It’s a safe bet you’ve never realized the universality of A Lover and His Lass, that sweet and buoyant song from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, until you’ve heard it dressed up, via Appalachia, as a bluegrass tune. Unlikely as it sounds, it works splendidly,
The cellist Elinor Frey has become a bit of a musical detective. She relishes finding and bringing forward into the the light of day music that has been long forgotten. That, in essence, is the focus of the concert called Fiorè that she will present with
Summer isn't over but the Chamberfest folks are already thinking about the fall. They have announced the biggest and consequently most diverse lineup ever in the upcoming fall and winter concert series. In all there will 10 concerts featuring musicians from Spain, Israel, Norway, Austria, the
In Montreal, Robert Lepage is licking his wounds after having not one but two new “colour-blind” works cancelled over accusations of cultural appropriation and tone-deafness (SLAV proposed a mostly white cast to sing African slave music; Kanata, about residential schools, did not involve any Indigenous
How do you define musical ambition? Well, if you are the piano quartet Made In Canada it is with the musical project Mosaïque. And for the past two years, it has been their intense focus. "Our group began in 2006, so we had passed our 10th anniversary
For Vancouver composer Tim Corlis, preparing the music for the Festival of the Sound production of Sounding Thunder: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow has been probably the most complex project he has ever worked on. At two years, it certainly has been the longest. Much
There are some 210 cantatas written by Johan Sebastien Bach. How long would it take to sing all of them? Well, for the Swiss early music ensemble Gli Angeli Geneve, it's 12 years so far and counting. And they’ve got about 120 done in concert.
Francis Pegahmagabow was a decorated war hero. He was a sniper and scout in the Canadian Army on the western front during the First World War, credited with killing 378 Germans and capturing 300 more. And yet when he returned home to the Dominion of
"My best friend was my mother and she was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable, neat, and as useful as a spider. She could also defend herself, and me, by refusing to answer ‘stupid,’ inquisitive, embarrassing, personal questions." — Louise Bourgeois on her sculpture
Chamberfringe — Chamberfest’s late-night “off-venue” series — has evolved into one of the festival’s most popular offerings. It represents the kind of innovative, alternative classical programming and presentation Ottawa sorely needs, and if you still think our staid citizens don’t want to be out past
