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Louis Riel at the Canadian Opera Company

4/25/2017

Russell Braun as Louis Riel Photo: Michael Cooper.

I originally wrote this review for the Classical Voice North America website.

The Canadian Opera Company rarely stages Canadian operas. And with the current production of Louis Riel, which opened April 20 at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre, Canada’s largest opera company did something not just rare but virtually unprecedented: It remounted a Canadian opera written half a century ago.

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Good Friday with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

4/20/2017

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TMC conductor Noel Edison.

Noel Edison, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s music director, clearly put a lot of thought into his choir’s Good Friday concert at St. Paul’s Basilica in Toronto. It was called “Sacred Music for a Sacred Space,” and it was an imaginative program: refreshingly Messiah-free and remarkable for its stylistic diversity.

The choir was, in fact, two choirs. The first half of the program featured the Mendelssohn Singers (an ensemble of professional quality, with the Elora Festival Singers at its core), discreetly placed in the choir loft at the back of the church. And the second half was sung by the larger TMC, in full view at the front of the church. Both halves featured a-cappella repertoire that occasionally stretched but never exceeded the substantial abilities of these choirs.

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Rocking the Baroque with I Furiosi

4/15/2017

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Toronto's I Furiosi in their concert attire.

I originally wrote this article for Early Music America magazine.

They’re called I Furiosi, yet their fury isn’t the angry kind — it’s passion. The Toronto-based quartet is passionate about Baroque music, about historically informed performance, and about engaging with a broad audience. But most of all, they’re passionate about doing things their way.

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Karen Gomyo with the Toronto Symphony

4/12/2017

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Violinist Karen Gomyo with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Last month, I wrote a review of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Toronto performance, in which I cleverly pointed out that the hall that the BSO calls home has the word “Beethoven” emblazoned over the stage. Conspicuously, there are no other composer-names on the other plaques that decorate the hall. They were deliberately left blank – apparently, Beethoven was deemed the only composer worthy of having his name carved in gilded plaster.

This speaks to the singular place that Beethoven occupies in the classical repertoire: a musical hero, isolated by his own greatness, towering over all rivals. “To us musicians,” declared Franz Liszt, “the work of Beethoven parallels the pillars of smoke and fire which led the Israelites through the desert.”

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Louis Riel at the Canadian Opera Company

Good Friday with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

Rocking the Baroque with I Furiosi

Karen Gomyo with the Toronto Symphony

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