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Browsing: Art Song

Davóne Tines, Photo by Noah Morrison

Fall Highlights: Orchestras, Chamber, Solo

By Eva Stone-Barney on 1 September 2023 Art Song, Baroque and Early, Canadian Music, Chamber Music, Classical, Classical Music, Montreal

Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM) Led by conductor Rafael Payare, the OSM celebrates the orchestra’s 90th anniversary this season, along with the 10th anniversary of the Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique. The orchestra will start the year with an electric performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (Sept. 12-14). Payare and OSM concertmaster Andrew Wan will later take the stage to interpret Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Webern’s Passacaglia, and Mozart’s “Haffner’’ Symphony (Oct. 25, 26). Come November, Christoph Eschenbach will conduct Alban Berg’s Concerto “To the Memory of an Angel” and Beethoven’s Symphony No.7 (Nov. 8, 9). The orchestra will get in the…

Review | J’Nai Bridges Dazzles Toronto Audience with Canadian Recital Debut

By Eva Stone-Barney on 28 July 2023 Art Song, Classical, Concert Reviews

Earlier this week, Toronto Summer Music announced that Canadian Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky had been forced to cancel her performance as part of this year’s festival due to unforeseen illness. Miraculously, the festival was able to secure a replacement of the highest caliber on just short of a week’s notice: Grammy Award winning American Mezzo Soprano, J’Nai Bridges. Bridges stepped in with grace and poise, dutifully acknowledging Ms. Radvanovsky’s absence at the concert’s outset. Joined by pianist Rachael Kerr, she opened the first half of her recital with a musical setting of the Lord’s Prayer (uncredited on the program). This was…

Newswire | Opera San José offers FREE streaming of Alma Deutscher’s “Cinderella”

By Newswire on 10 July 2023 Art Song, Classical Music, Newswire, Opera, Vocal

SAN JOSE, CA (7 July 2023) – Opera San José’s opulent staging of Alma Deutscher’s Cinderella will be made available for free viewing beginning July 22, made possible due to the generous support of the Packard Humanities Institute. The production, filmed at the magnificent California Theatre in San Jose last fall, featured the international conducting debut of prodigy composer/musician Deutscher, who led the Opera San José Orchestra in a critically acclaimed performance, staged by Brad Dalton. Based on the classic fairytale, this family-friendly work is reset at an opera company run by a scheming stepmother, in which the title character is a brilliant composer laboring…

CD Review | Nuages (KNS Classical, 2023)

By Zenith Wolfe on 29 May 2023 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Piano

Nuages Duo Cavatine: Noémie Raymond-Friset, cello; Michel-Alexandre Broekaert, piano KNS Classical, 2023 Like a rolling cloud, the 2019 recording for Nuages drifted for years along the ever-changing winds of the pandemic. Now, its thunderous sound is here to shock listeners. The album’s 2023 release makes it Duo Cavatine’s second published album, after 2022’s CellOpéra. But the choice of compositions still reflects its earlier recording date—it feels like the musicians are establishing themselves as a duo for the first time. Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, Fp. 143 features a call-and-response motif and a tense, fragmented tune that both urges…

Newswire | 2023 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Voice Announce 12 Finalists Including Two Canadians

By Newswire on 25 May 2023 Art Song, Newswire, Opera, Vocal

Brussels, Belgium (May 25, 2023) – The final of the 2023 Voice Competition will be held at the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts on Thursday 1 to Saturday 3 June, 8.15pm. Presenting the twelve finalists : Fleuranne Brockway, mezzo-soprano Daniel Gwon, baritono Floriane Hasler, mezzo-soprano Inho Jeong, basso Taehan Kim, baritono Juliette Mey, mezzo-soprano Julia Muzychenko-Greenhalgh, soprano Anna-Sophie Neher, soprano Carole-Anne Roussel, soprano Sílvia Sequeira, soprano Maria Warenberg, mezzo-soprano Jasmin White, contralto Via this link you can read more about the finalists and download their photos on their personal pages. The biographies of the finalists will be available on the press…

Newswire | Sherrill Milnes Voice Programs Announce Baritone Seungchan Hong As Winner Of 2023 Opera Idol Competition

By Newswire on 2 May 2023 Art Song, Classical Music, Music Competition, Newswire, Opera, Vocal

New York City, New York – May 2, 2023 – The Sherrill Milnes VOICE Programs kicked off a week in New York City by welcoming young contestants from around the country to compete in the 17th annual Opera Idol competition. This sponsor exclusive event continued the tradition of a Chicago based scholarship program and was enjoyed in a private salon by patrons of the Gala. The 2023 Opera Idol winner, Seungchan Hong, a South Korean baritone, was awarded this prestigious scholarship. Hong has performed Gianni Schicchi at the Canto Vocal Program in Louisville, Kentucky. He is currently pursuing an Artist…

CD Review | Durme, Durme: Four Ladino Folk Songs (Leaf music, 2023)

By Zenith Wolfe on 29 March 2023 Art Song, Canadian Music, CD and Book Reviews, Piano

Durme, Durme: Four Ladino Folk Songs Maureen Batt, soprano; Tara Scott, piano Leaf Music, 2023 With only four short compositions inspired by prayers, poems, and lullabies, composer Elisha Denburg doesn’t have much room to establish the themes of the Judeo-Spanish folk songs. Luckily, he uses time to its fullest, enlisting soprano Maureen Batt and pianist Tara Scott to convey a wide range of raw emotions by reducing vocals and piano to their bare essentials. Batt demonstrates extreme flexibility through her limited performances, switching from solemn to jolly to confident without a second thought. She accommodates this wide range of feelings…

CD Review | Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs (Deutsche Grammophon, 2023)

By Pietro Freiburger on 27 March 2023 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary, Piano

Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs Hélène Grimaud, piano; Konstantin Krimmel, baritone Deutsche Grammophon, 2023 This new CD from Deutsche Grammophon features the Five Songs and some of the Eleven Songs by Valentin Silvestrov, one of Ukraine’s leading composers. Initially an exponent of the so-called Kiev Avant-Garde, which developed around the 1960s, Silvestrov has known greater success in the style he himself refers to as “meta-music”—metaphorical music. In Silvestrov’s writing, a touching lyricism of Mahlerian inspiration and contemporary colours coexist: the language of this style is universal and precisely meant as an instrument from which the listener can give his own meaning…

2023 Singing Valentines: Spreading the Love!

By La Scena Musicale Team on 6 February 2023 Art Song, Classical Music, Opera, Popular Music, Vocal

“Over the last year and a half, I lost both my 86-year-old father-in-law and my 99-year-old father, and I want to do something special for seniors.” – Wah Keung Chan La Scena Musicale’s Singing Valentines Fundraiser is back for its 13th edition, and we are here to spread the love. We have 20-plus amazing professional singers involved in this year’s project. Previously, we have used this incredible service as a fundraiser for La Scena Musicale. This year we have a new objective: to show love to our community by offering 100 FREE serenades for seniors 65+. “Over the last year…

The Songs of Jules Massenet: An Under-Appreciated Repertoire

By Justin Bernard on 4 February 2023 Art Song, Romantic

From a historical perspective, Jules Massenet’s art songs have been given short shrift compared with his larger-scale operatic undertakings like Manon, Werther and Cendrillon. Baritone Pierre Bernac (1899-1979), in a work dealing with the interpretation of French art songs, is unequivocal in his assessment of Massenet; he viewed him as being a gifted melodist who wrote tunes wrapped in sugar-coated sentimentalism. If only a few pieces survive now as tokens of that repertoire, it may be due in part to the composer’s reluctance to deal with the subject. Jacques Hétu, in his liner notes to the recently issued box set…