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Guest host Rick Phillips presents OnStage today, and another outstanding concert from the CBC-McGill Series. Ecstatic Surrender is a musical exploration of The Song of Songs. (And a heck of a name for a concert too.)
What you'll hear is Stephen Stubbs leading a group of vocalists and musicians who interpret the music of Schutz, Palestrina, Walton and Willan, on voice and period instruments.
This morning on Symphony Hall, you can hear violinist Renaud Capucon with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kent Nagano, with some chestnuts (as the jazzers would have it) of the repertoire -- the program features Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, plus Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony.
And OnStage presents another outstanding concert from this year’s CBC McGill series, as a bevy of flutes join forces for a programme called Flutissimi!, with music ranging from the Baroque to the 20th century, featuring music by Boismortier, Prokofiev, Delibes, Doppler, Debussy, Villa Lobos and more.
Guest host Rick Phillips presents a concert from the CBC-McGill series this Sunday on OnStage, called Traverse Miraculeuse, a program of folk songs from Quebec, Newfoundland and the Maritimes.
It features soprano Meredith Hall, fiddler Laura Risk and friends. (More specifically, the friends include members of La Nef, Les Voix Humaines and Les Charbonniers de l'Enfer.)
Rick Phillips fans take note -- Rick is hosting OnStage this weekend, presenting a concert from McGill University, of British Chamber Music, featuring pianist Kyoko Hashimoto, violinists Jonathan Crow and Olivier Thouin, violist Douglas McNabney and cellist Matt Haimovitz, in music by Bridge, Britten and Elgar.
...is replete with excellent music.
Here's a quick 'n' dirty rundown. (Well actually it's all pretty much family listening, but you know what I mean.)
***OnStage presents Ancient Cultures/New Sounds this week - music for and inspired by the Gamelan ensembles of Bali, from music by Colin McPhee to the premiere of Aria, a new work for Gamelan and piano by Henry Kucharzyk. You’ll hear Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann, winners of the 4th Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition, and the eight-member Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, the only ensemble of its kind in Canada dedicated to the commissioning and performance of contemporary music.
***Roots & Wings begins with variations on Sephardic music, explores flute sounds from Ukraine and Egypt, celebrates the accordion from France and Texas, gets funky with Afrobeat sounds and ends with some time-tested classics from Cuba.
***Fuse takes Kobo Town's Trinidadian-Canadian calypso and introduces it to The People Project, who feature one Mexican cell, one French Canadian cell. What, you may ask is a cell? Here's the description from The People Project myspace site:
"Based simultaneously in Ottawa and Mexico, the group works in two cells—Philippe Lafrenière (2006 OCFF Songwriter Award Winner – Best Political Song and Best French Song) and Steven Patterson up north; Gabriel Bronfman and Maria Emilia Martinez down south. The group is often joined by 2006 Latin Grammy Award Winner Natalia Lafourcade. Each cell recruits new musicians locally and performs in Canada and Mexico. Both of them compose Afro-Brazilian music with lyrics that are sung in four languages. Airplanes, the Internet and ubiquity do the rest!"
It would be interesting to do some kind of study about why people choose the instruments they play. Sometimes the choice is made for you ("no, you won't be practicing drums in your room"). Sometimes by default ("sorry, no flutes left, just piccolos"). But otherwise? It's a choice, and it must arise from any number of feelings and ideas about what an instrument represents. Particularly when it's an instrument that's not exactly a dime a dozen -- like the harp.
A perfect opportunity for such an inquiry presented itself at OnStage's No Strings Attached, a gathering of harpists Sharlene Wallace, Lori Gemmell and Monika Stadler (with special guests Oliver Schroer on electric fiddle, Joseph Macerollo on accordion and George Koller on bass). That concert is broadcast today...OnStage.
Oi mi lasso (Ah, poor me) is the title of a lauda (a vernacular sacred song) commissioned from Gavin Bryars in 2002 by CBC Radio to mark the September 11th anniversary. And you can hear that composition today on On Stage.
Bryars, a fav. of Canadian audiences, has a summer home on Vancouver Island, but hasn't performed in Toronto in years. Well, a few months ago he returned for this performance at the Glenn Gould Studio, featuring Swedish soprano Anna Maria Friman and English tenor John Potter, (known for his work with Red Byrd and the Hilliard Ensemble), as well as Canadian instrumentalists Max Christie on bass clarinet and Douglas Perry on viola. File under contemporary meets early music...
Concerts by Brazilian-born multi-instrumentalist Celso Machado are always fun. Really, I've been to or heard many of them, and based on that empirical evidence I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it: concerts by Brazilian-born multi-instrumentalist Celso Machado are always fun. He's inventive, imaginative, playful, and a great guitar player.
Today OnStage presents a concert called Brazilian Pathways where Machado is joined by his brother, Carlinhos Machado, and Cuban-Canadian piano whiz David Virelles. The concert is billed as an "exploration of some of the musical traditions that have contributed to the music of Brazil - African, Portuguese and indigenous sounds." And it will be fun.
No, it's not St. Andrew's Day, but OnStage feels no compunction to only celebrate Scottish music on that occasion. So today it's "Scots Wha Hae", a celebration of Scottish music with soprano Meredith Hall, members of Toronto Masque Theatre, and Shaggy Haggis, a six-member folk ensemble with a Celtic repertoire.
Shaggy haggis, eh. I was relieved to find out they consider themselves "a great Irish session that's left the pub with a Eurail pass in hand ready to stop in each of the seven Celtic Nations," nothing more literal than that.
Harry Manx has been called an "essential link" between the music of East and West, because he weaves blues with classical Indian ragas. And he weaves with both voice and the Veena, a 20-stringed sitar/guitar that is key to his idiosyncratic musical direction.
This week, Onstage presents a special event created by Manx, called Heaven and Earth - Harry Manx & Friends, recorded at Glenn Gould Studio. He's joined by guitarist Kevin Breit, and South Asian vocalist Samdha Joglekar.
What does it look like when a big band goes for a drink? Dave McMurdo knows. What do they sound like when performing a tribute to Phil Nimmons? Ditto. Hear for yourself on OnStage today, when McMurdo's Jazz Orchestra plays Nimmons ‘n' More. (As 'n' more than Phil Nimmons' Nimmons 'n' Nine.)
Guest soloists include Quinsin Nachoff, Dave McMurdo, Chase Sanborn.
That was a cheap ploy, I know. Who wouldn't be curious about mystical-erotic trance rituals? But according to the folks at On Stage, they are indeed to be heard on today's broadcast.
Because today's show features Alessandra Belloni, acclaimed as one of the greatest percussionists in the world. And the music includes, yes, mystical-erotic trance rituals. But also love ballads and prayer songs, all inspired by the people and landscape of Southern Italy. (A nice place to experience a mystical-erotic trance ritual, I should think.)
Today on OnStage with Shelley Solmes from the Glenn Gould Studio, piano and vocal sensation Laila Biali & Friends.
She's opened for a sold-out Diana Krall show at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival; she was a double winner for Composer of the Year and Keyboardist of the Year at the National Jazz Awards in 2005; she represented Canada as the pianist with “Swinging Europe,” a European Jazz Orchestra that toured several countries in the Spring of 2006; she's currently touring with both Paula Cole and Blood Sweat & Tears; and she's only 26 years old.
Don't you just hate that?
Today on OnStage with Shelley Solmes, a special tribute to the group that paved the way for a generation of Canadian rock and pop artists.
On the American Thanksgiving Holiday in 1976, after sixteen years on the road The Band said goodbye to their fans by staging an all star concert that featured artists such as Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Ronnie Hawkins. On the 30th anniversary of this event a torch will be passed to a new generation of Canadian artists as OnStage gathers together an all-star band that will celebrate the music of The Band and the artists that shared the stage with them back in 1976.
This afternoon's edition of On Stage with Shelley Solmes is a tour of French music filled with poetry and passion.
Measha Brueggergosman, one of the most celebrated Canadian singers of today, brings her dynamic artistry to the luscious music of Duparc and Chanson, while principal conductor Alain Trudel leads the orchestra in the music of Milhaud, Ravel and Debussy.
Shelley Solmes is practicing her best Casey Kasem voice for today's edition of On Stage as the CBC Radio Orchestra runs through the "Top 20 of the 20th Century" from the stage of the Chan Centre in Vancouver.
A word of advice, Shelley: avoid those embarrassing fits of swearing that Casey's prone to and you'll be just fine.
This afternoon On Stage with Shelley Solmes comes to you from the wonderful and historic Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver with the CBC Radio Orchestra presenting The Concerto Project.
It's a welcome for the orchestra's new music director Alain Trudel and three distinguished Canadian piano soloists in Classical, Contemporary and Romantic concertos for piano and orchestra.
Janina Fialkowski performs a Mozart piano concerto, Ramona Luengen gives a world premiere of a concerto by Jane Coop and Winston Choi plays Mendelssohn’s "Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40".
This afternoon on On Stage with Shelley Solmes, it's the 13th annual Canadian Opera Company Orchestra Opera Gala, directed by Richard Bradshaw: "From Cherubino to Chérubin - Music of Mozart and Massenet".
The concert features two rising stars - soprano Joni Henson and bass Robert Gleadow, both graduates of the COC’s Ensemble Studio, with the COC Orchestra under the direction of Richard Bradshaw.
No, this is not about being subjected to a marathon of old Allan McPhee broadcasts - though that would actually be delightful!
I'm always pleased to hear the music of Colin McPhee get some profile. He was a visionary and one of those Canadians we claim - even though he was so frustrated by his experience in Canada that he had to leave to find the direction in his work that would consume his musical life. He got a very rough ride from the Canadian music establishment and yet the appreciation for his work in Canada and around the world has grown beyond that clique well after his death in 1964 in Los Angeles, where he was professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA.
Today OnStage with Shelley Solmes, pianist Janina Fialkowska returns to Glenn Gould Studio in the company of the Chamber Players of Canada for an all-Mozart program, in that composer's own rarely-heard chamber versions of two popular piano concertos.
Janina and the Chamber Players worked similar magic in recordings of Chopin Piano Concertos, as adapted by Chopin for piano and string quartet.
OnStage is pre-empted today for a special broadcast from the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, hosted by Eric Friesen.
In celebration of the Canada Council's 50th anniversary, the Canada Council for the Arts and the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NAC Orchestra) put together a major concert featuring the twelve winners of the 2006 Musical Instrument Bank competition, together with cellist Denis Brott and the NAC Orchestra, under the direction of trombonist and conductor Alain Trudel. The 12 talented young winners obtained the loan of rare and historic musical instruments with a total value of almost 20 million dollars.
The concert features them in performance on the instruments they were awarded in works by Paganini, Brahms, Stravinsky, Popper, Bach, Champagne, Estacio, Handel and Dompierre.
According to multi-instrumentalist (and guitar specialist) Harry Manx, "Blues is like the earth and Indian music is like the heavens. What I do is find the balance between the two."
Harry welcomes one of Canada's top guitarists, Kevin Breit, along with bassist George Koller and others, including South Asian vocalist Samidha Joglekar, to his performance for On Stage with Shelley Solmes this afternoon.
Just going through the schedule and noticing a few Bryars pieces and at that very moment - completely independently - Heather McLeod here in Thunder Bay started telling me about a piece she once heard that had her completely transfixed. "It had first an old English guy singing this song in a creaky voice and then Tom Waits took over!", she said. What a coincidence, I said - you're actually talking about a Gavin Bryars piece called "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" and all these other folks have got Bryars in the queue.
Oi mi lasso - music of Gavin Bryars / Old forms - New Sounds this week on OnStage. Though he maintains a summer home on Vancouver Island, the English composer Gavin Bryars hasn't performed in Toronto in more than a dozen years! A favourite of Canadian audiences, he returns to Glenn Gould Studio, where he's joined by Swedish soprano Anna Maria Friman, English tenor John Potter, (known for his work with Red Byrd and the Hilliard Ensemble), as well as Canadian instrumentalists Max Christie on bass clarinet and Douglas Perry on viola, in a melding of contemporary and early music.
She's opened for Diana Krall at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. She was a double winner for Composer of the Year and Keyboardist of the Year at the National Jazz Awards in 2005. And today, Laila Bialli anchors OnStage with a host of Canadian jazz legends, including Phil Dwyer on saxophone, Guido Basso on trumpet & flugelhorn and Don Thompson on vibraphone.
The concert includes original selections along with classics of the Canadian songbook by songwriters ranging from Ruth Lowe to Feist to Bruce Cockburn.
That's the title of this afternoon's edition of On Stage, featuring harpists Sharlene Wallace, Lori Gemmell and Monika Stadler, with Oliver Schroer, electric fiddle, Joseph Macerollo, accordion, and George Koller, bass.
Sharlene Wallace is an accomplished, innovative harpist, recording artist and composer, exploring Celtic, South American, and contemporary genres. She is joined by two similarly adventurous colleagues - Lori Gemmell, Principal Harp of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, and Austrian Jazz harpist Monika Stadler - plus some friends, for an evening of unlimited pleasure, exploring music for harps in various combinations and settings.
This sounds like fun. But Shelley, I'm putting you on notice: I want to hear some of my favourite harp, the west African kora, an east African nyetiti, an Ethiopian krar (antecedent to the lyre) and one of Bill Close's giant Earth Harps.
"A Long Time Ago" today on OnStage with Shelley Solmes.
Two Canadian-born musical legends inspire this one-time-only event. World-renowned jazz trumpeter and composer Kenny Wheeler has called England home since the 1950s. He's dreamed of performing his music with the size of ensemble utilized by the late Robert Farnon. A dream team of soloists, arrangers and two dozen of Toronto's finest musicians make his wishes come true in a stylistic meeting of the minds.
And not just for you!
Recording kits are being packed and mobile studio vans gassed up for another week of recording across the county for Canada Live, On Stage and the Concerts On Demand feature.
Tonight at University Theatre, CBC Calgary will be recording Guido Basso and Verismo.
Tomorrow night, Ancient Cultures / New Sounds takes the stage at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.
And Friday will be a doozy, with recordings scheduled of the Kitchen Waterloo Symphony, The York Choir and the Rheostatics at Massey Hall.
If you see that familar logo on the trucks and vans as you drive by, give them a friendly honk (oh, wait a minute, they're recording - maybe you'd better just wave).
You may have heard it on Canada Live. You may have streamed it from the Concerts On Demand panel.
Tonight on On Stage, Shelley Solmes gives you another radio-band opportunity to hear Michael Occhipinti's "Canzoni del Sud" featuring the Sicilian Jazz Project and the remarkable Alessandra Belloni.
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