Scaramella this season. On January 31, we’ll be doing a concert of German late 17th and early 18th century music, for the yummy combination of countertenor, two viols and organ. And on March 7, we’re welcoming American baroque flutist extraordinaire Kim Pineda to Toronto for the first time, for a program centered on Telemann’s flamboyant Paris Quartets, and pieces by the four 18th century French musicians who first performed them and made them so popular. Outside of Scaramella and other free-lance performing, I am also active as a teacher and writer. In 2015, I will be traveling to Australia and Germany for viol workshops. And early in 2015 I am also expected to finally see the fruits of several years of research, with a groundbreaking scholarly article about the viola bastarda due to be published in the Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society (GB), and two very sizable scholarly performing editions, of music by Orazio Bassani and Bartolomeo de Selma y Salaverde.

JS: What kind of person must one be to survive nowadays as a classical musician?

JM: As is mentioned frequently in the news these days, the face of classical music performance is currently in flux. I don’t really know where we are headed, but it seems to me that for free-lance musicians to be successful these days, they have to be fairly versatile and adaptable and keep an open mind. Above and beyond the ‘practicality’ of that approach, in my experience, most of life’s greatest pleasures emerge serendipitously, and if you’re not keeping yourself primed to spot those moments, they will pass you by.

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SALUTE TO VIENNA: AN INTERVIEW WITH ATTILA GLATZ, CREATOR OF THIS NEW YEAR’S TRADITION NOW CELEBRATING ITS 2OTH YEAR OF INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTIONS, INCLUDING HAMILTON

Posted on December 23, 2014 by strecker

photo by Wilhelm Denk (c) dewi

photo by Barry Roden

James Strecker: First of all, congratulations on twenty years of Salute to Vienna productions. What’s most satisfying for you about this anniversary?

Attila Glatz: Thanks for the congratulations! It is a dream come true, establishing this wonderful New Year’s tradition at first in our new home of Toronto and later across North America. This is a tradition we grew up with in Europe and every year our Salute to Vienna concerts bring back fond memories. It is a pleasure to see so many happy faces in the audience; this is our greatest motivation and what keeps us going.

JS: I know that, when you lived in Europe, you were a long-time devotee of the New Year’s Day broadcast from Vienna’s Musikverein, so could you tell us your reasons for creating Salute to Vienna and what you expected to come of it.

AG: Yes, both Marion and I grew up with the annual Neujahrskonzert. We will never forget how happy we were each New Year’s Day when we sat near the radio listening to the broadcast from the Musikverein. I must admit that I remember the concert most vividly when I was living in Hungary during the terror of the communist era. Listening to that Viennese music year after year, we looked forward to the light it brought into our lives and the sense of freedom it provided from the hardship of those most difficult times. This music is a flame of inspiration for us to carry forward and it is now a cherished responsibility for us to ensure its protection by developing new audiences who will appreciate its beauty and importance for years to come.

JS: I once had a chat with Werner Hink, who at the time was concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic, about the distinct aspects of Viennese music and I would love to hear your views on the idiomatic qualities that make Viennese music Viennese. What are the qualities necessary in a musician to play this music as it should be played.

AG: So-called Viennese music, which was written by so many different composers, has a distinct style. Strauss’ music is light, playful, and it makes you feel good. What makes it “Viennese” is that the phrasing is not played exactly as it is written in the scores. The interpretation is somewhat different and it is something that only the Viennese can do. That is why we always bring European conductors to our concerts and also why musicians from various orchestras all over North America love to do this gig year after year.

JS: Could you give us some insight as to the special qualities of the soloists featured in the Hamilton production? Why did you choose them? Should we be surprised to have a Heldentenor, Andreas Schager, singing operetta to us?

AG: This year we have an extended cast for our 20th Anniversary Season. Last year, we produced a PBS special in Vienna, which has already been broadcast 800 times, and this concert featured some fantastic performances including the Vienna Boys Choir. Because of this success, we added the Hamilton Children’s Choir to the cast in Toronto and Hamilton. It is an excellent ensemble that we’re excited to feature.

Regarding the tenor: Heldentenors are excellent at operetta repertoire and they usually sing operetta roles before they move into the Wagner repertoire. Andreas Schager is no exception. Before he became one of the best Siegfrieds in the world, he sang operettas. Now he is working everywhere, including the La Scala with Daniel Barenboim.

JS: There was a time when one could distinguish between European soloists and orchestras and those from North America, and I wonder, from your perspective, if such is the case today.

AG: This certainly still exists, simply because European orchestra musicians are exposed to this music much more during their studies than the students in North America. However, the gap is now much smaller for several reasons. Most top orchestras have music directors from Europe such as Ricardo Muti in Chicago and Franz Welser Moest in Cleveland. Also, a great many American conductors have established themselves in Europe but are working in North America, for instance Kent Nagano in Montreal and Alan Gilbert in New York. There are also some great orchestras in North America which are widely recognized in Europe. That includes the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as they toured in Europe last summer. I happened to catch them in the famous Grafenegg Festival, just outside of Vienna.

JS: Please tell us about the types of dance and the dancers you have featured in Salute to Vienna.

AG: We have two types of dancers for this year. We have engaged dancers from the Vienna Imperial Ballet and several other ballet companies from Hungary, Austria, and the Ukraine. We also have Champion Ballroom dancers from Europe who are award-winning dancers. The two styles blend together beautifully, and give a variety for the audience to enjoy.

JS: Your conductor, Christian Schulz, has most impressive credentials and I wonder what unique skills a conductor must bring to the podium for Salute to Vienna.

AG: Indeed, Christian is a veteran Salute to Vienna conductor and as a principle cellist of the Vienna Symphony, he understands Viennese music perfectly. He is also charming and speaks to the audience between pieces, re-telling interesting stories of Vienna and the Strauss Dynasty. This ability to engage the audience is one of the criteria we look for when we engage the conductors for the various Salute to Vienna concerts around the continent.

JS: Because the Viennese music featured in your production is so richly elegant and seductively melodic, it tends to get performed often. Do you as a producer have to wage war against stereotypes and familiarity, therefore, in producing an annual show, so the audience might experience this beloved music afresh?

AG: This music is always fresh and exciting, however we do change the program and the cast each year. While we don’t have as big a repertoire as the Vienna Philharmonic, we always add new pieces, even by Offenbach, or von Suppe to keep it fresh. Sometimes the conductors suggest pieces which we have never heard and they work. At the same time, we have to be careful what we choose; North American audiences are not the same as Viennese audiences. There are fewer pieces that are recognizable here.

JS: I’ve had a number of profoundly moving experiences in Vienna related to the arts and I’d like to hear your feelings about the city. What does Vienna mean to you and why?

AG: Vienna has been and continues to be a source of inspiration for so many artists, in so many disciplines. For me, the city is a hive of buzzing energy where there is a long history of musicians developing new ideas, celebrating their work and challenging their contemporaries. It is a place that has a legacy of welcoming change, thriving in the face of adversity and producing profoundly beautiful music. This is inspiring for me every time I am there and I feel lucky to be there regularly.

JS: Salute to Vienna is produced this year in eight Canadian cities and fifteen cities in the United States. Do you have to gear the production differently for each city? Also, in Hamilton you will be featuring the Hamilton Children’s Choir, so do you, in the case of each city, feature local talent in some way?

AG: We spend countless hours crafting our programmes and selecting our artists for every city. We are very excited to have the choir perform with us this year–nothing is as sweet as children’s voices in chorus and we are excited to hear them with our soloists. In almost every city we visit, we hire local musicians for the orchestra. This results in 55-65 local artists performing in each concert. In some cities we partner with specific orchestras, such as the Philly POPS who will perform this year in Philadelphia, New York, Scranton, New Brunswick, and Strathmore. In other cities, we hire independently. The blend of local professional musicians with soloists from Europe makes for a nice combination. We love that we can support the local and global music industry simultaneously–it feels really important when our concerts celebrate the legacy of Viennese music outside of Austria.

JS: Among other things, you are a jazz pianist. Who are some of your favorite jazz musicians and why? As well, please tell me about a musical mind that loves both jazz and Viennese music.

AG: Oscar Peterson has always been an inspiration to me, and Dizzy Gillespie to be sure. A musical mind that loves jazz and Viennese music? They’re not as different as they might seem; both rely on playing standards with a personal interpretation and flair. Music provides both an opportunity to connect with audiences and a way to pay homage to the creativity of composers you respect. I can do that with Strauss just as I can playing an arrangement of “Georgia on my Mind”.

JS: I have to ask: Are you planning any productions based upon the Second Viennese School?

AG: Not this year! But we are excited to hear Erwartung at the COC in the new year. We’ll stick to Strauss and Lehár, and partying like it’s 1899!

Tickets for Salute to Vienna are available from:
http://www.ticketmaster.ca/salute-to-vienna-new-years-concert-hamilton-ontario-01-04-2015/event/10004CFF915D5041?artistid=804261&majorcatid=10002&minorcatid=203&tm_link=search_msg-0_10004CFF915D5041



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THE TORONTO SYMPHONY, THE TORONTO MENDELSSOHN CHOIR, AND FOUR DISTINCTLY REWARDING SOLOISTS IN HANDEL’S MESSIAH

Posted on December 23, 2014 by strecker

Mezzo Soprano Allyson McHardy with conductor Grant Llewellyn: photo by Malcolm Cook

Tradition be damned. The next time I attend a performance of Handel’s Messiah, I shall insist on seats in a section where one is not compelled to rise like a dutiful lemming upon hearing the first notes of the Hallelujah chorus.

Certainly, we all know that George II usually takes the rap in some, though not all, quarters for initiating this tradition. But wherever the blame for this mood-destroying practice lies, it is most unfair to have an audience rise as one yeast-infused loaf of bread on all sides and, in turn, dwarf one’s private submission to this beloved masterwork’s celebratory magic.

But such ruination is not always the case, especially if we are referring to last Sunday’s very special performance of Messiah by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, conducted with an intriguing sense of purpose by Grant Llewellyn. One paid attention here without wavering, one hung on every musical phrase and on every word, one was moved.

This was indeed a subtly gripping take on Messiah, carefully measured, initially understated and cumulative in dramatic effect, more refined than restrained. One sensed an intimate warmth in the performance overall, a reassuring quality in the proportioned lyricism, an implied potency, sometimes explored to moving effect, in soloists and choir and orchestra alike. One felt throughout that, whatever was stated, more was always implied -and isn’t that the quintessence of musical power? Orchestral flavourings, now playfully sprightly, now fluid in phrasing, always served an unobtrusively but decisively propelled momentum negotiated by Llewellyn with his versatile musicians.

The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, like the TSO, proved adept at a wide range of musical effects and, one would think, their spiritual values. Sometimes full-throated as a multi-textured mass of sound, sometimes clearly delineating Handel’s fugal writing, sometimes poised and ethereal, sometimes bursting from restraint with full-bodied exultation, theirs was a celebratory presence. Never mind George II, one often felt the urge to rise from one’s seat throughout the evening in response to this choir.

The quartet of soloists –Jane Archibald, Allyson McHardy, Lawrence Wiliford, and, filling in for cold victim Philippe Sky, Stephen Hegedus- offered a compelling variety of vocal riches. Jane Archibald proved to be a soprano of gently-emerging radiance, of almost prayerful assertiveness, of heartfelt word-caressing delicacy, and then, in “Rejoice, rejoice” most agile in trilling ascents at a fast tempo. Tenor Lawrence Wiliford’s contribution was a voice of delicate warmth edged velvety and metallic, lyrically refined with delicate shadings, and then, in “He that dwelleth” a lyricism that was not only fluid but emphatic.

Bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus was most compelling with his assertive declarative manner, especially in “The trumpet shall sound” and with both a deep resonance and ringing upper register, when needed, throughout a refined dramatic reading. Mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy displayed mastery in the meticulous shaping of words for dramatic urgency, the ability to deliver meaty dramatic renderings as the orchestra maintained a propelled momentum, and, most poignant of all in “He was despised,” a sense of deliberation in a vocal telling that was reflected also in her physical movements. One held one’s breath to listen.

Conductor Grant Llewellyn provided, in all, a memorable Messiah, in part because he achieved an evolving sense of overall dramatic purpose, whether played or sung, held his resources in reserve until they were needed for the most potent logical effect, kept the listeners involved as he meticulously guided the telling of this much-told tale, and utilized the many mutually supportive qualities in the orchestra, choir, and soloists in the service of a sometimes breathtaking whole. This was a very fine performance and, yes, I’ll stand up, but for all of it.

Conductor Grant Llewellyn with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir :   photo by Malcolm Cook

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