Author Archives: strecker

A bride to be and five girlfriends gather to celebrate on the eve of her wedding ceremony. They wear knee length skirts of wine and black hues that flare out in puffs and folds over pattered or boldly reddish tights. … Continue reading →

My following reviews were published in an alternative paper over the past few years and I can’t help but recommend each splendid CD again. So here we go -unedited, from the originals, so please excuse the occasional bit of information … Continue reading →

The narrative line of Cirque du Soleil’s  Quidam is thus described: “Young Zoé is bored; her parents, distant and apathetic, ignore her. Her life has lost all meaning. Seeking to fill the void of her existence, she slides into an … Continue reading →

On the Hamilton-Toronto bus, en route to see Canadian Opera Company’s Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, there is time to re-dip into Wilhelm Furtwangler Notebooks 1924-54 and read what this truly legendary conductor has to say about tonight’s composer. … Continue reading →

Gluck’s down-to-basics reformist opera, Orfeo ed Euridice, is a very human and sublimely musical rite that explores humanity’s most fundamental and blunt existential condition: we die. Or, more painfully for us, those we love deeply die before we do, and … Continue reading →

Alex Pangman’s new CD, titled 33, begins at speeding ticket tempo with I Found a New Baby and it sits comfortably in memories of the instrumental 1937 Teddy Wilson Orchestra recording. After all, Pangman’s band, the Alleycats, are an ace … Continue reading →

At the outset, under conductor Leonardo Vordoni’s baton, the overture to Canadian Opera Company’s current La Cenerentola seems more a reticent sigh than a twinkle of fun one expects in Rossini. What hint of playfulness there is seems outside the … Continue reading →

A composer friend and occasional collaborator, Barend Schipper in The Netherlands, once explained to me how the modern ear, with its reverential and oh-so-serious attitude toward Mozart, often missed the humour in his essence. Tragedy and humour are not separate … Continue reading →

In 1939, when William Saroyan won both the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Time of Your Life, a civilization pummeled by the Great Depression now had the unimaginable carnage of World War Two … Continue reading →