By Natasha Gauthier I’m not going to lie: sitting in a concert hall for the first time in eight months was weird. Maybe not as weird as Jonas Kaufmann’s new cover of Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You, released earlier this week, which
By Natasha Gauthier After a COVID-induced absence of almost eight months, the National Arts Centre Orchestra returned to Southam Hall Saturday night for the first in a series of weekly livecast concerts. Many things have changed since the orchestra’s last performance in March. The hall seats were
COVID-19 has forced many changes on the performing arts — some devastating some imaginative. Necessity being the mother of invention as Aesop said. Musicians have been hosting concerts on front porches. Some have been standing up in front of a row of cars in drive-in
In this grim year, we are all getting a lesson in sorrow from the loss of our freedoms and the loss of loved ones. We are mourning almost 9,200 souls taken by the COVID-19 plague. Yes we are learning much about grief. Into this black and white
You'd think Carissa Klopoushak had enough on her plate. She's a violinist with the NAC Orchestra. She's a co-funder of the Ironwood Quartet. She started and remains the artistic director of a music festival in her hometown of Saskatoon, COVID notwithstanding. She's part of the team
The COVID clouds are parting and Ottawa Chamberfest is set to shine some musical light on the fall season. Traditionally Chamberfest would be packing in audiences for a slew of concerts in the Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre this fall and winter. Not this year, except for
After 13 years as artistic director of the Ottawa Chamber Music Society (OCMS), Roman Borys will step down from his post on Aug. 14. He will be replaced by the first woman to hold the position — the multi-talented musician and administrator, Carissa Klopoushak, who is
Wherever Dame Evelyn Glennie goes she picks up things with an eye to making music with them. "At the moment," she said in an interview earlier this year with ARTSFILE, "I am collecting bottle tops and plastic tops
When Bronwyn Steinberg launched TACTICS in 2013, she was responding to what she saw as a critical deficit in Ottawa’s independent theatre community: Insufficient opportunities for artists who had passed the “emerging” phase but whose work wasn’t always ready for the city’s bigger venues. “I would
The annual Kiwanis Music Festival will be postponed until May as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The festival's board made the decision after an emergency meeting Friday night. The festival will now run from May 2 to 30. This may change as the situation
