jlagan
Now in its 49th season,Toronto’s New Music Concerts (NMC) remains one of the main presenters of contemporary concert music in Toronto, with a long and diverse legacy of bringing first performances of significant new works to Toronto audiences, covering compositions from a wide range of styles, written by living composers from around the world, including … Read more
On Sunday evening, December 8 at 8:30, pianist, impresario and all-around creative spark plug, Cheryl Duvall, is doing something at the Tranzac Club she’s never done before: launching her first full-length recording as a piano soloist. It’s not that she hasn’t been in the recording studio numerous times, but this time it’s a special project … Read more
On a particularly sunny and warm May day in Belfast – one might even have called it summery – my thoughts turned to the coming season, and to the phenomenon of music performed in the great outdoors, or even deep in the wilderness, if the friends and followers of Murray Schafer are to be emulated. My reverie gradually took me back to a much earlier time when such thinking was a fresh idea.
A film titled Affairs of the Heart: The Music and Life of Marjan Mozetich, produced and directed by Jamie Day Fleck, and in which I make an appearance, was given its premiere showing March 1 at the most recent edition of the Kingston Canadian Film Festival. The title of the film borrows from what is arguably Mozetich’s … Read more
Canadian composer Norma Beecroft (b. 1934) recently released her book, Conversations with Post World War II Pioneers of Electronic Music, containing an insightful and revealing collection of interviews that explore the history of electronic music around the world. The book, originally published as an e-book, contains transcriptions of her interviews with many of the principal … Read more
I received a memorable phone call early this past June – one that surprised and delighted me. It was from the Chancellery of Honours, informing me of my appointment as a Member of the Order of Canada. The citation that came with the appointment spoke to the decades of commissioning, producing and broadcasting the work … Read more
World premieres are a gift at any time during a concert season, and there are a few that I’m looking forward to as the summer season approaches. One that I’m most anticipating is Toronto composer James Rolfe’s (b. 1961) new song cycle, I Think We Are Angels. This is a major work: nineteen songs divided … Read more
I remember the first time I heard Ana Sokolović’s music: I was in Paris, participating as CBC Radio’s delegate at the International Rostrum of Composers (IRC) in 1996. My Radio-Canada colleague, Laurent Major, had chosen to present a work for violin duo, Ambient V, composed in 1995 by Montreal composer Sokolović (b. 1968) who had … Read more
After more than 50 years of music-making, composing, broadcasting and producing, I’m still truly amazed by what a single virtuoso voice can accomplish. And it doesn’t seem to matter what size the room or time of day. On Wednesday, April 11, I found myself at St. Andrew’s Church in downtown Toronto listening, at noon, to … Read more
Known as the dean of Canadian choral conductors and called a Canadian choral visionary, Elmer Iseler (1927–1998) will be celebrated in a concert titled “Joyful Sounds, a Tribute to Elmer Iseler, 1927–1998 – Twenty Years Later” on April 14 at 7:30pm at Eglinton St. George’s United Church. Lydia Adams will lead the Elmer Iseler Singers … Read more