TSO Offstage: Violinist James Ehnes
Canadian violinist James Ehnes, above left, charmed a small but attentive audience at the Drake Hotel last night as part of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Offstage series. Ehnes is in town for several star turns this week: he performs with the TSO Thursday (November 26, 2 pm) and Saturday (November 28, 8 pm) at Roy Thomson Hall and Sunday (November 29, 3 pm) at the George Weston Recital Hall, and he plays a solo concert at Koerner Hall (with accompanist Andrew Armstrong) Friday (November 27, 8 pm).
Broadcaster Rick Phillips steered a fascinating hour-long conversation that got to the heart of Ehnes’s passion for fine instruments, a fervour ignited by software magnate David Fulton’s $50 million collection of some of the world’s most treasured violins and violas. Enhes compared and contrasted the instruments on Homage, a 2008 compact disc and DVD about the Fulton Collection. “David Fulton and I are both violin geeks,” said Ehnes, “so having the opportunity to play all of those incredible instruments was a tremendous thrill.”
Photo by Christopher Jones
Best Deal in Town: COC Free Concert Series
The Free Concert Series at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre is probably the best free cultural program since Ontario Place razed the Forum. True, not every date on the calendar packs as much star power as yesterday’s recital by homegrown soprano Adrianne Pieczonka (left, with pianist Elizabeth Upchurch). But the program is deep and wide featuring vocal, piano and jazz recitals as well as chamber, world music and dance performances most Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 12 – 1 pm (with a handful of late afternoon sets from 5:30 – 6:30 pm).
Because she’s such a draw, Pieczonka had the punters lined up down the block an hour before showtime. In fact, some hopefuls had to be turned away as even the standing room sections above the Amphitheatre filled to capacity. Pieczonka did not disappoint! She sang a selection of arias from her new all-Puccini disc.
Ensemble Studio’s School Tour
When do our cultural prejudices start to take root? That’s a question I pondered last weekend while attending a friends and family preview of the COC’s Ensemble Studio’s School Tour showcase of condensed versions of Rossini’s Barber of Seville and Cinderella. Barber featured singers (above, left to right) Simone Osborne, Neil Craighead, Adrian Kramer, Ileana Montalbetti and Riccardo Iannello; photo by Anand Maharaj.
The 45-minute performances played out in the Jackman Studio of the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Opera Centre with simple piano accompaniment by musical director Christopher Mokrzewski. Parents (and some children) perched on folding seats while most of the kids sat cross-legged on the floor right in front of the singers.
Whiskey Bars Puts Fresh Spin On Kurt Weill
How does a singer/actor breathe new life into old, familiar songs? Write a show that weaves them into a fresh context, then, render the tunes with as much spleen and spite as humanly possible. That’s the approach Bremner Duthie, left, has been taking for the past five Tuesday nights at Kensington Market’s Bread & Circus. Born at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2000, the one-man show has won rave reviews around the world. Duthie has reworked the material and changed up the songs several times; at Bread & Circus the show has gelled into a one-hour tour de force of hope and regret rooted in the songs of Kurt Weill.
Opera Bob Breaks Down The Barriers
On Friday, October 2, opera singer Robert Pomakov, left, joins conductor Jonathan Darlington and world-famous, theatre visionary Robert Lepage on stage at the Four Seasons Centre for Opera 101, a free, sneak peak at what Pomakov describes as a “revolutionary” production of Stravinsky’s The Nightingale and Other Short Fables (doors at 7 pm).
The performance turns standard opera on its head by putting the orchestra on stage and the singers in the pit which will be filled with water. The performers slosh around giving voice to their characters while also animating puppets inspired by the Vietnamese tradition. Other larger shadow puppets interact with the characters and help drive the narrative forward.
