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...no not Doug, but and Bill. Tune in tonight to The Signal (10 p.m.) to hear the "existential cinematic sounds" of Bob And Bill of Montreal.
And the concert feature is violinist Rolf Schulte and pianist James Winn, who perform the work of three three prairie-based composers – Allan Gordon Bell, Diana McIntosh and Michael Matthews.
As always, there's "The Loot Bag," and rumour has it it brings together the Constantines, Feist and Dolly Parton. (So now you know -- why the photo?)
Kingston...You'll Be Amazed! Anyone who drove into Kingston, Ont. during the 1990s will recall this official government roadside sign, which was possibly greeted with a small chuckle. Not to say that Kingston isn't a lovely city, but "amazed?" Well, one woman's amazement is another woman's...
Anyway, one thing that is amazing is how many good bands seem to come out of Kingston, particularly when there aren't a commensurate number of music venues. Some Kingston-based musicians decided to counteract this by creating a music series in a church basement. They call it the Apple Crisp Music Series, and it's created quite a scene, including a record label and a zine. (Also a lot of baking, since they really do serve apple crisp.)
Canada Live (8 p.m.) broadcasts four shows from the Apple Crisp series tonight, starting with the nine-member "nerdgrass" (their term not mine, though I love it) group The Gertrudes (instrumentation includes banjo, theramin, brass).
Next, Emily Fennel and Luther Wright, the latter you may know from Weeping Tile, the same band that spawned Sarah Harmer.
Third is Chris Brown (of Bourbon Tabernacle and Kate Fenner fame). Brown's solo now, and an honourary Kingstonian since he lives on Wolfe Island.
And finally, one out and out non-Kingstonian who just happened to be passing through, banjo player Old Man Luedecke, featured earlier today on CBC Radio 2's new roots show, Deep Roots.
P.S. I know they're slices of apple pie, not crisp, but the latter proved remarkably image-resistent!
Katherine Duncan returns to the national CBC Radio 2 airwaves today with her own show, a brand new program called In Tune. She'll be looking at (and playing) the classical music that's making news.
Today on the debut edition of In Tune, Katherine brings you the sound of a 14-year taboo being broken at the Metropolitan Opera, and she asks (and answers) the question, "Do we really need another recording of the Goldberg Variations?" Hmm, think there's a good poll question in that, Katherine!
And, very bravely, Katherine and a few well-chosen guests test the recent theory that music can influence the taste of wine. Funny, I would have thought it the other way around -- wine influences the way we hear music.
And here's the peanut version of the story of this concerto:
Mendelssohn came up with the idea of writing a violin concerto in 1838, he wrote about it in a letter to his concertmaster, Ferdinand David. But because of Mendelssohn’s growing popularity he was inundated with commissions and didn't have time to focus on the concerto. How frustrating. This is why it took until 1844 for him to finish the piece.
Ever since audiences have been thrilled; the Violin Concerto in E Minor is a concert hall favourite and is part of the repertoire of orchestras around the world.
This morning you can hear the debut of Deep Roots, a programme exploring the diverse and ever-changing world of roots music.
It's hosted by Tom Power, a musician himself. He kicks things off with a line-up including Old Man Luedecke, a banjo-man/songwriter based in Nova Scotia (RR 2 Chester, Nova Scotia to be exact) who is fresh from touring with Feist. And you can hear music from the excellent Winnipeg band The Duhks plus a band Tom calls “the oldest sounding youngest people” he’s heard in some time, The Floorbirds.
Tom's first show also launches a regular feature, the “MySpace Moment,” spotlighting performers who are deeply underground. (Thus making any number of "best kept secrets" less so, which is always a fun thing to do when it comes to music. Less so when it comes to tiny restaurants.)
And just to make sure the broadcast times are clear to all, here goes. You can hear Deep Roots at 11:00-11:58:50, 12:00-12:58:50 in the Maritimes, 12:30-13:28:50 in Nfld.
Idomeneo pits king against prince, rival princesses against each other, and just about everyone against the sea god, Neptune.
Opera Atelier's production of the opera, broadcast today on SATO, features Croatian tenor Kresimir Spicer in the title role, American male soprano Michael Maniaci as his son Idamante (a role that would have been sung in Mozart’s time by a castrato), American soprano Peggy Kriha Dye as Idamante’s love interest Ilia, and Canadian Measha Brueggergosman as her adversary, Elettra.
Apparently the creators of Opera Atelier couldn’t believe their ears when they heard male soprano Michael Maniaci -- he propelled their dream to stage Mozart’s Idomeneo as Mozart would have heard it. It seems others couldn't believe their ears either -- the recently completed production broke the company’s box office record in ticket sales and won universal praise from audiences and critics alike.
As well as the opera itself, you can also hear SATO host Bill Richardson speaking with Opera Atelier’s Co-artistic Directors, Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Zyngg, conductor Andrew Parrott, and male soprano Michael Maniaci.
Following the conclusion of the opera, don't forget the debut of In Tune, hosted by Katherine Duncan from CBC Calgary.
For more about the opera -- cast, characters, synopsis -- please continue reading.
Photo of Kresimir Spicer, Peggy Kriha Dye, Michael Maniaci and Measha Brueggergosman by Bruce Zinger
Today Stuart McLean brings you a tale of wedding woe. So common, those wedding woe tales. In this case the woe begins when when Morley’s old friend Lesley announces that she is getting remarried and Morley realizes she has to not only don a bridesmaid dress, (probably in seafoam green), but also deal with someone's "issues."
The issues belong to Lesley’s daughter Kate, who seems angry and resentful that her mother is marrying a man who is closer to Kate’s age than to Lesley’s. While Morley struggles with whether she should tell her friend about Kate’s feelings, Kate struggles with her “toast to the bride” and Dave struggles to get into and then out of Lesley’s wedding gown. (!)
Non-regional regional note ("regions" no longer being proper CBC parlance): Today the Vinyl Café comes to you from Rosebud, Alberta, with special musical guest Corb Lund, the horse soldier guy.
The weekend Signal (10 p.m.) team declares that we'll "need a hankie tonight as Pat plays heart-wrenching highlights from a concert by Julie Doiron," woven throughout the programme.
Maybe she just sings her song, No More over and over? It pretty much sums up the end of a relationship in a pithy way -- No More, No More, No More.
As well as possibly inducing weepiness Pat will also profile one of the country's most notorious cellists, Matt Haimovitz. More and more classical musicians play in atypical classical music venues these days, but he was one of the first -- playing rock clubs, bars and coffee houses across North America.
He got a lot of press for it too. For instance this, from ABC's NIGHTLINE: "When we first discovered Matt Haimovitz, he was preparing to play New York's famed CBGB, an underground rock club that had never featured a classical artist. This was part of the Listening-Room Tour, Matt's effort to bring classical music to venues where people of his generation could listen to classical music in a relaxed setting."
It's an institution, as they say, and it's closing its doors, but fortunately only temporarily. Winnipeg's West End Cultural Centre is having a face lift, and so tonight Canada Live (8 p.m.) notes its importance to the Winnipeg musical community by broadcasting three concerts recorded at the old building.
First Autorickshaw. They're the inventive jazz-meets-Indian music group you've likely heard on CBC before -- tracks from their recordings turn up regularly on various shows. But this is a special live concert based on a collaboration between their lead vocalist, Suba Sankaran, and string players from the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. You can also hear this show online, at Concerts On Demand: Autorickshaw And Strings.
Also on tonight's show, two acts from Winnipeg with excellent names, first FLO, who is both a a physiotherapist an R&B singer. And then Venus Murphy a rollicking Irish band who played a pre-Paddy's Day show that CBC recorded for your listening (and jigging) pleasure.
As the blog Soul Bounce once put it, "Common, Talib Kweli, Mary J. Blige and Timbaland have all benefited from Nina [Simone's] work. Is there any wonder why? Respect."
Tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) you can hear one of those remixes of Simone, not sure which tune, although it could be See Line Woman. A song which, depending on your age and musical tastes, you may only know from the Feist version, Sea Lion Woman. (Which she performed live at the Junos, much to the carping classes' dismay, they thought she should do 1, 2, 3 etc.)
Anyway, Feist's cover of Simone's famous version was addressed in this Q&A with Time Out New York, and I thought some might find it interesting:
"Q: On The Reminder, you cover Sea Lion Woman, which was popularized by Nina Simone. Were you at all hesitant to record a song so strongly associated with a giant like her?
I never thought about that, because it’s not like I’m trying to arm-wrestle with Nina Simone. She’s a genius! I first heard the song on a field recording from the 1930s. It’s a kind of school-yard-game chant sung by two little girls. Nobody knows who wrote it, but a lot of folk musicians in the ’60s claimed songs they didn’t write.
Q: Are you saying Nina Simone stole Sea Lion Woman?
She claimed to have written it, yes, and I took some rhythm ideas from her version. But it’s 40 years later, I’m a different person, it’s a different time. Music is more individual now."
Here's a live version of Simone giving a little lesson on how to sing See Line Woman.
Also in MIMC news, at last night's gala a number of special awards given out to the young pianists -- two going to Canadians. Please continue reading for all the details.
It was only a matter of time. Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is going to be turned into an opera, according to a maddeningly slight report from AP. Composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to write the work which will premiere at La Scala in 2011.
But what are the opera bloggers saying? Well, Opera Chic, commenting on the "libretto by Al Gore" as well as the rest of the upcoming Scala season, summed it up this way: "zzzzzzzzz." Harsh. Who knows, it could be riveting. Certainly dramatic subject matter. Though it may also prove challenging in a unique way -- after all, a lot can happen climate-wise between now and then.
As for the irony of it being staged in Milan with its considerable pollution, as the Wall Street Journal points out, "Gore, a Nobel laureate for his work on climate change, has thrown his support behind Milan’s Expo 2015 bid, partly because the city is planning a multi-billion plan to cut pollution, including underground rail lines."
A small update -- was originally writing this yesterday, when as you regulars know we had a rather major case of "Technical Difficulty Please Stand By" causing the website to go down. There has been more expansive reportage on this story since the AP short -- and for that I direct you to The Guardian, Opera Tribute Not Too Inconvenient For Gore.
Two highlights of note today on Studio Sparks (12 p.m.), first, Symphony No. 4 In A Major - "the Italian" - by Felix Mendelssohn. You'll hear Claudio Abbado leading the London Symphony Orchestra.
And second, Forgotten Dreams, what the S'sparks team describes as "a passionate rhapsody." It's by Kingston composer John Burge, who teaches music at Queens and has written a number of large choral works which have been performed by ensembles across the country.
Forgotten Dreams is for flute and string orchestra though. And what a lovely name for a composition it is. Better than the actual experience, come to think of it, you know, when you wake up and you almost but can't quite recall? Of course, the title may well be referring to literal dreams, those are harder to forget.
As we roll on towards the weekend there are a couple of radio notes you might want to add to your list of weekend "to-do's," to be done in between hauling topsoil around or lazing with the weekend papers or however you spend your spring weekends. And that is the debut of two new radio shows on CBC R2 on Saturday.
The first, Saturday at 11:00, 12:00 in the Maritimes (12:30 in Nfld) is Deep Roots, hosted by Tom Power, story-teller, traditional musician, and student at Memorial University. Tom explores the ever burgeoning world of folk -- both Canadian and international. So much great music, and it's nice to know that it will be spotlighted by someone who is right in the thick of the milieu himself.
As a musician Tom is in high demand as an instrumentalist/vocalist and he's shared the stage with people like accordion virtuoso Graham Wells, jazz guitarist Duane Andrews and bluegrass innovator Bill Keith. As well as his work as a sideman, he also leads his own band The Dardanelles, who has received a number of accolades both provincially and nationally.
A little later on Saturdays, at 5:00pm, you can hear In Tune hosted by Katherine Duncan. In Tune is an exploration of classical music in current culture. So Katherine will play new classical music, explore the trends in classical music, and let you know what's making classical music news. And of course Kathrine also knows her stuff -- as you know if you have heard her hosting previous CBC shows.
She's a classically trained musician and former arts administrator, and since the mid-1990s has hosted a number of shows including That Time Of The Night, and Symphony Hall. She's very involved in Alberta's classical music scene, and it's great that she is also going to be so involved in the nation's -- actually the world's -- classical music scene as well. Katherine is also still active as a musician, she performs regularly with Calgary’s Spiritus Chamber Choir.
Tim Brady is one of the country's more prolific guitarists and composers. Just one bit of proof -- since 1988 he's put out 14 CDs as both a composer and a performer on Justin Time and on Ambiances Magnétiques. He's also a very interesting musician who provokes equally interesting responses. (I like this line from a review in Hour magazine, "Montreal's Tim Brady is a true mad scientist of guitar sound, placed here on Earth, it seems, to smash the barriers between high and low culture."
Tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) Laurie Brown presents Brady's spectacular Double Quartet, recorded live in concert in Montreal. As well, intrepid new music reporter Andrew O'Connor (not too many people can make that claim) brings a report from the Victoriaville International Festival Of Musique Actuelle featuring Tim Brady.
Sorry, Jian and Q107, in this case the reference is to Quincy Jones. Because tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) you can hear a set of tunes from the Quincy Jones Big Band recorded live in Paris back in 1960.
It was a good year, and here's proof. (Although I should warn you it's very brief -- but a great teaser for the music you can hear this evening on Tonic.)
And just a reminder, you can see and hear all the videos posted on the blog by going to R2Tube.
Funny thing about blogs. They have a way of rapidly cycling through and it's very possible if you don't happen to look at just the right time you miss some vital news. So in the case of the two new shows debuting this weekend I'm going to err on the side of inundation, just a tad, by posting a few times over the next few days.
Of course if you are on the web page for the blog itself, you can always go to any of the categories on the right hand side of the menu to see all the postings for any one show, and special broadcasts, podcasts, any old kind of cast.
Meantime though, here is the nutshell version of what's new:
On Saturday at 11:00-11:58:50, 12:00-12:58:50 in the Maritimes (12:30-13:28:50 in Nfld from whence the show emanates), the debut of Deep Roots, hosted by Tom Power, story-teller, traditional musician, and student at Memorial University. His show is all about folk music -- he explores some of the best music being made in what is truly an eclectic and expanding genre these days.
And then at 5:00pm Saturday, In Tune, hosted by Katherine Duncan out of Calgary. In Tune is an exploration of classical music in the here and now -- in other words, new classical music being made and classical music making the news.
The Butterfly Lovers is an orchestral adaptation of an old Chinese legend of that name, written by two Chinese composers, Chen Gang and He Zhanhao in 1959. It was a huge hit -- but many of the people associated with the concerto were jailed within five years of its premiere. The story itself is a kind of Romeo and Juliet tale of thwarted lovers, only in this case it's also about reincarnation -- the lovers as butterflies.
Today on Studio Sparks (12 p.m.), you can hear world-renowned (western classical) violinist Gil Shaham performing this work -- which was brutally buried by the Cultural Revolution. Mr Shaman (pictured here) is heard with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
A number of people have written in asking to see the list of winners of the Montreal International Musical Competition -- so once again, here they are. The Grand prize went to pianist Nareh Arghamanyan from Armenia, pictured here. She takes home the $30,000 Grand Prize.
The second grand prize went to Japan's Masataka Takada, and Russia's Alexandre Moutouzkine. (The Second Prize of $15,000 and Third Prize, $7,500, were combined into a $22,500 Second Prize that will be shared equally between the two.)
Justin Nozuka's career seems to be thriving these days (hey, he was recently named one of Le Chateau's New Canadian Emerging/Breakout Artists). And he's been getting a fair bit of buzz south of the border.
That buzz is about his music, which goes down very nicely in a mellow Jack Johnsonish kind of way, although his back story doesn't hurt. Hyphen recently summed it up like this: "Japanese/American Justin Nozuka who was born in New York but raised in Toronto, and is interestingly enough, nephew of American actress Kyra Sedgwick who's married to Kevin Bacon. Wow, six degrees of Kevin Bacon really does work."
Thursday night on Canada Live (8 p.m.) you can hear Nozuka in a concert recorded at Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre, on the eve of a blizzard. Funny how often concerts recorded by Canada Live during the winter arrive with that little disclaimer. I'm looking forward to hearing some that were "recorded on a lovely balmy spring evening." (They'll probably turn up on the air next autumn, just as the first snows are beginning to fall.) You can also hear this Nozuka show at any time of year, at Concerts On Demand: Justin Nozuka.
Two other concerts of note on the show today, not sure what sort of weather they were recorded in but either may interest you as they feature two fine Canadian musicians, the first, Justin Rutledge, the second Oh Susanna.
One-man bands used to be guys dripping percussion, maybe with a woodwind or harp in mouth. Now, thanks to laptops, samplers, loopers and keyboards the possibilities are vast, far beyond percussion and tambourines affixed to your head. (I'm thinking about Washboard Hank here.)
Tonight The Signal (10 p.m.) features some of the musical and technical chops belonging to solo artists including Laurie Anderson, Squarepusher, Final Fantasy (Owen Pallett), and Martin Tétreault.
This reminds me, there was a feature in the Sunday New York Times magazine just a few weeks ago (quite a bit of it on Owen Pallett). Pallet had some interesting things to say, as did the writer, John Wray. Fer example:
"The boundaries of what I’m doing as Final Fantasy define the whole project: I choose to perform solo, and to write songs in the pop idiom, so neither of those two things are limitations. They’re choices I made.” When I asked whether both those decisions had the same objective — liberation through a kind of radical economy of means — Pallett bobbed his head enthusiastically. “Absolutely. I feel liberated by them every day.”
Cellar Live is a Vancouver-based record label created in 2001 by musician/producer/jazz club owner Cory Weeds. When he bought The Cellar Restaurant and Jazz Club in 2000 he also decided to record some of the great music that was played at the club. Well, seven years and I think almost fifty recordings later it's quite an archive.
Tonight Tonic (6 p.m.) presents some of the music recorded at The Cellar, in fact music by Cory Weeds himself (he's also a sax player) with his quartet, recorded in January. And here's a little write up of that recording and of Weeds own background, over on Jazz Elements.
As you are no doubt well aware, TV shows are the new commercial radio. Get a song played on a popular show or anything broadcast by HBO these days, and your career might take a new turn. Or at least, your downloads might pick up.
Personally I like it when a song is used to powerful effect over credits -- The Sopranos was brilliant at that, the song was always a kind of musical coda to the show. Less wonderful is when a great song gets used in some way where the actual meaning of the lyrics is ignored or trampled on. I'm thinking of a certain Regina Spektor song in Grey's Anatomy. (Although her version of Little Boxes in Weeds is great.)
As a TV show Sex And The City tended to use music pretty discreetly -- though there was the occasional unsubtle but amusing musical punctuation, like playing Smoke On The Water in that scene when they're at some real trashy dockside bar after being at "Bed" and things go badly. You know, the awfulness after the Berger breakup? (Sorry, that was just to position the scene for fans.)
But with the new SATC movie comes a new soundtrack (in which Fergie's Labels Or Love features prominently, no surprise). Can't say yet what the movie reviews will be like (though later this week it will be impossible not to say, and say). But the reviews of the soundtrack are coming in and if this review is any indication, it's nothing to rush out and buy.
Something tells me that all the bad reviews in the world won't matter though; I predict all things SATC related are going to be totally Critic-Proof.
P.S. As for that photo? Why should Carrie and the girls get all the glory from the New York premiere last night -- go, "Stanie", go!
As promised, here's Kelly Rice, with the final word on the Finals at MIMC last night in Montreal.
"At home circa half past midnight after the traditional post-Competition toasts, deconstruction, and much merriment. Slept until 9:30 AM. YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Too many souvenirs to blog about today, so I’ll confine myself to:
1. Nareh Arghamanyan in the broadcast booth fresh from the announcement of her triumph. Such grace, poise, and promise. A huge talent, and a great future.
2. Conversations (on air and off) with my two guest commentators. David Jalbert texting to listeners between movements. (He’s as handy on a cell as he is at the keyboard.) And Martha De Francisco sitting in the hall until the very last minute. (Will she make it to the booth on time?)
3. A wonderful broadcast team led by my producer Scott Tresham. A bilingual broadcast is a complicated thing, and I think Canadians would be proud to see how we put this all together. Perhaps we should do ‘the making of’?"
I second #3. Scott, Sophie (Kelly!) and everyone involved in the R2 and Espace Musique broadcasts have worked very hard.
Now all that's left is the Gala, tomorrow night, featuring a concert with the Laureates. (And as mentioned earlier, live audio/video webcasts of the quarter-finals and semifinals will remain on the MIMC website for a year, and the finals will be available at Concerts On Demand soon.) Oh, and the MIMC vocal competition of course, in 2009.
...pianist Nareh Arghamanyan, who is nineteen-years-old (!) and from Armenia. Last night, live from the Montreal International Musical Competition R2 host Kelly Rice (with Laurie Brown on The Signal) announced that Arghamanyan had won the $30,000 Grand Prize.
Live audio/video webcasts of the quarter-finals and semifinals will remain on the MIMC website for a year, and the finals will be available at Concerts On Demand sometime soon -- I will post when they are available.
Stay tuned for the hardest working man in host business, Kelly Rice -- he'll file his last report reflecting on the competition shortly.
A reminder that this week's Cage Match on Music & Company (6 a.m.) is the "Manly" Cage Match, with two fine (very fine) Canadian baritones.
Who of the deep-voiced geniuses will prevail? Gerald Finley with his handsome rendition of Vaughan Williams' The Vagabond? Or Russell Braun with his boisterous Figaro?
The mano-a-mano match (or "voz-a-voz" to be more accurate) can be heard this morning with the results of your votes announced on the air on Friday. As always, feel free to cast your vote/opinons here as well as over at the Cage, the MuCo team tallies 'em all.
P.S. In case you're wondering who that Gerald Finley is behind the curtain, he's being J. Robert Oppenheimer, looking at "the gadget," the code name for the first atomic bomb, in the Chicago Lyric's production of Doctor Atomic in 2007. As for Mr. Braun, he really is going mano-a-mano in that shot, grappling with tenor Lawrence Brownlee, Count Almaviva to Braun's Figaro. (Braun is on the right.) That shot is from the Met's production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars (subject of the movie, Refugee All Stars) are one of a number of really excellent African bands to come out of extremely difficult conditions. In their case, as you will have guessed, a refugee camp. Band members met in a camp in Guinea, after fleeing Freetown when it was attacked by rebel forces. For a full account of their story, go here.
But to hear them, on CBC Radio 2, tune in Wednesday night to Canada Live (8 p.m.) for a live recording of the band made at the Banff Centre. Or listen online, Concerts On Demand: Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars. It's great, uplifting music, a mix of highlife, soukous and reggae.
Manzik cites among his influences Aretha Franklin, John Coltrane, J.S. Bach, and Mr. Dressup. Hard not to like that. And proof that the impact of the Tickle Trunk is far reaching.
But tonight The Signal is part of that special broadcast because the winner of the competition will be announced live on the show.
And because the focus of this year's competition is the piano, Laurie will feature a performance from the winning pianist as well as several beautiful contemporary piano selections from brand new CDs by Brigitte Poulin and Christina Petrowska Quilico.
And as he has every day throughout the competition, R2 host Kelly Rice reports in on the previous day's happenings:
"What a night. I’m still recovering … literally. Struck down by a massive cold, sniffles, coughs … the works. But music is a balm, and last night there was lots of TLC in Canadian Sergei Saratovsky’s Beethoven 5. (That's him in the photo!) It was the first time he played it with orchestra, so it took a little while to settle in. I doubt whether it will garner gold, but as the top Canadian in Competition, he walks away with 5K. A 5K well deserved!
Masataka Takada from Japan was in complete control of his Prokofiev 2. He’ll do well at prize time. But for me, the coup de coeur of the soirée was American Sara Daneshpour. I questioned her choice of Tchaikovsky yesterday, but boy was I wrong! She soared and swam like a seasoned pro.
Tonight, the plot thickens. American Elizabeth Schumann is the Miss Manners of 19th century etiquette so her Chopin 1 will be stylish and poetic. Russian Alexandre Moutouzhine is on home turf with Rachmaninoff 3. Fire all phasers, Alex!
The wild card of the six is Nareh Arghamanyan from Armenia. At 19, she’s the youngest of the bunch, and if she … and if she doesn’t … no, no, I’ll write no more. Don’t want to jinx her. Just tune in tonight for her Tchaikovsky. There will be beauty. "
-Kelly
Thanks, Kelly, and sorry to hear about your cold -- I've heard that Laphroaig makes a nice hot toddy?
Looking forward to hearing who the winner is tonight -- but congratulations to all of the very talented contestants.
If you miss the broadcasts, fear not, you'll be able to hear all the finalists online shortly following the competition at Concerts On Demand.
DiscDrive Limerick Contest Winners are now available for your reading pleasure. In case you missed the rules, here's the task the aspiring Limrickians were set -- write a limerick incorporating the following words: pinot, rotund, deliquescent, shambles, eggplant OR aubergine.
There were more than 300 entries. From a short list of 54 limericks, 15 winners were selected and the Grand Prize winner was randomly drawn from those 15:
"It was simply too difficult to decide any other way!" exclaimed Jurgen Gothe.
So here you go, limerick fans, the top fifteen, starting with the Grand Prize Winner:
Charles Siedlecki, Toronto
Said Ms. Aubergine's Doc, "Pinot doesn't
Harm a rotund old shambles. We musn't
Say her brain's deliquescent --
She's just effervescent.
Haff you known her ven she effervascent?"
The great folk singer, labour organizer and story teller Utah Phillips has "caught the westbound," as his website says today.
If you attended many folk festivals in the past few decades (including the Wpg. Folk Fest which he played many times) likely you had the pleasure of hearing Phillips, a great story teller with a lot of stories to tell, dating back to his Wobblies days.
He had quite a life. And quite a sense of humour -- the single from his first record, which recounted working on a railroad track gang, was pithily titled Moose Turd Pie.
I should note that CBC R2 has a concert online featuring some of Utah Phillips' music, Concerts On Demand: Life And Times Of Ginger Goodwin. It was his last concert recorded by CBC, at the 30th Annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival - Utah Phillips and Joe Keithley told stories and sung songs about "The Life And Times Of Ginger Goodwin."
And here is the official obituary, as sanctioned by his family.
If you have been reading Kelly Rice reporting from the Montreal International Musical Competition here on the blog but have yet to hear him in the flesh, as it were, do tune in to Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) today.
Kelly joins S'sparks host Eric Friesen to preview the second day of finals -- which you can hear live-to-air this evening on CBC Radio 2 (7 p.m.; 8 p.m. AT; 8:30 p.m. NT.).
Tonight the contestants (performing live at the Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts) are Elizabeth Schumann, 26, of the U.S., playing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, followed by Alexandre Moutouzkine, 27, of Russia (Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3) and Nareh Arghamyan, 19, of Armenia (Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1).
This week the Canada Live Podcast (fresh ones available every Tuesday at Radio 2 Podcasts) features a concert by Hawksley Workman, whose latest album, Between The Beautifuls is discussed track by track here.
The show you can hear in the pod was recorded during one of the many lovely snowstorms to hit eastern Canada this past March, and features songs from that CD. It was recorded at London, Ontario's beautiful Aeolian Hall.
If you are tuning in to hear The Signal (10 p.m.) please take note, it may be joined in progress due to the Montreal International Music Competition this evening (and tomorrow as well).
But whenever you join the programme, this is what host Laurie Brown has in store for you: the minimalist "neurotic sci-folk" of Laura Barrett meets the ethereal, carnival-esque music of the Hylozoists, recorded live-in-concert. Barrett writes sweet oddball songs featuring the kalimba (thumb piano) and The Hylozoists have been known to write soundtracks for imaginary movies, so I'd say they were well-matched.
The build up to the Finals of the Montreal International Musical Competition is, well, building. Lots of excitement and nerves and probably not a lot of sleep for the chosen finalists, pictured here. (You can hear the Finals tonight and tomorrow night live on CBC Radio 2 at 7 p.m.; 8 p.m. AT; 8:30 p.m. NT.)
Of course Kelly Rice, a.k.a. Our Man In Montreal, who is hosting for Radio 2, is immune to any such anxiety. Or is he? This just in from Kelly:
"Last night, we did lobsters (plain, with a bit of butter) and fiddleheads (with lardons and cream, à la française), and washed it down with some California bubbly. We were in celebration mode. It’s been a great competition so far and the best is yet to come. All six finalists have important things to say, and to hear them with orchestra will be a delight. I fell asleep contented (and well-fed).
My tranquility was short lived. I woke in the middle of the night and started thinking about the choice of concertos. Beethoven 5 is a tough sell at an international competition, so I second guess Canadian Sergei Saratovsky. Would he be better off with Rachmaninoff 3? American Sara Daneshpour is a fabulous classicist, so I wonder why she’s turning to Tchaikovsky, and not Mozart or Beethoven for her concerto choice. Masataka Takada from Japan is well matched with Prokofiev 2, but I speculate as to whether he could play it safer with Prok 3.
Too late now. The dye is cast. 'Concerto Cassandra Kelly' and 'Worrywart Kelly' will just have to wait and hear -- and enjoy the music."
-Kelly
Dear Cassie/Worrywart. Maybe it was the lobster? (The tiny violins are playing over that potential cause for your insomnia, I am afraid.)
But only tonight and tomorrow night will shed any light on whether or not the repertoire choices work for these contestants.
A note re: the live broadcasts: Kelly will be joined by Canadian pianist David Jalbert and world-renowned recording producer Martha De Francisco. (For more information about the guest commentators, please continue reading.)
A note for Tonic (6 p.m.) fans -- the show will end an hour early tonight in most time zones (ET, CT, MT & PT) due to the Montreal International Musical Competition. It's the first part of the live-to-air finals of the piano competition, so it promises to be very exciting listening.
But in case you're wondering what Katie has in the hopper for the part of Tonic you can hear, some of the highlights are music from DK Ibomeka, Jill Scott, as well as Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis -- R&B and jazz.
Miles, of course, is no longer with us, but Hancock is going strong. And actually he's still a young guy on the performing circuit, relatively speaking. That's relative to the musicians cited in a recent article about jazz octogenarians, including Teddy Charles, a vibraphonist who played with Miles. (Thus the segue!)
For fans of jazz and of healthy living, it's quite heartening to read:
"Five decades on, he [Charles] is still going strong — part of a generation of musicians living and working in the New York suburbs who are rewriting the live-fast, die-young jazz stereotype, said Dan Morgenstern, the director of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark."
For the rest of the piece, click on over to the NYTimes, Jazz Survivors.
Teddy Charles, by the way, sounds like quite a guy -- "Captain Ted" not only plays the vibes, he also leads sea cruises, as you'll see if you go to his website.
With this subject heading you might have thought, hmm...American Idol? Because even though this year's winner, David "Guitar Hero" Cook is quite an accomplished musician, there are still all the musically political battles inherent in Idol. This year's include women vs. men, pseudo-grunge vs. smooshy ballad singing, developing broad base appeal vs. legitimate musical depth etc.
But Eurovision politics eclipse those of American Idol any day. This weekend the contest finals decided the victor -- Dima Bilan from Russia, pictured here. (You can watch the winning performance here, if you like. I still think Iceland should have won.)
And then, all hell broke loose. Post-Saturday night the coverage has been less about the singer, more about the fact that long-time Eurovision commentator, Sir Terry Wogan, stirred up a hornet's nest with his criticisms of the event. He said it was "no longer a music contest," causing "showbusiness legend" Bruce Forsyth to put it right out there: "I agree with him. It's not a song contest any more, it's political. It's all so biased, it's developed into a farce."
Sheesh, even Simon Cowell is quoted as saying Eurovision is "all a bit empty and meaningless as a competition."
Pot calling kettle? Although American Idol really is meaningful...in terms of creating instant new recording artists, some of whom will stick around for a few minutes years. (And please don't take that as slagging David Cook , all the way I kept saying "damn, he actually is pretty good," in between more handfuls of popcorn.)
Think of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells. What image comes to your mind? I'm willing to bet it's an album cover featuring a giant pipe twisting and hulking against a cloud filled sky.
Fortunately there are also positive, musical associations. (Though for me it's more about that wonderfully silly song Oldfield wrote about horses, ("big brown beastie, big brown face, I'd rather be with you than flying through space..."), The Horsey Song.
Calgary pianist Marcel Bergmann was so passionate about Tubular Bells as a teen that he arranged some of it for four-pianos, which you can hear tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.), and online, at Concerts On Demand: Tubular Bells.
Also on the show this eve, from this year’s Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival, the Blues Songwriters’ Session, featuring Atlantic Blues legends Denis Parker and Peter Narvaez with special guest Little Miss Higgins, a.k.a. "the pride of Nokomis, Saskatchewan."
The Finals will be heard live on CBC Radio 2 and Espace Musique tomorrow night and Tuesday night, May 26 and 27. But today, Kelly takes a look at what's happened thus far. And for a sneak peek via Ye Olde Blogge, Kelly just sent me this note via electronic mail.
"I guessed 5 of the 6. Where did I go wrong? The way I always do: by voting with my heart and not my head. I would have loved to hear Kotaro Nagano tackle Chopin 1 in the finals. I like this shy and serious 19-year-old. He draws you in. But anyway, that’s not to be, and Masataka Takata puts a Prokofiev 2 in mix, which is a good thing for us concerto buffs.
A few other scattered memories from the Semis (in random order):
1. Sara Daneshpour’s Scarlatti. Note to self: cancel Sara’s appointment with Dr. Harpsichord. She’d teach him a thing or two about sassy 18th century style. Her Domenico was delicious.
2. Two Liszt B Minor Sonatas in session (Friday night). Listening to the Liszt twice in one night is like your fitness instructor saying: 'Good, now let’s run that 20k one more time.' Help!
3. Elizabeth Schumann. After a stunning Kinderszenen, a glaring memory slip in the home stretch Liszt almost keeps her from the finals. Congrats to the Jury for letting her pass. She’s a poet with a unique voice.
4. Nareh Arghamanyan. For a 19-year-old, her Beethoven Op. 110 was a wonder. And her Rachmaninoff made me cry. What more can I say?"
-Kelly
I feel fairly confident that Kelly will find more to say this afternoon, radio is such a bother without any sound.
But seriously, folks, today at 3:30 you can tune in to R2 to hear more. And don't forget the special live-to-air broadcast on Canada Live (May 26 & 27 at 7 p.m.; 8 p.m. AT; 8:30 p.m. NT). Kelly will be joined by guest commentators Martha de Francisco & David Jalbert. The 6 finalists will each perform a concerto, accompanied by the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal under the direction of Jean-Marie Zeitouni.
And here are the Finalists -- and the order in which they will perform:
Music from Danish Violinist Nikolaj Znaider, who wowed 'em when he debuted with the Vancouver Recital Society back in 2006. Naturally they invited him back, and you can hear that performance, Znaider partnered by pianist Robert Kulek, today.
Also, harpist Judy Loman, from a celebration of her 50th season as a professional musician. The concert features works by Glenn Buhr, Srul Irving Glick, R. Murray Schafer and others, and joining her are TSO concertmaster Jacques Israelievitch, Met Opera harpist Mariko Anraku, & former student Lori Gemmell.
And in case you can't wait for the special post coming up from Kelly Rice, CBC host of the Montreal piano competition, to tide you over until then please continue reading for more info on the competition itself.
The subject heading might be a tad misleading, as The Dream Healer is not actually an opera by the late Timothy Findley -- but it is an opera based on a Findley novel, Pilgrim. And I wanted to grab the attention of anyone interested in opera or Findley, or both!
Also (to dig further into the disclaimer) today on Inside The Music what you will hear is not the entire opera, but parts of it in a documentary by Don Mowatt. The doc is about the eight year odyssey it took to realize this opera, which had its premiere this past March at the Chan Centre in Vancouver.
Mowatt really was "inside the music," since he was the second librettist for The Dream Healer, and therefore privy to all the ins and outs of its creation, which began in the minds of composer Lloyd Burritt and playwright Christopher Allan. Findley's novel, Pilgrim, relates actual incidents from books by and about Carl Jung, self-professed scientist of the unconscious.
Note -- next Sunday on Inside The Music you can hear another doc by Mr. Mowatt, about opera and madness.
Today on In the Key Of Charles host Gregory Charles searches, not for the end of the rainbow, but for the rainbow itself.
Among other weighty issues, he ponders why rainbows show up far more often in music than they do in real life. And you know, this is a good question. Why are rainbows such a meaningful (or should that be "useful") symbol to some who write songs?
Proof comes in the form of music from Sarah McLachlan, Chopin, Oscar Peterson, Mahalia Jackson, Men Without Hats, Amanda Martinez and many others, like the band Rainbow. (Presumably they know how to melt troubles like lemon drops, a worthy aspiration if ever there was one.)
Please follow this link to get to the end of the playlist.
This simply can't be a coincidence. Just earlier today I was rooting wildly for Iceland in today's Eurovision Final, and lo and behold Pat is playing music from Iceland on tonight's edition of The Signal (10 p.m.)!
He probably won't be playing Iceland's contender, Euroband though. Even so, it'll be worth tuning in, for the premiere of an acoustic Signal session by Icelandic singer/songwriter Mugison.
As for the usual weekend Loot Bag, today's prize is a CD tribute to Montreal’s Snailhouse. But you know what they always say, You Don't Plays The Game, You Don't Takes Your Chances. In other words, tune in. Lots more music on the show tonight too of course, including some from the incomparable Tinariwen.
More from Vancouver's Studio 1 Sessions tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.). First a young quartet called Hey Ocean!, pictured here. (Like that blue flamingo.)
The name apparently was inspired by the place the band was conceived -- Costa Rica. According to this wee piece in Now magazine, the core band members were frustrated by the torrential downpours, (and if you've ever been in Costa Rica during rainy season you will know just how torrential they can be), and so one day they "yelled and yelled, hey ocean!" And lo, a band name was born. (If not a good day's surfing.) You can hear the pop/reggae/funk of Hey Ocean! tonight, and online at Concerts On Demand: Hey Ocean.
Second is a concert by Delhi2Dublin. As you might imagine, given the name, the band blends Indian and Irish styles, yes they do. Some of it in a rootsy way, some of it in an electro-dance way. Hey, it is Saturday night. And should you wish to dance on Sunday morning, or any other time for that matter, you can also hear this concert online at Concerts On Demand: Delhi2Dublin.
So this is it. The day that Dustin The Turkey did not live to see. Yes, the Finals of Eurovision are upon us! You can see them live by clicking on that Eurovision website link at 21:00 CET (Central European Time) which I will not attempt to decode for you as it depends on which time zone you are in.
The finalists are listed here. As always, I am unabashedly partisan -- Go, Iceland's Eurobandið, Go!
And once again, just to cement in your mind whyEuroband (as they are called in English) are so brilliant, I give you the original version of their contender, This Is My Life, the version that first enthralled so many of us.
Just a first hand account of what it's like watching the jury (pictured here) watching the competing pianists in action:
"I'm sitting in the back row of the balcony of the Salle Pierre-Mercure. The balcony is off-limits to the public, reserved exclusively for Competition staff, CBC/Radio-Canada types, and the nine members of the jury.
The nine are seated in the front row of the balcony, separated from each other by a few empty seats. They sit at individual desks equipped with lamps to read and write by. Some judges make use of scores that are carefully collated into booklets by the competition staff. They’re especially welcome for repertoire that's less familiar.
Some judges use their desks to finger along with the music, a bit like the piano version of air guitar. A few even conduct, and nod their heads to the music. They’re all very involved and fully present to what’s happening on stage. At the same time, they’re quiet and discrete, and no one does anything to disturb the proceedings. The piano is, after all, their life, and they’ve all been through competitions themselves -- they're sympathetic to what these young musicians are going through.
They’re a fun bunch to watch, and I can’t resist looking at Polish judge Piotr Paleczny for Chopin, or French judge Jacques Rouvier for Debussy.
At the break, they retire to a private lounge to rest. They deserve it. By the end of the semi-finals this jury will have heard more than 26 hours of solo piano. With all that music floating around in their heads, how can they sleep? My soporific is scotch. (Laphroaig, if you’re wondering.)"
--Kelly
Ah, a very choice soporific. (I can go a little downscale myself, say, a wee Glen. Either livet or fiddich will do.)
Don't forget to tune in tomorrow afternoon to Sunday Afternoon In Concert to hear Kelly Rice on the radio with highlights thus far in the competition, and again on Monday and Tuesday nights ((May 26 & 27 at 7 p.m.; 8 p.m. AT; 8:30 p.m. NT ) -- live, with the finals.
The legendary Canadian soprano Teresa Stratas turns 70 on May 26th and so this weekend Saturday Afternoon At The Opera marks the occasion with A Celebration - Teresa Stratas At 70. It features her performance in a filmed version of Strauss' Salome, produced in 1976 and released on DVD last year. The celebration also includes music from some of Stratas' other recordings, as well as the recollections of friends, colleagues and collaborators, all presented by host Bill Richardson.
The production of Salome also features Astrid Varnay, Bernd Weikl, and Hans Beier, and is conducted by Karl Böhm. It's a Canadian radio broadcast premiere, and is from the recent Unitel Classica/Deutsche Grammophon DVD release, Salome.
The photo, in case you are wondering, is of Stratas from 1961, when she performed in the title role of the world premiere of Peggy Glanville-Hicks' opera, Nausicaa, in Athens, Greece.
And in a Stratas related note -- should you be in Elora Ontario, an opera about Teresa Stratas will be performed there this evening.
For more about Salome, please continue reading, by clicking on the handy highlighted words after "continue reading."
This week Pinchas Zukerman looks at the concerto that he says makes him feel "complete." (Now now, no Jerry McGuire jokes.)
No, this is musical completion we're talking about, and today on The Concerto According To Pinchas, presented by Inside The Music, you can hear Maestro Zukerman explain why he feels this way about Elgar's famously demanding Violin Concerto In B Minor, Opus 61.
Robert has hosted the show since September 2000. As listeners and those of us who have worked with him know, Robert is one smart cookie (can a man be a smart cookie? why not). But not only he is a smart cookie, he has a true passion for music -- not to mention an encyclopedic knowledge.
He's also one of those people who is remarkably comfortable on "either side of the glass," as we say in the radio biz. For some months now he has mostly been on the non-microphone, producing side, with Sunday Afternoon In Concert. Now he will be devoting his time to documentary production. Those music docs will likely be heard on Inside The Music, but probably elsewhere throughout the R2 schedule as well, so stay tuned.
I hope that fans will join me in thanking Robert for his fabulous work with I Hear Music, and in wishing him well in his work as a documentarist -- we'll be listening!
"The mandate of the stamp program is to celebrate Canada and its diverse people, its major accomplishments, rich history, traditions and natural beauty" said Bob Waite, Chairman of the Stamp Advisory Committee and Senior vice president, Corporate Social Responsibility at Canada Post.
And then a biologist in the United States named a new species of spider after Neil Young, the Myrmekiaphila Neilyoungi. Young was "worthy of that honor" because he's been an activist for social and political issues, said East Carolina University biologist Jason Bond, quoted in Associated Press.
But none of that, none of that, can top this news: Taylor Urbshott of Wiarton, Ontario has named a cow after Vinyl Café host, Stuart McLean.
What qualities does Stuart embody that warrant this great honour? I don't know, but I have it on good authority that the cow is "troubled" and "high maintenance".
Lily Frost has a new recording, a tribute to Billie Holiday, which got a nice little review last week in Exclaim.
And tonight you can hear her in concert on The Signal (10 p.m.). I confess I'm not sure if she'll be doing music from the Billie tribute in this concert. I can't believe she won't do that little ear worm, Enchantment. But just in case, here you go!
"It was something that could only happen in Halifax" said Halifax Chronicle Herald critic Stephen Pedersen.
The something he was referring to was the collaboration between Symphony Nova Scotia and hip hop artist Buck 65. He worked with conductor/composer Dinuk Wijeratne to create a programme featuring arrangements of some of Buck 65's hits, like Way Back When and Cries A Girl, and a new CBC commission of a brand new work written by Wijeratne - a triple concerto for cellist, turntablist and percussionist.
Also on the show, music from the East Coast World Music Summit, a project driven by CBC Radio in the Maritimes. They brought together 13 musicians from diverse backgrounds and commissioned them to collaborate for a live-to-air special during the East Coast Music Awards weekend.
The music inspired a similar project that will happen at this June's Luminato Festival in Toronto -- now called the East Coast New World Orchestra, the group will be performing on the opening night, June 6th, for free at Dundas Square, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood. But meanwhile, tune into Canada Live (8 p.m.)!
Spooky coincidence! I happened to be listening to a new recording called Miles From India: A Celebration Of The Music Of Miles Davis, when I sat down to write about featured music coming up on Tonic (6 p.m.) this evening, only to see that Katie will be featuring music from the recording tonight. What can it mean?!? Absolutely nothing, but still.
It really is an interesting recording though, featuring some of India's foremost musicians collaborating with Miles Davis alumni, jazz musicians who worked with Miles at various points in his career. People like Jimmy Cobb, Ron Carter, Dave Liebman, Marcus Miller and many others. (Wallace Roney gets to "be" Miles.)
What I've heard so far is very good, and to my mind very much in the spirit of Miles. In a bit of related trivia, recently there was a concert presenting some of this music live. To read more about that check out this article at All About Jazz -- and for a review of the show, here's Nate Chinen's piece in the NYTimes, mostly quite favourable.
And as usual, a live set on the show tonight to let you know about, from guitarists Tal Farlow and Lenny Breau, recorded live in Rumson, New Jersey in May, 1980.
The Montreal International Musical Competition announced the names of the 12 pianists moving into the semis -- and those pianists can be heard competing live today and tomorrow by webcast -- (May 23, 7 p.m. ET; May 24, 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. ET) and highlights of both semis and quarter-finals will be heard this Sunday in the last 90 minutes of Sunday Afternoon In Concert.
Here's "Our Man In Montreal," CBC R2 host, Kelly Rice, to tell you what it was like waiting for the semi-finalists to be announced:
"There's a buzz in the hall. About 200 stick around to hear the results. Everyone wants to gossip about the competition, who they heard, who they liked, who will make it, who won’t. It’s cruel and ruthless talk, but the reality is: half of these kids are about to be eliminated. Dies irae, dies illa.
I settle myself next to Mebbie Aikins. She’s been a competition billet for 15 years. Latvian Andrejs Osokins is her charge for this edition, and it’s a full-time job. Food: chicken and fresh veggies (not cooked). Noise: no radio and conversation the morning of a performance. Transport: lifts to the Conservatory for practice (5 hours a day, 45 minutes work, 15 minutes break). R and R: occasional meals in local restaurants for a change the scene (and I suspect, a chance for her to eat something other than the chicken!) As well, she’s there for life’s little emergencies. Like when he forgot his shirt the day of the Quarters.
Why the effort? She loves the contact with young people. It gives her satisfaction.
So, as the clock ticks by, and the judges take longer than expected, tension mounts. Mebbie is slightly anxious, and that’s saying something, because Mebbie Aikins, a retired McGill administrator and widow of a Presbyterian minister, is used to coping with a lot.
So at 11:05 PM when the name of Andrejs Osokins is among the 12, Mebbie is visibly relieved, and very pleased.
Mind you, victory has a price. Chez Mebbie, it’s a further moratorium on breakfast radio and idle chit chat. And, chicken, more chicken."
-Kelly
My nails are bitten to the quick after reading that! You must have to have nerves of steel to either be competing, or supporting someone who is. Not to mention having limited dietary needs.
Here are the semi-finalists, (including one Canadian, Sergei Saratovsky, and the order of the next part of the competition:
Don't know about you, but I'm finding it kind of thrilling to have a vicarious experience of all things Leonard Cohen these days. His tour has embarked to worshipful response, with tributes like this one in the Daily Gleaner, following his first concert date in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
And then the news broke that a Fredericton restaurateur has been asked to cater for Cohen and crew throughout the Maritimes, resulting in this news article (and an appearance on As It Happens) among other things. (As It Happens' quip on their website about this is too perfect not to paraphrase: The Chef has seen the future -- and it's Moncton. Heh.
In other Cohenabilia, a major FREE tribute to Cohen is planned on June 26 at the Montreal Jazz fest, including artists like Buffy-Sainte-Marie and Madeleine Peyroux...and Cohen, who performs at the festival from June 23 to 25th is expected to attend. The free tribute is at the corner of Ste. Catherine and Bleury. How marvelous!
Not long after this, Edmonton is home to the biannual Cohen Event organized by The Leonard Cohen Files with Leonard Cohen Nights for quite a festival in July, featuring concerts, open mic performances, poetry readings etc. etc.
Yes, it's All Cohen All The Time, and I don't hear anyone complaining. (If I do, I'll ignore it.)
This is a little early, since the two new shows in question actually don't go to air until next weekend, May 31 to be precise. But I wanted to give you a heads up because Tom Power, host of Deep Roots, (one of the new shows) will be on the radio tomorrow. He'll be chatting with Robert Harris about Deep Roots on Robert's final programme -- tune in for that between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m.
Tom Power -- a musician himself -- has a passion for folk music and for breaking folk music stereotypes, and that's what Deep Roots is all about. Starting May 31st you'll be able to hear the show (the first ongoing network radio program coming out of Newfoundland in close to a decade!) at 11:00-11:58:50, 12:00-12:58:50 in the Maritimes, and 12:30-13:28:50 in Nfld.
The other new show is hosted by a familiar voice to CBC Radio 2 fans, Katherine Duncan. Her new show, In Tune, is about trends in classical music -- the classical music people are talking about, listening to, buying and downloading -- and classical music making news. Starting May 31, you'll be able to hear In Tune from 5 to 6 p.m.
More on both programmes and both hosts closer to the May 31 start date -- but for now, consider this just a little teaser!
Some "post-mountain jazz" from Norway is promised tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.). Well, earlier we had "tractor-jazz" (see previous post). However, "post-mountain" is, I suspect, a tad more specific a term. It's a way of trying to describe the reaction to the ambient and landscape-inspired jazz produced in Scandinavia in the 1980s. I'm thinking like Jan Garbarek, but certainly there were other artists playing music in that vein, and some in more of what you could call a "new-age" way.
Anyway, pianist/keyboardist Bugge Wesseltoft fuses the technology of electronic and dance music with Scandinavian music, to form what he calls "a new conception of jazz," a.k.a. post-mountain, so listen in, and up.
And a reminder -- tonight the programme is guest hosted by Odario Williams.
P.S. The photo? It's circa 1965, the village of Naerodal (if you squint) on the banks of a river in Norway.
Having had the good fortune to spend much of my life in radio studios I can attest to the specific thrill of hearing a band play live in one. Everyone in the control room is on tenterhooks, hoping for a good performance, and that no one will go off-mic or bang into one (always in the middle of a particularly tender musical moment).
There's nothing like it. That's part of why Vancouver's Studio 1 sessions, some of which are broadcast tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.), are such fun. They're one part recording session, one part studio concert and one part show biz.
Tonight's Studio 1 features are from Headwater, music that's been described as a "distinctive blend of folk, country roots music and tractor jazz." First person to tell me what tractor jazz is gets some kind of prize.
Attics And Cellars, by the by, have been dubbed "smart folk, progressive folk..." You know, if I had a dollar for every kind of folk that was said to be out there these days, I'd be a wealthy woman. Especially if what Louis Armstrong once said is actually true: "All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song."
The other day, a nice rainy holiday Monday, the other person who inhabits my house (a.k.a. the husband) was thumbing through the old jazz LPs, looking for old trio recordings by Oscar Peterson. Nothing else would suit his mood, nothing but Oscar. I like that in a husband.
Today on Tonic (6 p.m.) you can get a fix of Oscar Peterson too, when Katie features a set of tunes from the Oscar Peterson Trio recorded live at the Blue Note in New York City in March, 1990. I'm guessing those would be from the Telarc set of the four albums recorded in just a few days at the Blue Note, by Peterson with bassist Ray Brown, guitarist Herb Ellis and drummer Bobby Durham. Doesn't get much finer.
All told, there were more than 300 entries into DiscDrive's Limerick Contest. This was whittled down to a short list of 54, then 15. The Grand Prize winner was randomly drawn from those 15. Why?
"It was simply too difficult to decide any other way!" exclaimed Jurgen Gothe.
Congratulations all you eggplant-wielding, pinot-appreciating, hopefully not overly-rotund Limerickians!
And here is the list of winners, starting with the Grand Prize Winner: Charles Siedlecki of Toronto
Reimar Hauschildt, Vancouver
Daniel Zaide, Vancouver
William Johnston, Burnaby
Jocelyn Rait, Merrickville
Nicolas Allfree, North Saanich
Chris Blanton, Hope
Mary Jackson, Kamloops
Cristalle Watson, Ottawa
Janet Bickford, Vancouver
David Poole, Peterborough
Quentin Kayne, Vancouver
Bonna Bryan, London
Bob Barrigar, Victoria
Jeanne Lipkovits, Vancouver
Kelly Rice, CBC R2 host of the Montreal International Musical Competition, or MIMC, as we call it around here (rhymes with Zinc, at least in my mind it does) gets a little tough on Bach played badly in his latest missive. But he also lets us know what's going well:
"The quarter-finals are a musical potpourri, a steeplechase of pianistic hoops and hurdles, testing the competitors in subtle ways: virtuosity in the Etudes, impressionistic shading in the Debussy, clarity and precision in the 18th century piece, emotional depth in the romantic Nocturne, and originality of expression in the new Canadian piece (the jazzy Fastforward by Alexina Louie).*
Not everyone is great at each style, believe you me. It still astounds me that, on the whole, Bach is played SOOOOOOO badly at competitions like this. Have these kids not heard of the Early Music movement? Baroque performing practice? An appointment with the local harpsichordist would do them a world of good.
There’s one more piece in the Quarters, blandly stated in the rule book as: 'The Candidates choice of a work no longer than 18 minutes.' It’s the one I look most forward to, when each competitor says loud and clear: Here I am!
Take Torontonian Lang Ning Liu. To watch her standing, not sitting, at the keyboard, pouncing on John Corigliano’sEtude Fantasy, was mesmerizing. Vancouver’s Sergei Saratovsky was in consummate control of his Bartok Sonata. At the break, Tünde Kurucz, wife of Hungarian judge Imre Rohmann, was beaming: 'He’s REALLY good!' Yup, that he is, Madame, that he is.
Then there’s Kotaro Nagano (no relation to Kent), a 19-year-old from Japan. His Chopin Nocturne brought a tear in this ol’ eye. Note to self: bring Kleenex."
-Kelly
Thanks Kelly, have the kleenex at the ready for today's "Quarters," just in case. You can hear them live-to-computer at 1 p.m. & 7 p.m. eastern, whatever that translates to where you are -- by going to MIMC's webcasts page. (And also the semifinals May 23, 7 p.m. ET; May 24, 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. ET).
*If you're curious as to exactly what repertoire the contestants picked from, here are The Rules.
Eric will be brushing up his Shakespeare today, as Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) presents a suite of music inspired by the Bard.
Now this does not mean a suite as in one composed by a lone composer, no, this is a Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) Suite, an original containing compositions by a number of composers, from Cole Porter to Purcell to Tchaikovsky.
And speaking of Shakespeare and music brings me to Eminem. And to the actor Jenny Agutter, who you may remember from roles she played as a child, for example in the Nicholas Roeg movie Walkabout. (A movie I haven't seen for years, but should, if memory serves it was quite powerful.)
But back to the Shakespeare, Eminem, Agutter connection.
Agutter, a grownup actor now, is a big fan of Eminem, according to Contactmusic.com (and other sources including the BBC, in case contact music dot com doesn't seem weighty enough for you).
Agutter is quoted as likening Eminem to Shakespeare, saying, "Good rap is fantastic, like the iambic pentameters that Shakespeare wrote in."
And this provides me with an almost logical segue to the recent and much written about production by the Canadian Opera Company, Hip-Hopera. Just as another example of what is traditionally thought of as high art being connected to that which is not.
Every week Canada Live puts out a podcast featuring highlights from their concerts - it's available at Radio 2 Podcast, and comes out on Tuesdays. Consequently I usually mention what's in the pod on Tuesdays for that reason. However this past Tuesday, post-long weekend and in a lather of excitement over the start up of the Montreal International Musical Competition, I neglected to do so.
So, belatedly, here are the highlights of this week's Podcast:
It features Justin Nozuka, who is getting a fair bit of buzz south of the border. That buzz is about his music, which goes down very nicely, in a mellow Jack Johnsonish kind of way, although his back story doesn't hurt. Hyphen recently summed it up like this: "Japanese/American Justin Nozuka who was born in New York but raised in Toronto, and is interestingly enough, nephew of American actress Kyra Sedgwick who's married to Kevin Bacon. Wow, six degrees of Kevin Bacon really does work."
You can also hear the splendid world-blues-folk guitar trio Tri-Continental, and Armenian-Canadian singer Mariam Matossian in the pod as well.
Producer, DJ, actor, rapper, artist and musical philosopher (he really is all that) Odario Williams (you may know him from Grand Analog) is guest-hosting The Signal (10 p.m.) today and tomorrow.
Among other music, he'll be presenting a concert by Berlin-based guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, from a live performance at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. Rosenwinkel leads a group that includes some excellent jazz musicians, including Aaron Parks on piano and Mark Turner on tenor saxophone.
Years ago I read Lauren Bacall's first autobiography, which chronicled in fascinating detail her childhood in New York City, and of course her romance with Humphrey Bogart.
And also trivia, for instance how in her early movies the big brains in Hollywood tried to create a Bacall signature tune -- I think it was Hoagy Carmichael's Baltimore Oriole that was supposed to play every time she made an entrance. That idea died a quick death.
What stuck though, was "the look." You know the way she kind of looks down her chin, that beautiful face so demure as she makes remarks about knowing how to whistle? Apparently this was not contrived by those pulling the strings, it was because she was just plain nervous, particularly in her early films with Bogie, who was both devastatingly attractive and much older than she was. Anyway, one way to steady your trembling chin is to look down, right?
But enough of my fond memories of Bacall and Bogart, I invite you to hear some of Katie's tonight as she salutes the acting duo with music from their 1946 classic The Big Sleep.
And for you live show aficionados, I should also mention that tonight's concert is from vibraphonist Mark Sherman, recorded live at the Bird's Eye Jazz Club in Basel, Switzerland in February of this year.
It really is quite thrilling to watch the Montreal International Musical Competition, which you can do today -- live-to computer! And today is a banner day for the Canuck contingent, as three of them play this afternoon and this evening. (Here is the schedule.)
Yesterday I watched some of the contestants this way, by webcast, and I actually started feeling nervous on behalf of the competitors -- the sound was that good, the "liveness" of the webcast that live.
Only being there would be "live-er," and for that we have daily reports from our Man In Montreal, CBC R2 host Kelly Rice. Yes, he's there on the ground. Actually I'm pretty sure he gets to sit in a chair during the competition, but either way, he just sent me this missive:
"When I was a wee lad in music school, the word in the practice rooms was: get outta town! Go to Europe, go the States, go anywhere but Canada. Well, things have changed. What strikes me most about the 4 Canadians in this competition is that each one of them had their formative music education here at home. Chez nous!
Take 23 year-old Michelle Nam. When she was 15, her family moved from Korea to Edmonton, and a big part in that momentous decision was her musical prospects north of 49. Four years at McGill and a win at the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Competition were ample preparation for her next big career move: Julliard and the Big Apple.
Russian born Sergei Saratovsky was also seduced by the Big White North and is completing his doctorate in piano at the University of British Columbia. Earlier this month, he sped up his application for citizenship so he could compete under the Maple Leaf.
Then there’s Lang Ning Liu. A talent scout from Toronto’s Glenn Gould School recruited her from China.
Even Quebec native Marie-Hélène Trempe (she played yesterday) stayed close to home, with studies at the excellent piano department at the Université de Montréal.
With home-grown talent like this, Canada’s already won gold at this 'piano Olympics.'"
-Kelly Rice
For nuts and bolts details about what's coming up in the competition, please keep reading.
Photograph of André Bourbeau (president of the jury) with the Canuck contingent by Gunther Gamper.
Jerome Summers is a conductor, composer, teacher -- and not least -- a clarinetist. Today he joins Eric Friesen on Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) to talk about how and why he commissioned the music for his most recent recording, called The Nightingale's Rhapsody. (It has five newly-commissioned Canadian works for clarinet and string orchestra, music by Michael Conway Baker, Oliver Whitehead, Dale Reubart, and Ronald Royer.)
The nightingale is a recurring theme in Summers' recordings -- and after a previous recording called Flight Of The Nightingale came out he explained why:
"I like the metaphor of the clarinet as a 'Nightingale,' as Brahms referred to the playing of his friend Richard Muhlfeld. The lyrical, yet melancholic nature of the instrument lends itself well to this reference. The music addresses the singing capabilities of the instrument, with dramatic and humourous departures."
I think at around the time the term "singer-songwriter" became a genre somehow distinct from "folk singer" Stephen Fearing was emerging as one of the finest, whatever you wanted to call his music. He is much admired, and rightly so, for being a mean-guitar player, something I must say that not so many singer-songwriters (or folk singers) are as noted for. And he's still going strong -- in April he went on tour across this fair land.
During that tour Canada Live (8 p.m.) recorded a show he did at the Mocha Shrine Temple. (Fearing said he didn't realize at first it was home to the Shriners -- "I thought it was a place that made really great coffee.") You can hear this concert tonight and online as well at Concerts On Demand: Stephen Fearing.
That Fearing's influence shows up in guitar players of the generation that followed him is not a surprise, but it's nice to see his influence in non-music places as well, for instance in visual art. (See Stephen's Guitar.)
Also on the show Wednesday night -- a concert from Catherine McInnes.
Now this is intriguing. The Signal (10 p.m.) is presenting some music from what they describe as "a new musical crime drama." (I don't think it's a terribly exhaustive genre.) Anyway, it's called The Crime Report, and it's from Bob & Bill, a.k.a. Guy Dubuc and Marc Lessard of Montreal. If you go to that link you can watch the "trailer."
Also, John Zorn fans take note! Tonight Laurie is playing tracks from the latest recording by the prolific Zorn, pictured here performing in 2002. I'm guessing this is the Zorn collaboration with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson? There's a great trio if ever there was one.
A Propos is celebrating its 20th season on CBC this year, and throughout the year they've been presenting a songwriters' series, showcasing what they rightly describe as "the diversity and audacity of the French-speaking popular music scene."
Tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.) you can hear host Jim Corcoran with some of those diverse and audacious musicians (Daniel Lavoie, Martin Léon, Jonathan Paichaud and Mélanie Auclair). They'll perform for the first time together, no less.
Yes, that Paul McCandless, of Paul Winter and Oregon fame -- and tonight he is true to his claim of multi-instrumentalist -- you can hear him play oboe, english horn, soprano sax, soprano sax, and bass clarinet.
"My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often -- in fact mostly -- at the expense of everything else in my life."
-Stan Getz
A remarkably honest thing for a musician to just come out and say -- it's true of many but admitted by few. Getz's quest for perfection started early -- he was a professional musician while still in his teens. He was considerably hampered by drug addiction in the 1950s, and more or less escaped to Europe for a while, as did many jazz musicians of the time.
When he returned to the U.S. in the 1960s it was to a comeback no one could have predicted -- via the Getz/Charlie Byrd fusion of jazz and bossa. That craze didn't last though, and by the late 1960s he was back in Europe.
But during the peak of his 1960's fame he played a date in Paris, one that you can hear part of tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) -- Getz with a quartet live in 1966.
And today is it! Just a quick note to say that today is the last day to get your entry into the DiscDrive Limerick Contest. That link will take you to all the info you need to know to enter.
The Montreal International Musical Competition is "Canada’s premiere classical music showcase for some of the world’s most promising young talent in the disciplines of voice, violin and piano."
In other words? It's a big deal. And so I'm very pleased to say that the host of this year's competition, Monsieur Kelly Rice (that's him on the left with André Bourbeau, president of the jury) will be contributing a daily post to R2 blog throughout -- the competition goes until May 29th.
There are many details involving when the live broadcasts and the webcasts happen (live audio-video webcasts of the quarter finals start today, at 1 p.m. & 7 p.m. eastern) and for all of that info, please click on "continue reading," at the end of this post. But first...drum roll...I bring you the inaugural message from the CBC Radio 2 host, Kelly Rice in Montreal, as he takes his first look at the contenders:
"In the room are the 23 competitors, some host family members (each competitor is billeted) the competition team, and a few hangers-on like me. Instructions are given, rules are read, schedules are confirmed. And then, with a turn of a small, elegant brass bin, names are drawn and read aloud. One by one the competitors go to the front and pick the time they’ll face the music.
I love this part. I hear their names pronounced for the first time (Lithuanian still stymies me). I watch as they leave their seats and saunter or stride to the front of the room. I observe how they’re dressed, their hair (Liszt-like?), their smile (or frown), and their clothes (from casual-chic to semi-formal). Excitement mounts when I’m asked to draw some names from the bin.
No one wants to be first. That "privilege" goes to the last name drawn: Chun-Chieh Yen, from Taiwan. Check him out at 13:00 EDT today, when the Quarter Finals begin. Que la fête commence!" -- Kelly Rice
Maybe it's not so classy to admit it, but it's always somehow thrilling to get good stuff for cheap.
And that's the modus operandi today on Studio Sparks (12 p.m.), when Eric shares some remarkable finds in budget record labels, including a wonderful performance from an orchestra that's off the beaten path. It’s the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Japp van Zweden, and you can hear them performing Brahms' Symphony No. 1.
In a somewhat related matter, here's a news story about more good stuff (musically speaking), that will now be available for cheap and not only that, in a more unfettered form. Today Napster (remember when they were bad boys)? announced they've launched the world's largest online music store without digital rights management.
This means over six million tracks (as MP3 files) from all major record labels and independents will be available -- and will play on any Mp3 device, so you don't have to have something with the letter "i" in front of it to play it.
Congratulations! And congratulations to all of the choirs who entered and won in their respective categories -- you can see the full list at CBC Radio: Choral Competition.
Russian pianist Arcadi Volodos aids and abets Tom Allen in this week's Cage Match by performing what the Mu.Co. team describe as "two outrageous marches," Mozart's Turkish March vs. Mendelssohn's Wedding March (Though actually, I don't think they mean it's the marches that are outrageous, but the performances -- outrageous in a good way.)
And as always with the Cage Match, it's up the CBC R2 audience to decide which you prefer. To do a little aiding and abetting myself, I give you a preview. First, the oh-so-familiar Mendelssohn...playing in what looks like a record library, to a pleased looking audience of one. Nice for her!
Whoah, he really gives it quite the workout! And now the Turkish March, sorry for the video quality, but it's still worth watching:
Of course it's best to tune into Music & Company (6 a.m.) to hear non-video quality versions, which Tom will play Tuesday and Wednesday -- with results on Friday. You know what they say, vote early, vote often!
Jean Derome, one of the most important figures of the musique actuelle scene, is known for music that's imaginative, sometimes funny, and frequently challenging. The Signal (10 p.m.) likes him, no wonder.
Tonight they broadcast a concert featuring Derome with 11 other musicians, four of whom belong to his core band, the charmingly named Les Dangereux Zhoms. You'll hear some recent arrangements of Derome's work, concluding with a piece that marked the 25th anniversary of the concert's organizer, Traquen'Art.
According to Derome this 45-minute work, scored for all 12 musicians, is "a kind of check-up on the state of things in today's creative musics".
A small bit of additional trivia -- when the event took place it coincided with the release of a book entitled Jean Derome, l'homme musique , published by Varia Editions, in a series of portraits of remarkable contemporary Quebecois artists.
May is officially Asian Heritage Month in Canada, focussed on acknowledging the history of Asian-Canadians and "contributions to Canada." Increasingly there is a deep musical contribution, and tonight Canada Live (8 p.m.) acknowledges that.
First, from Mani Khaira a keyboard playing pop singer. (That's him in the photo.) He's a rising star on the left coast, and has opened for some well-established performers like Grammy award winner John Mayer and Juno award winner Kristy Thirsk. You can hear his music online as well, at Concerts On Demand: Mani Khaira.
Next, also from Vancouver, Navaz, a collaborative project between guitarist Eric Tompkins and Persian vocalist Neda Jalali. Navaz translates from Farsi as "a soothing melody," so that should give you a wee hint as to what to expect.
A lot of what they do is rooted in the Sufi poetry of Hafez and Rumi, but some of it is quite a contemporary Persian sound, combined with Spanish and Brazilian rhythms. This concert was performed in front of a full house at CBC Studio One in Vancouver and is also available online, at Concerts On Demand: Navaz.
And concert #3 is a recording of a live show featuring the pipa player Yadong Guan,with cellist Christophe Loebel and David Jacques, guitar. She's been in Canada for about a decade, and apparently upon arrival she decided to put down the pipa and study Western classical music. Fortunately she returned to the instrument (a beautiful, lute-like instrument, I'm sure you know the sound) and plays music from both traditions.
Today on Tonic (6 p.m.) you can hear a set of tunes in honour of Duke Ellington's 70th birthday, recorded at the White House in Washington, D.C. in April, 1969. Ellington died on May 24th, 1974, as a small note of May 2-4 trivia. So it's not just Victorian era music you should be playing this long weekend, but also Ellingonia!
As such, I thought I'd play one of Duke Ellington's "big requests" right here on the blog, Satin Doll.
Sorry about the ending, but worth it anyway, don't you think? And a small reminder -- to watch any of the music videos posted on the blog, please go to Radio2Tube.
DiscDrive goes Victorian today, and no, I don't think that has anything to do with the frequency of bathing. It does have everything to do with music related to Victoria, royalty, and things English though. (I'm hoping this means we'll get the theme from Coronation Street, but most are probably not sharing that hope.)
What you can hear is a Nautical Overture and the Royal Welcome Waltzes and Eleanor Rigby, as well as music from Mary Poppins.
And don't forget -- tomorrow is the last day you can get your entries into the DiscDrive Limerick Contest, with the winner announced on Wednesday.
It's a tough one, but a good one -- the challenge is to employ the following five words in your limerick:
pinot
rotund
deliquescent
shambles
eggplant OR aubergine
If you need a little inspiration, a couple of winners from previous contests are in the "continue reading" portion of this post. Other than "eggplant," they obviously had a different set of words to work from though. Frankly, I think the bar has really been raised with this year's contest -- I mean "deliquescent?" Who here had to look it up? Here's a hint, it's like what's in the very back and bottom of some people's fridges...maybe a very old eggplant or aubergine, come to think of it.
A Victoria Day, "encore presentation" from Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) today, with an interview that was very much enjoyed by listeners the first time around -- Eric chatting with Giller Prize-winning author Elizabeth Hay. She talks about the writing life and the music in her life, which ranges from Berlioz to Emmylou Harris.
Speaking of Emmylou, she has a new CD coming out June 10th, called All I Intended To Be -- what I've heard so far is excellent, not that you'd expect any less from Emmylou.
But I digress. Also on today's show, a performance of Beethoven's Spring Sonata featuring violinist Pinchas Zukerman and pianist Mark Neikrug.
It’s all about spring today on Here's To You (9 a.m.) from Primavera from Respighi's Three Botticelli Pictures to John Estacio'sFarmer's Symphony and Schumann's Spring Symphony. (Plus a few nods to Queen Victoria in the form of music, including a work by her favourite composer, Felix Mendelssohn.)
If you're curious about the background to the Estacio work, as was I, here is a little info. from his website: "Farmer’s Symphony (1994) was intended as a tribute to those that tilled the land — though it was not, Estacio was often at pains to point out, a work that either included 'farmer songs' or was intended to be heard only by farmers."
Sunday rolls around again, and while tonight there may be some early birds running about with sparklers, Pat plans to stay inside with The Signal (10 p.m.) and listen to the movies. This week's Soundtrack Sunday feature is music from the soundtrack Bjork composed for Mathew Barney’s epic art film, Drawing Restraint 9.
I don't know if you've ever had that off-kilter experience of being far away from home and seeing someone you know? There you are, craning to see the Mona Lisa, and the guy from the cheese shop back home is also being hustled past the painting at the same time.
I didn't have this exact experience with the musician Catherine Potter, but I did have a related experience when I was in Paris earlier this year. Not that I saw her at the Louvre, but flipping through the Pariscope one evening trying to decide what concert to go to I spotted her name, playing a club with her Duniya Project. Now, I confess I didn't make it to her show since I was trying to take in as much music and as many baguettes not available at home in Canada, but I did kind of smile to myself and think, "huh, small world." And nice to see that she is being heard around it.
Tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.) you can hear a concert featuring Ms. Potter's Duniya Project, and you can hear it around the world too, online at Concerts On Demand: Duniya Project - Catherine Potter. "Duniya" means "world" in a number of languages, and the group encompasses an array of musical influences from Indian ragas to jazz, flamenco, funk and more.
A second concert on the programme features jazz from some fine young Canadian jazz musicians, recorded live at Quebec City's Palais Montcalm. Tenor man Chet Doxas and his quartet are joined by special guests Janis Steprans on sax, Marianne Trudel at the piano, and and Michael Kaeshammer, ditto.
CBC Choral Music Competition fans -- the big day is upon us! The gala begins at 1 p.m. in most of the country, a.k.a. 13:00. (I say this because the schedule, as you will see, uses ye old radio 24:00 clock time.) Note -- in the Atlantic time zone the gala starts at 2 p.m., 2:30 in Newfoundland.
The event will be broadcast live from Sainte-Rose Church in Laval, Quebec on CBC Radio 2 and Espace musique. And all the people involved in this CBC production -- including host Gregory Charles -- are rightly proud to bring this first-ever gala concert to you.
In Laval it's part of a weekend entirely devoted to choral singing. The gala itself brings together the 13 choirs that placed first in their respective categories, and today they'll perform and compete for one of two grand prizes to be given out after the concert: the $5,000 Healey Willan Prize sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts, and the new $5,000 Cantabile Prize awarded by Le Mondial Choral Loto-Québec’s artistic committee.
If the competition is new to you here's the skinny, as they say. (Why they say it I don't know, but that's another story.) The Choral Competition is a biennial public radio competition that invites amateur choirs to compete in 13 categories, while being showcased to a national radio audience on CBC/Radio-Canada. And there you have it.
And here is the schedule of what you can hear when:
Whenever there is a live broadcast on CBC that goes across the country, things get a little complicated back at the ranch. Missives fly about (I think they're called NRT's) saying things like "live-full-east distribution pattern," and using more abbreviations than you can shake a stick at, should you wish to shake a stick.
But the point is this. Today, because of the CBC Choral Competition Gala (which takes place at 1 pm. 2 p.m. Atlantic and 2:30 Newfoundland), Sunday Afternoon In Concert has this little NRT type announcement: the last 3 hours are pre-empted in AT, NT; the first 3 hours pre-empted in ET, CT, MT, PT.
Yikes! Don't worry, that just translates to the following: you can hear an abbreviated (speaking of abbreviations) version of the the show at 4 p.m. in most of the country, but 1 p.m. Atlantic, 1:30 NT.
More important is what you can hear on the programme: an opera about bullying, called Elijah's Kite. James Rolfe and Caamyar Chai created Elijah’s Kite and this is a production from Tapestry New Opera.
Elijah’s Kite explores the psychological lives of children through the rhythms and rhymes of the playground. Following the opera, you'll hear more about the creative process behind writing operas for children, and you’ll also hear children from the audience talk about their own experiences with bullying.
Once again, to those all important times, you can hear Elijah's Kite at 4 p.m. in most of the country, 1 p.m. Atlantic, 1:30 Newfoundland.
Every Canadian jazz fan has heard Terry Clarke -- he is a Canadian drumming legend who has played with countless musicians, recorded countless sessions, and was one of the founding members of the seminal Canadian big band, The Boss Brass. Today on the sixth and final episode of Inside The Music's series The Jazz Portraits, host and jazz pianist Renee Rosnes talks with the master of rhythm and groove. That's at 12:00 p.m. (12:30 NT).
In case you're wondering what's coming up next Sunday on the show, it's a single show, not a series, a documentary called Dream Healer: The Opera. It's about the eight year odyssey to get the opera, The Dream Healer (an operatic interpretation of Timothy Findlay’s novel, Pilgrim), from "page to stage," as they like to say. Many a slip between page and stage, as it were. In this case though any slips were overcome, as the opera was performed at Vancouver's Chan Centre this past March. But that's next Sunday. First, "T.C."
This Sunday's edition of In the Key of Charles promises to be filled with promise, as Gregory shares music about the notion of commitment. You can hear recordings by Nat King Cole, Fiona Apple, Shania Twain, Anne Murray, Chet Baker, Aaron Copland, the New Pornographers, and Shirley Horn.
And don't forget that today you can also hear Monsieur Charles hosting the Gala event (I like to use a nice cap for Gala, it looks so much more official) of the CBC Choral Competition, live at 1 p.m. (2 Atlantic, 2:30 Newfoundland). Many choirs...with lots of promise. Actually they've already fulfilled a certain amount of that promise, since the choirs you'll hear this afternoon are the winners in their respective categories.
A very happy choral Sunday to you, and Victoria Day long weekend to boot. This afternoon at 1 p.m. (2 pm Atlantic, 2:30 Newfoundland) you can hear the CBC Choral Competition Gala, but this morning at 8:00 you can also hear Choral Concert, with what has been described as "a feast of Victorian proportions." That's a musical feast, of course, as in honour of Victoria Day host Howard Dyck has compiled a collection of outstanding choral works from the Victorian era. Enjoy!
Pat spotlights Plumb on The Signal (10 p.m.) tonight. It's a new collaboration by improvising musicians Scott Thomson on trombone and Lori Freedman on clarinet. I don't believe she will be playing the piano. And it's a plum coup to win the Loot Bag contest this week too, with a copy of this recording up for grabs.
If you go to that first link you'll find the liner notes to Plumb, which I quite enjoyed reading -- and only after the fact realized they were written by Mark Miller, longtime and excellent Canadian jazz journalist. Here's an excerpt:
"The proof of the music, they all seemed to realize, would be in the playback. That’s where the internal details are; that’s where things get really interesting, where – as Cecil Taylor has been known to say – the stuff is. "
Also on the show this evening, a concert from the Art Of Time Ensemble (pictured here), who seem to be making their life's work the exploration of collaborations between classical and non-classical musicians. This concert is of music inspired by Schumann, and features guests from very different musical genres - Justin Rutledge, Andy Maize, John Southworth and Kyrie Krystmanson. It's also available online, as Concerts On Demand: Art Of Time - Schumann: Source & Inspiration.
Ottawa's Rainbow Bistro has purveyed blues music for two decades now. (It's also been home to international acts as well as the homegrown talent celebrated tonight -- The Rainbow has been played by stars including Koko Taylor, Son Seals, John Hammond, Albert Collins and many others.) Tonight you can hear four, count 'em four, concerts from the Rainbow on Canada Live (8 p.m.).
Starting with Thunder Bay's Tracy K, harp-playing, hard-singing winner of the Ontario Independent Music Award for Best Blues Song. Tonight, an acoustic set with her life partner, Snakeman, and an electric set with some of her Winnipeg musical buddies.
Robert Farrell was once called, by Billboard mag, "arguably the greatest undiscovered guitarist in Canada" which is no small taters -- plenty of good guitarists in this country. He's as much as a rocker as a bluesman, and tonight he's rockin' from The Rainbow. (I was hoping I'd find a way of working that in, "rockin' from The Rainbow.' Nice ring to it.)
Maria Hawkins is a mainstay of the Rainbow Blues night, and she's also a regular figure in Ottawa's schools -- Hawkins runs the Blues In The Schools program. Always really nice to hear about endeavors like this -- and for more info. on the programme, go to the Cisco BluesFest.
Guitarist Tony D wraps things up. He's a hugely respected musician on the Ottawa blues scene and the scene across the country -- and he came up through the Rainbow, playing the bar in its early days.
So, blues fans, if you're feeling lower than a snake's belly, tonight's Canada Live show is def. for you.!
Parkdale is one of the more interesting neighborhoods in Toronto, largely un-gentrified, although this is changing. It's mix of gritty city life at its most intense, and creative city life at its most intense. Many artists, pushed out of previously artist-affordable areas, have settled in this neighbourhood near the lake.
Singer Elizabeth Shepherd is one, which is one reason why her latest recording is simply called Parkdale. Today Tonic (6 p.m.) will be playing music from that disc (it's good, am listening to it as I write).
In the meantime here's a very, shall we say, casual video about the making of this recording -- including some of Shepherd's music, and her reasons for naming the recording Parkdale.
It is the busiest marrying time of year so it seems appropriate that today on SATO the opera is Le Nozze Di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). But hopefully most of the current, real-life weddings are going a little better than that of Susanna and Figaro's.
Susanna is to marry Figaro, but the Count wants to bed her first which causes a certain amount of consternation in a number of quarters, particularly the quarter belonging to the Countess. On the other hand, the Countess is beloved by her page -- who is really a woman dressed as a boy. Ah love and marriage, love and marriage, they do not always go together like a baby and a carriage.
It's a dream cast of Canadian talent, in fact, recorded last fall at the Four Seasons Centre For The Performing Arts a.k.a. the opera house in Toronto. (And btw, if you want to see what's coming up next season at the COC, that info is available here.)
Please continue reading for more details including more information on the artists, plot synopsis etc.
Photo: Michael Cooper, courtesy the Canadian Opera Company
Berg was writing his opera Lulu when Alma Mahler’s daughter died at the age of 18, moving him to begin writing this concerto. Some scholars believe that Berg’s focus on the concerto stopped him from fully finishing the opera, but his violin concerto has eclipsed Lulu as Berg’s single most popular and most regularly performed work.
Stuart McLean confesses this week. Yes, he owns up, comes clean. Again. There are more words he can't pronounce. And they include a surprisingly familiar fruit. (Stuart, apple isn't that hard, no, really, just think "ap" as in, um, "ap." Then "pple" like "pull." It's easy, really!)
As well as the fruit-pronunciation issues, today on the show he also offers an apology to the bay leaf (I'm not sure why, perhaps he's neglected to put them in spaghetti sauces all these years) and talks about the Theremin. Now to me Theremin is as easy to say as falling off an apple, but I guess if you are not a devotee of somewhat unusual instruments it might present a challenge. However, I offer another even more challenging instrument for Stuart's consideration: The Ondes Martenot.
Tune in to the Vinyl Café for a giggle, and to find out the truth about the unpronounceable fruit.
There's what the Signalites describe as "a quirky little hoedown tonight" on The Signal (10 p.m.), with a live session from the Sunparlour Players.
Ever wondered where the SP's are from, huh? Huh? Here is the definitive answer -- see the comments at the bottom.
As well as the rambunctious Sunparlours, once of Leamington, Pat will also play music from the incredible and varied musical career of Veda Hille. I've been listening a lot lately to her most recent recording, This Riot Life, and it's good, yes it is. Killer opening track. I see that she describes it as: "Veda and a large gang of brilliant musician friends play ecstatic songs about life, death, and japanese bathhouses."
Something for everyone. Just like the Signal, come to think of it.
It's a Canada Live (8 p.m.) triple header this evening. The leadoff batter, BC Read & The Big Blues Band with a concert recorded at the Off Broadway Arts Centre in Saskatoon. As B.C. describes it, his music is "a mix of Chicago, Delta and Texas styles of Blues over a generous helping of Folk, Rock and Country." Yum.
On deck, the C.R. Avery Band with a fusion of hip-hop, blues, and a pile of other influences. Unique, you could, and should say! "Imagine if Neil Young was inspired by hip-hop, and there you have C.R. Avery," is how The Vancouver Sun put it, but from what I've heard so far, the music is even more eclectic than that.
And in the hole (it is baseball season, after all, and at time of writing things are looking up, finally, for the Jays) Galitcha.
Galitcha (the word means tapestry) perform original compositions based on Indian folk music, influenced by jazz and the folk music of other cultures. They've been on the scene for some time (I recall hearing a very nice performance they did years ago at Sunfest, in London Ont., among other occasions). They're lead by Kujlit Sodhi who was inspired to pursue music full-time by a chance encounter with the late, great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Difficult to think of too many better sources of inspiration than that.
Not with a wild rumpus, but with Tonic's (6 p.m.) Friday evening mix, which includes music from vocalists Michael Buble, Denzal Sinclaire, Gail Wynters and Corinne Bailey Rae, as well as from guitarist Andrew Scott, and Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66.
Also, a live set from South African superstar, Jonathan Butler, recorded in Johannesburg last year. (Not to be confused with the popular Broooklyn real-estate blogger of the same name who blogs at Brownstoner.)
No, this Jonathan Butler is a guitarist who plays a mix of smooth jazz, R&B and gospel, and according to his website, wrote the first single by a black artist to be played by white radio stations in apartheid South Africa.
I know it's a little early, but it is heading into the long weekend when many thoughts turn to "two-fours" and for those in the sipping classes (or aspiring to win the DiscDrive Limerick contest) a nice Pinot Grigio.
And so I thought I should mention this groundbreaking study revealing that music influences the way wine tastes. You can just imagine what an arduous task it was, taking on a study of this subject matter. Apparently it was very tough finding anyone to participate. ha.
Adrian North is the author of the study -- he teaches at the School of Life Sciences, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh. He also studies the social psychology of music, and in this instance, his methodology was to put his subjects in a series of sealed chambers pairing different kinds of music with different kinds of wine. (Actually I don't know if they were sealed chambers, but it sounds better than just saying "rooms.")
And lo, if the music was "subtle and refined," the subjects tended to consider the wine the same way, regardless of the actual nature of the wine in question. Presumably they did not include any wine that was "corked," or that arrived in a huge cardboard box with a spigot on it.
(Of course what's really interesting about this is what it has to say about the perception of the music -- that a certain piece of music might be generally held to be "subtle and refined.") Anyway, if you would like to read more on the study, go to How Guns & Roses Can Change Your Tune On Wine.
This is the time of year that separates the real gardeners from the dilettantes. The real gardeners are out there in spades, with spades, doing inscrutable things while on their knees, and something called "aerating the compost."
The rest of us, we fling a few seeds about and hope for the best. And this is why I love a perennial, such as a lilac bush. There they are, every spring, looking and smelling amazing and no one has to do anything to achieve that effect. Or so I thought -- now the one in my sight-lines seems to have rebelled. It's as though the blossoms started up and then thought, "nah, why bother."
I don't think this is the kind of lilac time Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) is planning to celebrate today on the show though, fortunately, when they present A Suite In Praise Of Lilac Time. (And of course secretly I hope one of the real gardeners is reading this and will offer up some very simple solution, to make sure that next year the lilac resumes working its magic. )
So it's impressive that when Chris, a Here's To You (9 a.m.) listener, heard host Catherine Belyea say the tromba marina was a sort of underwater trombone Chris was vastly amused. The real definition came out as well, but Chris is holding fast to the original idea and asked to hear something played on the trombone....underwater.
Chris' second choice, since no underwater trombone was available, was to hear Tom Allen playing his trombone in scuba gear. Oddly enough, Tom wasn't to oblige, so it's plan c. -- Catherine will play a cut featuring Tom playing on dry ground.
And speaking of Tom Allen, don't forget that this morning on Music & Company (6 a.m.) you can hear the results of this week's Spring Vs. Primavera Cage Match.
According to the niftily named website, Obsolete.com, the Ondes Martenot was the first successful electronic instrument. (Named for its inventor, Maurice Martenot, a cellist and radio telegraphist.)
Jean Laurendeau is one of the best known "ondists," and he here he demonstrates its many charms:
Tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) you can hear the instrument as the voice of a whale in a composition by Michel Gonneville, played by Laurendeau. (The voice of the whale's lover comes from Max Christie's clarinet.) The piece is performed by the New Music Concerts Ensemble at Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, and The Signalites describe it as music that "plumbs the depths of the ocean, communes with nature, and explores the farthest reaches of the creative process."
Tonic (6 p.m.) doesn't just play jazz, but they do play a lot of it, and tonight you can hear some from the likes of Monty Alexander, the Quincy Jones Big Band, Wes Montgomery and many others.
As you might imagine, given the passion of jazz fans, the world of jazz bloggin' is a fairly active one, including the intrepid Darcy James Argue, whose Secret Society blog has steered me to many interesting jazz related places, including this video of sax player Matana Robert talking about gender and jazz...in other words, what it is to be a woman playing jazz and to be constantly asked about that.
Now maybe that's too much talk for you, in which case, here is some music, from the aforementioned Mary Lou Williams, with Stan Getz. (Aforementioned in Matana Roberts' monologue.)
I confess I was unaware of the Jimi Hendrix Vancouver connection until hearing about the Hendrix House Concert, which happens tonight and is scheduled for broadcast on Canada Live on July 10, 2008.
The story is this: Hendrix's grandmother, Nora, settled in Vancouver in 1911, and went on to help create the city's first black church, The American Methodist Episcopal Church. She was close to her grandson, Jimi, who stayed with her for a while. And even when most of the rest of the family re-located to Seattle Jimi and his father, Al Hendrix, regularly visited Jimi's grandma.
If you go to that Hendrix House Concert page you can see a couple of CBC archives clips relating to Hendrix in Vancouver. As for who is performing tonight, here is the list of scheduled musicians:
* Randy Bachman and Denise McCann
* Steve Dawson
* The Sojourners
* Jim Byrnes
* Mother Mother
* Ford Pier
* Mr. Wrong (aka Rob Wright)
* Chris Gestrin
* Ndidi Onukwulu
Again, the concert will have its first broadcast on July 10 on Canada Live, so mark your calendars!
One of my colleagues has put me to shame when it comes to the DiscDrive Limerick Contest, she's actually taken up the challenge of using the five designated words pinot, rotund, deliquescent, shambles, eggplant OR aubergine and written a limerick.
As she is a CBC employee she's not eligible for the contest, but you are -- and if you would like to enter, why just click on over.
Still, the folks at DiscDrive feel her limerick deserves an outing, as do I, so here it is:
Another Dinner Disaster
by Ms. Victoria Wilcox
My eggplant's become deliquescent
No longer rotund but a crescent
The Pinot was too strong, and I
Broiled it too long
And the dog's shambled off with the pheasant
Way to go, Victoria! I'm sure you will inspire other, non-CBCers to take up their keyboards and get their entries in before May 20th, the cut-off date.
P.S. Vic admits that she cheated on "shambles", but says it's a b*!@er of a word to fit into that rhythm.
Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the notes, but he didn't leave a lot of instructions on how they should be played – the tempo, the dynamics, the ornamentation. And that’s why Bach’s music takes on much of the personality of any pianist who plays it – say Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations, for extreme example.
Angela Hewitt is another Canadian who’s made a name for herself playing Bach (she's on an incredibly ambitious Bach World Tour) and today she joins Eric Friesen on Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) to talk about her approach to Bach, and about her new DVD of his music. (She’ll demonstrate on the Studio Sparks Steinway!)
And as per usual Ms. Hewitt is here, there, everywhere, but keeps fan in touch -- this from her website, written yesterday:
"A very quick news entry from the airport where I have 5 minutes before boarding the plane! Tomorrow, Thursday May 15th, I will be interviewed for almost an hour by Eric Friesen on CBC Radio Two's Studio Sparks at 1 p.m. EDT."
Also, a quick, Bach-related note about a recent article that will interest Bachophiles.
What is a sunparlour, anyway, is it another term for "sunroom," one of those attachments to houses out west where you can cook your African Violets? Or is it a made up term? The musical answer is that it is a band, or more accurately, The Sunparlour Players are a Toronto rock band. And you can hear them Thursday night on Canada Live (8 p.m.), and also online at Concerts On Demand: The Sunparlour Players.
Now maybe I should refine that definition a tad. Yes they are a rock band, at times, (listen to Dyin' Today) but at other times they get downright countrified and acoustic. All of this makes sense when you take a look at the music they list as influences: VanHalen, Pantera, The Carter Family, Neil Young, and singing in choirs and their moms and dads. They sometimes deploy a glockenspiel though, which might make it possible to think of them as an art rock band too. Almost. But you know, lead singer Andrew Penner definitely sounds like a rocker no matter what he's singing and that's OK 'cause he does it well.
Second up, Ensemble Uniqua, a collaborative jazz project between musicians based in Toronto and NYC. The concert comes from a 10-year reunion show at Lula Lounge in Toronto, and features three prominent Toronto-based players: saxophonist, vocalist & composer Sundar Viswanathan, electric bassist Rich Brown and guitarist Justin Abedin. The New Yorkers are co-founder/artistic director Antonio Dangerfield on trumpet, violinist Michael Lawson, drummer Matt Baranello and percussionist Shawn Kelly.
Musically it's pan-global-jazz, with influences from Turkish, Ghanaian, Brazilian music and more. And like the first concert, it's also available online at Concerts On Demand: Ensemble Uniqua.
Two concerts from two very individualistic women singers tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.), first, from Mary Margaret O'Hara. For many year's she's been a living definition of the idea of having a "cult following." She'd no doubt have a much broader one if she actually recorded or performed on any ongoing basis, but sadly, she does not. (The lack of both a website and a MySpace site -- so unusual these days for a musician -- just furthers that cult status. )
But O'Hara did perform at the 2007 Edmonton Folk Music Festival, and tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.) you can hear that performance.
The second recording on this evening's show is from former Edmontonian (she now lives in Stockholm) Wendy McNeill, pictured here. Whoops, that website is under construction (great image on it though) so here isher MySpace site for you. It's also where you will find some thoughts about what she's about:
"She is a fan of underdogs, strange cats and brave hearts. these characters are often the centerpieces of her songs which she creates using looped vocals, accordion, and guitar. she has been described as an artist that creates 'deep twisted tales' and 'wise moving music."
It's a sign of remarkable fame when a nickname conjures up the person. And in the case of Old Blue Eyes it also seems remarkable that it's already been ten years since he died. No wonder Frank beat out the other 50,000 contestants and wound up on a stamp, which just became available, south of the order.
According to NPR, originally the U.S. Postal Service was going to do the stamp in sepia tones, but Nancy kiboshed that, wisely, since as she put it, "wait a minute, where are the blue eyes?" Absolutely -- just look at them, gleaming preternaturally from that stamp.
North of the border, as in us, (Canada, CBC Radio 2, Tonic), you can hear a tribute to Frank Sinatra this evening, as Katie presents FrankSinatra related music on Tonic (6 p.m.). Of course you can also hear it around the world online for that matter, north and south of almost any border, just go to the menu on the R2 mainpage and click on Live Streaming.
Katie will play Sinatra tributes from vocalists Tierney Sutton and Joe Coughlin, as well as a set of tunes from the Chairman of the Board himself, recorded live at The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in 1966. Ring-a-ding-ding!
File this under: Just when you thought things couldn't get any stranger...a robot conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra the other night. Maestro ASIMO stuck to the pops, with The Impossible Dream from Man Of La Mancha.
Right about now you may be asking, "why? why?" One reason is because the makers of the robot, Honda, donated $1 million US to the orchestra for a music education fund, and this was a way of drawing attention to that fact. But there's also an actual application for these robots, other than novelty and the weirdness of seeing one of them with Yo Yo Ma, who played later on the programme.
Robots like ASIMO, according to the CP story on CBC.Ca News, are actually intended to be "companions for the elderly and others in need, such as school children navigating crosswalks."
Relief is heard around the world. Now we know we can expect to argue about tempos forever, and not only that, but that they will continue to shift forever. Still, it does bring new meaning to the criticism of "somewhat robotic conducting."
...you'll find on the radio quite live.
To win it you see,
you will have to agree
to follow the rules -- and then high five."
OK, cut me some slack please, that was just off the top of my head and took about thirty seconds. I'm sure your entries will be far more sophisticated. In fact they will have to be, because part of what makes the DiscDrive Limerick Contest so interesting is that you must use the following words in your entry, which makes it inherently more complex. And fun, too:
pinot
rotund
deliquescent
shambles
eggplant OR aubergine
All five mandatory words must be included within each limerick. And here is the Entry Form. The contest goes until May 20th, so get your Limericks in there fast! Good prizes too, particularly the Grand Prize which is - GOULD THE RADIO ARTIST a 5-CD Set , plus a whack of DiscDrive paraphernalia.
Just to give you an idea of what it takes to be a winner, here are a couple of previous victors (obviously the mandatory words weren't exactly the same):
As you know if you are a CBC Radio 2 listener, it was not long ago that we celebrated Beethoven's symphonies with a rather magnificent Beethoven Festival, in partnership with the VSO. But some are insatiable when it comes to the music of Beethoven, and today there is a perfect way to at least slake the thirst, as it were, as Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) presents the latest recording by the Montreal Symphony. It’s Beethoven's Fifth, conducted by Kent Nagano.
The recording, by the way, is on Analekta, and I point this out because it actually is a bit difficult to find on the OSM website, but this page will give you more details. It's a 2-CD set called Ideals Of The French Revolution, an interesting concept disc which got a good review recently in the Ottawa Citizen.
The opening of that review should be enough to make anyone curious about the whole disc: "Take the bitter, despairing reminiscences of Senator Roméo Dallaire, add some of Beethoven's most optimistic music, and you have what ought to be a recipe for artistic disaster. Instead, you end up with The General, an oddly inspiring work for orchestra with soprano, chorus and narrator."
The Music & Company (6 a.m.) weekly Cage Match pits one version of spring against another today -- with the one you'd expect, Vivaldi’s Spring, against the one you might not, Spring by the "tango king," Astor Piazzolla.
(Well, you know what the jazzers say, spring can really hang you up the most. And yet still, you must believe in it. But that's another Cage Match entirely.)
Listen to Tom today as he plays the music to illustrate this particular Cage Match, then cast your vote, voice your opinion. And tune in again on Friday to find out who took home the tulips -- Baroque or Tango?
Now, you could interpret that subject heading in any number of ways. First, that everyone is charging en masse to listen to The Signal (10 p.m.), which may well be true.
Or maybe it is a kind of rallying cry. Although that would work better if there was a comma: Rush On, The Signal!
On the third hand, maybe it means Geddy Lee is putting in an appearance?
If you picked Door #3 you'd be almost right, since Wednesday night on The Signal (10 p.m.), Laurie will indeed be playing some music by the iconic Canadian rock trio, Rush. Not with Mr. Lee singing though, in this case it's some Rush interpretations, from bands like The Bad Plus and The Section Quartet.
And for those of you who have been following the saga of the woman who was obsessed with dish washing, the third and final installment of Lullaby Baxter's musical Garden Cities Of Tomorrow, recorded live at Calgary's One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre, will be aired on the show tonight.
Laurie plays some of her favourite spoken word artists tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.), including Shane Koyczan and Christian Bok. (btw, you can hear samples of both of their work on their respective websites...strong stuff... )
As well, a musical tribute to the women known as the Hiroshima Maidens. They were 25 young Japanese women who were seriously disfigured at Hiroshima in 1945, and were taken to the U.S. for multiple reconstructive surgeries. That link takes you to CBC archives, with excerpts from radio broadcasts at that time about the women.
But back to the work you'll hear tonight -- it's by composer Robert Een, and was written for a puppet/theatre piece on the Hiroshima Maidens story, and was performed in New York City.
As you know if you saw the earlier post, Jim Cuddy Concert, the featured concert on tonight's Canada Live (8 p.m.) is indeed from Blue Rodeo guy, Mr. Cuddy.
But I also wanted to make a quick note of what you can hear on this week's Can. Live Podcast, by going to Radio 2 Podcasts. It includes some Manouche-style jazz from the all-female group Christine Tassan & Les Imposteures, (pictured here) some pan-Middle Eastern music, Canadian style, from Maza Meze, and rockin' gospel-blues from Maria Hawkins.
The Pajama Game is a musical about labour troubles -- not of the birthing variety, think pajama factory. Yes, a musical about a labour dispute, not a contradiction. I think I've only seen the movie version once, though I thoroughly enjoyed it -- all those p.j.'s, the struggle for higher wages, romance -- what's not to like?
Today Tonic (6 p.m.) features some of the tunes from The Pajama Game, which opened on Broadway on May 13th in 1954. Probably the best known tune from it is Hernando's Hideaway, but you can also hear versions of Hey There and Steam Heat.
Meantime, just keep on knocking three times and whispering low, after all, you and I were sent by Joe, so strike a match and you will know, that you're in Hernando's Hideaway...OLÉ!
Arcade Fire will score the next film by Donnie Darko director, Richard Kelly. The Guardian has more...including the (hope? warning?) that we can expect hurdy gurdies and Cameron Diaz.
Leonard Cohen's tour has begun on the east coast -- 48 dates in 14 countries, and The Globe has a review of the first show, from Fredericton N.B.
And Tegan and Sara are all over the place, in advance of their upcoming tour, as well as their participation in the Cindi Lauper-led True Colours Human Rights Tour -- including this feature on Spinner.
Almost finally, in case you missed it yesterday, the enthralling story about a species of spider has been named after Neil Young, the Myrmekiaphila Neilyoungi.
And finally finally, not a Canadian music news story but it's very cool and I thought, what they hey, or hay, however that is correctly spelled, why not throw it in anyway. David Byrne's project, Playing The Building, where he turns an actual building into a musical instrument of sorts, is going to happen in New York City all summer, at the Battery Maritime Building.
"I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down," says Byrne.
Martin Fröst is a very interesting, innovative young Swedish clarinetist who is getting a lot of buzz these days.
Here's one reason why:
Pretty amazing, eh?
For more reasons, tune in this afternoon to Studio Sparks (12 p.m.); Eric plays a recording from London's Wigmore Hall, Fröst performing one of Brahms' later masterpieces, Sonata No. 2.
The harmonica wielding Jim Cuddy is of course best known as one of the members of Blue Rodeo, but Cuddy, a fine songwriter, has also done a couple of solo recordings including 2007's Juno Award winning The Light That Guides You Home.
Tonight you can hear Cuddy live in one of those solo concerts, presented by Canada Live (8 p.m.). You can also hear Jim Cuddy online, at Concerts On Demand: Jim Cuddy at Kingfest.
And another from the school of great Canadian roots rock/country bands on the show Tuesday night -- a concert from Prairie Oyster, with tunes from their last album, One Kiss. Funny to think that Prairie Oyster are thirty years old, and Blue Rodeo twenty-four or something like that...from young trailblazers to elders in what seems like the blink of an eye -- and both groups still going strong.
In the case of Blue Rodeo, Cuddy told The Toronto Star (Jim Cuddy On The Road Again) that the longevity is because the band has "a small, specialized market," and they reach out to that market on a regular basis. "They can count on us, and that keeps them coming back." True, and the music's good too.
I had no idea until reading this about the back story -- that the band hated performing live, and that vocalist Beth Gibbons was so painfully shy. That certainly makes the ten years between second and third album, (which has just come out, called Third) more understandable.
So interesting, musicians who prefer that the documented (static if you will) representation of their music -- the recording -- is the best way to convey their music. Perfectly legitimate in my view, but it really flies in the face of the many who feel that music is ultimately most meaningful as a live experience shared between performers and audience.
Anyway, tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) Laurie will be playing music from the new CD, as well as recent music from the Canadian band Plants And Animals. (Including a tune that has the perfect response to an axiom I've never really believed: "that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger." The P&A song is called What Doesn't Kill Us Can Only Make Us Stronger... That Is Of Course If It's Not Making Us Weaker. Agreed.)
And speaking of live performance, the feature on tonight's show is part one of a three-part broadcast of Lullaby Baxter's musical Garden Cities of Tomorrow. (The image accompanying this post is from that performance.)
It's said to be a fable about a woman who just adores doing dishes. Clearly that is indeed a fable. (Although it would be even more-so were it about a woman who just adored scrubbing behind toilets.)
All About Jazz says that Amanda Tosoff's band "burns with the intensity of seasoned veterans at the top of their game," which considering that the pianist is in her early twenties is quite something. And CBC's own Katie Malloch said the quartet "exemplifies so many of the great and positive things that young jazz musicians have going for them; compositional talent, instrumental talent, and devotion to the music and one another." Very nice.
To hear a live concert with Tosoff's Quartet tune in this evening to Canada Live (8 p.m.), for a performance celebrating her CBC Galaxie Rising Star Award for best emerging artist.
Also on tonight's show, some music from the Brazilian-Canadian multi-instrumentalist Celso Machado, along with mandolinist and guitarist John Reischman and latin percussionist Salvador Ferreras.
OK, a MAJOR correction to the earlier post about DiscDrive's Limerick Contest -- dates got scrambled, minds got scramble, everything got scrambled -- the fact is that DiscDrive’s Limerick Contest begins today and goes until Tuesday, May 20th with winners announced Wednesday, May 21st.
Here are the basic rules: each limerick must contain the following five words:
pinot
rotund
deliquescent
shambles
eggplant OR aubergine
All five mandatory words must be included within each limerick. And here is the Entry Form.
As I confessed earlier, in the distant past I whiled away the hours writing limericks, and though I cannot recall scribing any with the above rather delicious words, I do still recall one. It went like this:
A man of honest intentions,
Told his girl to reveal her pretensions,
I knew it, she cried, my ma didn’t lie
All men want is to see your dimensions.
Not so very naughty though. Let's see, a man with a rather nice pinot...
To hear the DiscDrive limericks contest tune in daily at 3:00 p.m.
Much big music news over the weekend, from the 12-year-old trombonist's victory, reported earlier in The Trombone, Not A Boring Instrument, to this story about the spider named after Neil Young, Myrmekiaphila Neilyoungi. I'm not sure about the pronunciation. Youngi as in Young-Eye? Or does it rhyme with Bungee, as in cord. Some arachnid/science/Latin-speaking person should be able to set me straight.
Whatever the pronunciation, the Neilyongi, or "crazy spider" as some are already nicknaming the insect (as in Neil Young & Crazy Spider) was discovered in Alabama last year. The biologist who did the discovering decided on the name because "I really enjoy his [Neil Young's] music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice."
Grammy/Juno award winning violinist James Ehnes (pictured here in full Juno award happiness moment) drops by Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) today. Funny how in radio it's almost always phrased that way, "drops by," as though the musician just happened to be in the neighbourhood and felt like a cuppa.
Anyway, Mr. Ehnes will be on the show today to talk about his new recording-in-progress. On it he plays several valuable historic violins and violas from a private collection, and he'll give Eric the insider view on that experience.
Apparently he'll also talk about a recent and wonderful musical find at a garage sale. Ah, the thrill of the find. As long as it wasn't someone else's violin.
Makes you wonder though, what does Peter think is a "boring" instrument? He doesn't say. Over at the The Trombone Forum (Music. Trombones. Life.) they probably don't spend a lot of time wondering about that though, they're too chuffed he won.
As one Trombone Forum member said, before the winner was announced, "...Peter played the Tomasi - very well. I think he's in with a shot, but the competition is very stiff indeed. It's also the first time I have ever seen a soloist use a mute that has his name written on the bottom in marker pen."
And that's all that's making trombone news this hour, unless Tom Allen knows something I don't know.
"Oscar Peterson was a very, very strict disciplinarian and (had) a wonderful work ethic and you don't just become the world's greatest jazz pianist by luck."
-Oliver Jones
Oliver Jones has always been overshadowed by the late Oscar Peterson, and has always, at least as far as I can tell, been thoroughly gracious about it. (As in this recent CP article.) The two came of age together, but obviously Peterson became a huge international star while Jones became a highly-regarded musician primarily here at home in Canada. Then he retired for a while, and was almost completely out of sight. That didn't last though, he came out of retirement a few years back, and has been going strong ever since.
Jones released a new recording last week, Second Time Around, his 12th for Justin Time, who are celebrating their 25th birthday. (Jones was actually the label's first signed artist.) Monday night on Tonic (6 p.m.) you can hear some music from Mr. Jones, I'm guessing from that new recording.
Also on the show, music from Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, Campbell Ryga, Molly Johnson, Joe Williams among many others.
The Nuna Icelandic Festival (nuna means "now" in Icelandic) is an eight day arts festival that takes place in Winnipeg, and explores some of the similarities between Iceland and Manitoba. As the festival's website describes it: "Isolated, strange, cold and hermetic, each breeds their own distinct brand of creativity and imagination." I've not spent time in Iceland, but I did live in Manitoba for a while, and I would not disagree. Tonight The Signal (10 p.m.) salutes the festival with music from Mugison, Sigur Ros and Kyrie Kristmanson.
As it is Sunday it's also time for...drumroll...Soundtrack Sunday. Tonight Pat features music from the Oscar-winner Babel, a movie I meant to see but somehow never did, so I can't comment on the music. But this is what Music From The Movies has to say about it. (Calling it both "a musical assault on the senses" and "a real voyage of discovery.")
Sunday night's show also includes some highlights from a recent concert presented by Toronto’s New Music Concerts, including of work by Chris Paul Harman, Juan Trigos, Alice Ho and So Jeong Ahn and Rodney Sharman.
Tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.) you can hear a concert by the Cowboy Junkies that recreates the recording that gained them a cult (then a widespread) following twenty years ago, The Trinity Session. (Thus called because it was recorded in the lovely, intimate Church Of The Holy Trinity.)
It was a great album, with songs like Sweet Jane and Walkin After Midnight, and it featured Margo Timmins' intense, hushed vocals. At the time it was a really startlingly new sound, something that's easy to forget since their music is so familiar now.
In honour of the 20th anniversary the Junkies replayed the songs in the same order as they appear on the album, at a concert at Massey Hall. (As well as re-recording the music on Trinity Revisited.) CBC R2 was there to record -- and that's the concert you can hear on Can. Live tonight.
Also on the show tonight, a concert by Hawksley Workman -- quite a double bill.
I feel a strange compulsion to make a small note of this detail about today's Skylarking show. Apparently it contains "the dodgiest imitation of Bob Newhart" you've ever heard. But the real question is whether or not there is an equally dodgy imitation of Suzanne Pleshette? Oh Bob...
Speaking of Bob, every once in a while he even commented on music, on one occasion sharing his views on country music: "I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down' ." (Nothing like a good un-p.c. joke from the old days once in a while. And for the record, yours truly likes country music...)
Sunday Afternoon In Concert celebrates the keyboard today, via the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's New Creations Festival, and works for various keyboards by Philip Glass, Jacques Hétu and Malcolm Forsyth. The annual fest. took place last month, and featured contemporary concertos for harpischord, organ, and accordion.
Also on the Sunday Aft. roster this weekend, the latest work for the Gryphon Trio, marking their 15th birthday with a performance of Equilateral, a composition for piano trio and orchestra written by Jeffrey Ryan, jointly commissioned by the Toronto and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras.
Speaking of Vancouver and of pianos...the Vancouver Recital Society recently presented the Canadian debut of the sensational young Spanish pianist Javier Perianes performing Schubert, Haydn, Debussy and Spanish composers Falla and Blasco de Nebra, and that too you can hear on today's show.
P.S. In case you are curious, that is the piano that was used in the movie Casablanca. (I doubt anyone played any Philip Glass on it though. Time does indeed go by.)
Paul Bley is one of jazz piano's innovators -- his approach elegantly summed up by Ben Ratliff, NYTimes jazz writer:
"Deeply original and aesthetically agressive, Mr. Bley long ago found a way to express his long, elegant, voluminous thoughts in a manner that implies complete autonomy from its given setting but isn't quite free jazz. The music runs on a mixture of deep historical knowledge and its own inviolable principles."
Today you can hear from the man himself, in conversation with pianist Renee Rosnes, who hosts the Inside The Music series, Jazz Portraits. Bley is originally from Montreal, but is based today in New York, which is where the two musicians meet up.
It's Mother's Day today. Some feel that it's a wonderfully tender day to celebrate mothers of the world, others find it a kind of Hallmark holiday. My own mother always eschews it, although she takes a rather interesting stance by saying "every day should be mother's day." I'll call her today anyway.
But the annual frenzy of roses and pancake breakfasts always makes me think about people whose mothers are not around, or who have lousy relationships with their mothers. I don't know if Gregory has sought out any music to reflect either loss or hostility, (and I suspect not, positive guy that he is), but he does have quite an interesting range of mother-related music today, including music from Janis Joplin, Jon Vickers, Brook Benton, Johnny Cash, Don Messer and Frank Zappa. (Mothers of invention, right? Oh, I'm a quick study, something I got from my mom.)
Your Choral Concert Bulletin for Sunday , May 11: A salute to the Vancouver Cantata Singers who are celebrating fifty years – half a century! - of choral excellence. And today you can hear them under the direction of Eric Hannan and James Fankhauser.
A fine choir, and as the Canadian Encyclopedia Of Music puts it, after their initial formation in 1958 they "established a reputation for performances scrupulously authentic in language, instrumentation, and style."
According to the team of The Signal (10 p.m.), weekend edition that is, tonight's show spotlights "electronics, guitars, ballads and improvisation."
Rather a lot of scope there, don't you think? Among the electronics, guitars, ballads and improvisations is Eric Cheneaux’s new CD.
And as always there is the Loot Bag -- free stuff! In this case it's the Ghost Bees CD, which I've heard some of lately. Interesting, in a vaguely Joanna Newsomish way, though a little more, dare I say, fun? Joanna Newsom fans go to town.
"Guess who finally saw the Polyjesters. ME! yes, that's right, i saw and met the Polyjesters...FINALLY and all my expectations were just slashed to pieces. ;) just kidding. i love it, as i knew i would. anyway, yay! i can now join you all in saying i've seen the PJ's!"
OK, you know when you have fans waxing ecstatic on message boards that things are going well for a band. If you want to hear them too, you can, since the "PJs" are on Canada Live (8 p.m.) tonight.
They'll be playing tunes off their latest, rather nicely named disc, Kitchen Radio. As for the music? They say they play "everything from Billie Holiday to the Beatles … from old swing standards to alternative country." You can also hear this show online now, at Concerts On Demand: The Polyjesters.
Two other concerts to mention, first Gatineau Quebec's Chakidor: French vocals, acoustic guitar and violin -- and they mix up country with bluegrass (including a cover of John Denver's Country Roads). Again, you can hear this concert online, at Concerts On Demand: Châkidor.
Rounding out the broadcast is Cara Luft, from the annual Alberta Sessions, held at the Epcor Centre each spring celebrating Albertan talent. Luft you may know from the Wailin' Jennies, but here she is doing songs from her solo album, The Light Fantastic.
"Comes a rainstorm, put your rubbers on your feet
Comes a snowstorm, you can always find some heat
Comes love, nothing can be done..."
Lew Brown's Comes Love is a great song, isn't it. No wonder singers from Ella Fitzgerald to Joni Mitchell have sung it. And this evening on Tonic (6 p.m.) Tim presents three different versions and settings of the tune.
I'm guessing that one version might be from Canada's Polyjesters, who are featured on both Tonic and live in concert later on Canada Live (8 p.m.) today. So not to steal anyone's thunder or anything, but here's a bit of a home recorded video of the Polyj's acoustic cover of the song.
All that fun stuff is the subject matter of this week's opera on SATO, The Ballad Of Baby Doe, a production of the Calgary Opera, starring Tracy Dahl (see photo) and John Fanning. It's the first professional Canadian production of the American opera (by Douglas Moore, with libretto by John LaTouche).
The Ballad Of Baby Doe, set in a silver mining town in Colorado circa 1880, is sometimes referred to as "a singers' opera" for its great melodies (which makes you wonder about some other works), and is also considered an American classic.
Please do keep reading for details of cast and characters as well as the plot synopsis, and information about the composer, Douglas Stuart Moore.
Behind every composition lies a story, sometimes even a scandal. For instance, the Brahams Violin Concerto In D Major.
It was written as a bit of an olive branch from Brahms to his friend, violinist Joseph Joachim. They didn't speak for six years after Joachim accused his wife of adultery -- Brahms apparently sided with Joachim’s suffering wife, and that ended the friendship. He really should have known better! If you want to stay friends with both parties in a situation involving marital discord, stay neutral. It's true in the 21st century, and was just as true in the 19th.
Anyway, in 1878, Brahms put aside a piano concerto he was working on to write a composition for Joachim, and the results are a large work in the dramatic tradition of Beethoven. (The rondo-finale incorporates Hungarian themes that most scholars agree is a salute to Joachim’s birthplace.)
Today on Le Café Vinyl, you can hear a concert from Smithers, B.C. with Murray McLauchlan. Not only that, but host Stuart McLean and Mr. McLauchlan apparently re-create an old-style radio drama, live on stage.
Not sure if they had a foley artist, but I hope so. Any good radio drama needs some banging together of coconut shells (galloping horses) and thumping of watermelons (punching).
The "drama" tells the story of “Eggs Blackstone,” by the way, and according to my sources, gets "a little out of hand."
"There’s a strong link between music and the visual arts. French Impressionism found its realization in the paintings of Monet and the music of Debussy. American minimalism evolved in the music of Steve Reich and the paintings of Frank Stella. Found objects started showing up in the visual arts around the same time that found sounds or samples insinuated their way into contemporary music."
That's just an excerpt of what Pat Carrabré says on his own blog about the connections between music and vis art -- something he explores tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.).
And, just so you know, there will also be a broadcast of two quite distinctive pianists: Canada's John Farah and Germany's Hauschka -- a concert also available online at Concerts On Demand: John Kameel Farah And Hauschka (the former pictured here).
Sometimes it seems that bands form and break up as fast as you can say "another singer-songwriter." So it's impressive when a band has longevity. And I'm not talking about the longevity of, say, The Rolling Stones. More impressive than that is the longevity of The Blind Boys of Alabama, who have been together since 1939. Now that's commitment.
The four-time Grammy winners continue to perform and create new music -- at the end of April they held a special performance in New Orleans in support of their latest Down In New Orleans. That concert was filmed for a DVD which will be out next year.
But in the meantime you can hear them in concert tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.).
Also on the show, South Indian mrdangam master Trichy Sankaran and his daughter Suba, (vocalist with Autorickshaw), along with Nova Scotian percussionist Ken Shorley. That concert will be followed by a performance by Andrew White, the peripatetic finger-style guitar player and singer who is now based in Cape Breton.
Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller was born on May 21, 1904, and became one of the most popular musicians ever. And why not, not only was he a consummate showman and stride piano player, he also wrote two tunes that I'll go out on a limb to say will never go away -- Honeysuckle Rose and Ain't Misbehavin'. (Also two of my favourite singing in the shower numbers, but that's neither here nor there.)
Tonight Tonic (6 p.m.) salutes the mighty Fats Waller, and this afternoon I salute him as well, with this film clip from 1935. Grainy and slightly politically incorrect in some places, and altogether delightful.
Well, she does have nice gams, I must say. Makes me wish I'd gotten beyond "shuffle off to Buffalo."
By the way, should you wish to see the entire "catalogue" of videos that have been posted on the blog, please go to Radio2Tube.
For those who follow Finnish music the name Kimmo Pohjonen is not new -- in fact he's a famously inventive accordionist who has played folk and rock and just about everything else. Of late he's turned to what he's called "industrial agricultural music," created from the sounds of "circular saws, heaters, milking machines, quad bikes, diggers, graders, even squealing piglets," as reported in the Times Online.
(I don't know why that should be "even" squealing piglets, since it seems an obvious sound to sample when making industrial agricultural music. )
Anyway, this story actually broke (if a story about making music with farmyard sounds can be said to "break) while I was on vacation, but I happened on it today, and thought I'd share. (For some reason after hearing much reportage on a Timbit yesterday, making music with farm sounds seems particularly appealing.)
And if you are in the UK this month, you may be interested to know that Kimmo Pohjonen is on tour with the tractors (or at least the virtual tractors) in his Earth Machine Tour.
Back in Prague, in March of 1881, Dvorak's Symphony No. 6 was performed for the first time.
Today in Ottawa, (in May of 2008) Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) will feature the work. You can hear Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Toronto Symphony in a live performance of the pastoral-flavoured symphony, said to be "infused with Bohemian and Slavic folk elements."
This makes me picture frolicking in meadows with folk elements. Dvorak's visage, on the other hand, does not.
Some advanced notice -- this Sunday on Canada Live (8 p.m.) you can hear a concert by the Cowboy Junkies, and not only that, it's a concert recreating their seminal recording, The Trinity Session. (Thus called because it was recorded in the lovely, intimate Church Of The Holy Trinity.)
Whether you listened to pop music in the late 1980s, or have discovered the CJ's recently, you'll know this album, with songs like Sweet Jane and Walkin After Midnight, featuring those intense, hushed vocals by Margo Timmins. It was the recording that launched the band into fame. And in honour of the 20th anniversary they replayed the songs, in order, at a concert at Massey Hall recorded by CBC. (As well as re-recording the music on an album called Trinity Revisited.)
As the Cowboy Junkies tell it, it was a recording that "...captured the hearts, minds and souls of so many people in so many different ways, and in so many different parts of the world." So true.
One of the pieces performed during the Esprit Orchestra's 25th anniversary was the world premiere of Chris Paul Harman's14 Chorale Melodies. When it was performed live, a review in the Globe lamented that it was not possible to hear the piece again. But lo, it is possible, tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.), and also online, by going to Freedman, Schafer, Schnittke, Harman, Gougeon.
The work itself is based on J.S. Bach's 69 Chorale Melodies.
Also on the show tonight, and also from Esprit Orchestra, you can hear a performance of Alfred Schnittke'sConcerto For Piano And String Orchestra.
Kenny Dorham was kind of like the John Mcdonald of trumpet players -- just as Mcdonald is overshadowed by shortstops who might have more hitting power (and let us all take a moment to hope Johnny Mac's current ankle injury doesn't put him on the DL) Dorham was overshadowed by trumpeters who had more flash, or bigger personalities -- people like Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis.
But he was a great trumpet player, and tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) Katie plays a live set Dorham recorded at the Cafe Bohemia in New York in 1956.
By the way, according to Keep Swinging, Dorham's daughter, Evette Dorham, is writing a book about her father. Hope that comes to pass.
People flying to London from parts far and wide to take in a performance of Prometeo, by the late Italian composer Luigi Nono, a work the writer Rachel Holmes responded to by saying: "What does democracy and freedom feel and sound like? It sounds and feels like this." (For more see Scribbles For A Sonic Revolution.)
And country singer Eddy Arnold has passed away. He was one of the pioneers of the Nashville sound, and most famous for Make The World Go Away, though my personal favourite is his 1959 hit with The Tennessee Stud.
And isn't his singing on Cattle Call just beautiful?
Every year the International Fleet of Tall Ships makes its way to ports around the world -- you've probably seen them at some point, even us non-nautical types find it thrilling. For those who know their barques from their barquentines and sloops from their schooners, (clearly I do not, but I'm assuming there are differences, thus the specific names), it must be even more so.
I don't know whether composers Dave Roylance and Bob Galvin were boat nuts, or just excited at the sight of the flotilla, but either way they were inspired to write The Tall Ships Suite after a viewing, and you can hear that music on Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) today as part of a radio tribute to music with wind in its sails.
And in the unlikely event you are a kid and you are reading this -- check out cbc.ca kids Tall Ships Sailing Challenge, where you can "navigate the waves and chart your course through the treacherous coastlines" as you race your tall ship from London to Halifax. If you're not a kid I'm pretty sure they'll still let you play.
That's how one attendee described the the atmosphere at the show vocal group Chic Gamine (formerly Madragaia) gave at CBC Winnipeg's studio 41 when they debuted under the new name. They do some lovely stuff -- most of it in French, and musically showing influences from samba to soul, and of course French-Canadian music of various kinds. You can hear them Thursday night on Canada Live (8 p.m.), and also online, at Concerts On Demand: Chic Gamine.
I've started at the end of the show though, because opening tonight's edition is Jumelage, a series that paired up visiting Quebecois artists with Manitoba artists. (The word translates roughly as "twinning," or "pairing.") Featured tonight are Montreal based pianist and singer Florence K, with Winnipeg percussionists Rodrigo Munoz of Papa Mambo and Scott Senior formerly of the Duhks.
And in the middle of the Canada Live sandwich, singer-songwriter Ann Walton, who (like more and more singer-songwriters these days) is working at the piano rather than the guitar. Musically it's a bit jazzy, a little bit folky, and the songs are her own poetry set to music. She put the poems to music while holed up in a one room cabin in Wasagaming, Manitoba. And good for her, lots of us imagine going into isolation tank mode to write -- but it's a lot harder than it seems. You finally have no distractions, and uh oh, now you have no excuses. Not that I speak from experience, or anything.
Let me count the ways. The Signal (10 p.m.) counts a few of them tonight, as Laurie takes a look at how keyboards, turntables, digital effects, and laptops have changed how music is made. A fascinating and vast subject, which Laurie illustrates with music from Tim Hecker and Laurie Anderson, among others.
Tonight you can also hear a concert from the popular Caribou (a.k.a. Dan Snaith), featuring a recent performance by the DJ, re-mixer, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist (and mathematician!).
In a related note...if you have a particular interest in this subject you probably already know about McGill's Music Technology programme, but if you haven't come across it you might want to check it out -- they're into "the study and development of new and flexible strategies for sound analysis, processing, synthesis and control, melodic pattern recognition, auditory display, symbolic manipulation of formal music representations, as well as the psychoacoustics of musical sounds and structures."
Out west, at least the west as in Winnipeg, people used to have "socials." Maybe they still do, I haven't lived there for some time. (Winnipegers, feel free to weigh in!) Anyway, they were social events, no surprise, usually involving a door charge to cover costs, or more likely to raise funds for some "social" cause. Like to fund someone's honeymoon in Cancun.
I don't know if that has anything to do with why Outlaw Social, who are from far further out west (Victoria) gave themselves the name, but it was fun to reminisce for a moment about socials, which hold fond memories of crowded function rooms, spilled beer and lots of music.
Tonight you can form your own, non-beery musical memories, with a concert on Canada Live (8 p.m.) by Outlaw Social, (pictured here), who are a bluegrass group. The concert was recorded at the Brackendale Art Gallery for the Brackendale Bluegrass Festival. Not too often are art galleries home to bluegrass concerts, I don't think, and by all accounts it was a fun show. You can hear for yourself, online as well, as Concerts On Demand: Outlaw Social.
Second up on Canada Live -- the Jennifer Scott Quartet. Ms. Scott is a jazz singer based in Vancouver, and in this performance music includes tunes by Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Cole Porter. Which provides me with a handy excuse to mention that today is the anniversary of the first performance of Porter's Can-Can, which will be celebrated this evening on Tonic, as mentioned earlier in a post called When It Drizzles.
Reading music blogs can be like taking a walk in a forest over-populated by extremely energetic deer. In other words, so many deer paths leading who knows where? You go down one path only to find another.
Sometimes they do turn out to be quite satisfying to follow though. In other words, (casting aside the deer and the paths), from time to time I like to point out a few music related blogs you may be interested in, depending on your own musical leanings, of course.
A blog exploring West African music called Voodoo Funk.
A blog "dedicated to 78rpm recordings of folkloric and vernacular music from around the world," called Excavated Shellac.
Classical Pontifications With Professor Heebie McJeebie. I'd better just give you his own explanation of what this blog is about: "Here we discuss the trajectory of Contemporary Canonic Classical music (Serious Music) and occassionally [sic] trifle with the less-grounded trends of younger, vagabond composers."
Note: Professor McJ. is actually quite well-known, all around Rochester.
What's with people leaving their violins lying about these days? Back in April, as I wrote in a post called More Lost Violins, the things seemed to be cast about willy nilly, expensive instruments left untended to the mercies of hopefully conscientious strangers.
Making news this week: Philippe Quint's violin, a 1723 Kiesewetter Stradivarius. He left it in a taxi on the way back from the airport. The good news is that the cabbie returned it. As BBC news reports, Quint's response was to give the cabbie and his colleagues a private 30-minute concert (as well as tickets to Quint's next performance at Carnegie Hall). By going to that BBC link you can see a little bit of the concert he did for the cabbies at the airport, as well as an interview with Quint.
It’s a “those were the days” duel in the Cage this week on Music & Company (6 a.m.). Tom pits Edvard Grieg's From Holberg's Time against Ottorino Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances.
If you're a MuCo regular you already know the rules: you listen, you ponder, you vote. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, best to tune in to find out.
You're probably wondering about that image though, right? It's Edvard Grieg.
Heh heh.
No, the story is this. Failing to find an image of Respighi that I could legally use, I give you instead ballet dancers Alexandra Danilova and Leonid Massine as they appeared in Boutique Fantastique for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, music by Rossini... orchestrated by Ottorino Respighi.
Cole Porter's musical Can-Can opened on Broadway on this day in 1953. I guess the best known songs from it are It's All Right With Me ("...though your lips are tempting they're the wrong lips...") and I Love Paris ("...in the springtime, in the fall, when it drizzles sizzles..." etcetera).
So you assume it was a hit, right? Well, some critics have viewed the score as "second rate." According to one Porter biographer, William McBrien, the critic Kenneth Tynan wrote that it was Porter at "half-pressure, a frail trellis for a multitude of internal rhymes..."
To that I say, hey buddy, Porter's trellis beats most composers' arboretums. Take that. Yes there were other more successful Porter shows, but regardless, there were some great songs in Can-Can, and as it is the anniversary, on Wednesday evening Tonic (6 p.m.) will celebrate with music from the musical.
Ah, just thinking of being in Paris at this time of year is so sigh-inducing, isn't it, I do love Paris in the springtime.
And so does Doris Day.
Yes, a little too much Eiffel Tower, but still nice to see those images...
Tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) the Attar Project: violinist Parmela Attariwala and tabla player Shawn Mativetsky, who combine contemporary composition (and classical virtuosity) with traditional Indian rhythms.
You may be wondering what that actually might be like, and you could do worse than the description from the Attar Project's Myspace site..."virtuoso violin (sometimes dancing) meets Benares gharana tabla meets country fiddle meets contemporary Western composition meets improvisation meets contemporary bharata-natyam choreography."
It's a project that's been evolving since 1995 -- collaborators have included tabla player Ravi Naimpally (of TASA) and ghazal singer Kiran Ahluwalia.
As Attariwala puts it, she uses the Attar Project name to describe music that "seeks intersections between seemingly disparate musical genres."
Tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) Katie is featuring jazz from trombonist Steve Turre, the Glenn Hall Trio, and a live set from the Michel Petrucciani quintet, recorded in Metz, France in November, 1991.
And since we're talking jazz, you may be interested to know that Oliver Jones released a new recording today, Second Time Around, his 12th for Justin Time. The indie Canadian label celebrates its 25th birthday this year and Jones was actually the label's first signed artist, so it's fitting that he releases this recording for them -- a quarter century later.
As for the album title, Second Time Around, that's a little joke-- in 2000 Oliver Jones officially retired, but then released a recording last year called One More Time.
This all provides me with a good reason to put up a video of the Oliver Jones Trio doing Just A Closer Walk With Thee. Despite the annoying high frequency, it's still terrific -- and some great shots of Oliver Jones in performance.
Actually I guess that should be "du semaine," since every Tuesday Canada Live releases a new podcast, which you can download from Radio 2 Podcasts.
Today's includes a very nice sample of music recorded by CBC R2 live, from the Cowboy Junkies, (that's lead singer Margo Timmins in the photo) what some have called "mysticssippi" blues (eg. blues from east and west) by Harry Manx, and music from Winnipeg vocal group Chic Gamine.
People can debate the wisdom of turning to Wikipedia for accurate information until the cows come home, and probably will. I will not. Nor will I rely upon it when writing a biography. But one of the things I like that Wikipedia does (yes, subject to fact checking of course) is a small section called "In Popular Culture."
So, for example, under the entry for Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, In Popular Culture will tell you that excerpts of the music have been used not only in the movie A Clockwork Orange (which also did a lot, depending on how you look at it, for Singin' In The Rain, not to mention the music of Beethoven), but also in the anime TV series Princess Tutuand the 1968 Deep Purple album Shades Of Deep Purple.
But today you have an opportunity to hear the symphonic suite without thinking of futuristic nightmares, rock bands, or cartoon characters with unnaturally large eyes, when Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) plays a performance by the Dresden Stastskapelle Orchestra, under the direction of Charles Dutoit.
Music Monday has come and gone...but the melody lingers on. Really, it does, you can hear the audio of the massed children's choirs (you may have heard them live yesterday on Studio Sparks) right here.
As I mentioned in the post Kids Behind The Radio Microphones, when there is music in the atrium of the Broadcast Centre -- where this took place -- it always lures people in the building away from their desks, to listen to the music. Yesterday, from that point of view (along the balconies around the atrium), it looked like this.
I hope the kids in the choirs had fun singing -- particularly knowing that over half-a-million kids across the country were all singing the same song at the same time as well.
Of course the real challenge for formalized music education is an ongoing one -- resources, funding and all that dreary and necessary business. But there's another educational lesson to come out of people getting together to sing too: It's fun. And the singing part? It's free.
Two songwriters and Cuban-Canadian jazz on Tuesday night's edition of Canada Live (8 p.m.).
The first concert is from St. Catherine's Catharine's Ontario native Scott Normandy, featuring music from his debut release, My Future My Past.
He's talking recent past: "These songs are about specific experiences that have occurred to me in the last year. They are real and honest and I am very proud of this material, "says Normandy. His music is kind of folk-rock, as we used to say, but whatever tag you want to put on it he's doing well by it so far -- as well as playing his hometown this month, you can also hear him in San Francisco. California, that is.
The second concert features Mike Evin (like Normandy's concert this show was recorded at Routes Montreal). Evin is a Halifax based songwriter and pianist, and this is a mostly solo set featuring new songs.
And finally, a concert from Jane Bunnett and Guantanamo Blues, in a concert of Cuban-inspired music from the flutist and soprano sax player. The CD associated with this group won a Juno in 2006, for Radio Guantanamo: Guantanamo Blues Project, and the music was a mix of blues and Louisiana styles with "Changüi" music of the province of Guantánamo.
I was thinking about Jane Bunnett on the weekend, when I was in Cuba myself, and as always was wowed by just how good the music you hear anyone play there -- in passing, in the most touristic places -- happens to be. The work she and her husband and collaborator, trumpet player Larry Cramer, have done over the years is extraordinary. Quite some time before Ry and The Buena Vista Social Club, they were collaborating with Cuban musicians, exploring the musical culture, helping new Cuban-Canadians acclimatize to life and the music scene here. And all the while, playing original, challenging (and fun) music. Speaking of things to be proud of...
Richard Marsella (a.k.a. Friendly Rich) is a musician, and also the Ontario Regional Director of the Canadian Music Centre, Canada's premiere organization devoted to new music composition.
So it won't come as any surprise that his interests in music education might fall under that handy dandy term "alternative" (sometimes used much the same way "avant garde" once was, a signifier indicating more about what it is not about than what it is). Anyway, his alternative music education programme is called The Parade of Noises and it sounds like a lot of fun. Really, he should run it for adults too, we'd all go.
But in its incarnation for kids he brings together around 700 school children to build their own instruments, write their own music, and parade their joyful cacophony through the streets of Brampton, Ont.
Tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) you can hear Laurie's interview with Friendly Rich, and it will be up soon on CBC's Music Monday website in its full glory at some point soon too.
Also on tonight's show, The Signal's Music Monday edition, excerpts from Elijah’s Kite, an original opera about the problem of bullying. It's by Canadian composer James Rolfe, with libretto by Camyar Chai. Bonus -- Madonna Hamel’s documentary about the creation of this opera will be broadcast as well.
Canada Live (8 p.m.) criss-crosses the country tonight with music from eight locations, all performed by young people who are studying music.
Having just come back from Cuba, where the music education system is partly responsible for turning out fabulous young musicians -- and has helped create an incredibly musical society -- this strikes me as a wonderful way to celebrate the culture of young Canadians learning music. We may not have a widespread indigenous Canadian music, but we do have an ever-growing collection of music traditions, starting with some of our earliest: celtic, native and Metis traditions, folk and country music, classical and jazz etc. etc. And continuing with music from a wide range of cultures.
Perhaps as time passes Canada will become known for this. While it's true that it isn't as neat a package as music from parts of the world where there are a smaller number of highly defined traditions, it has in its own way a truly exciting eclecticism, with so much potential.
Tonight you can get a sense of that through Canada Live's show -- as you'll hear piano students in Newfoundland play music by local composers; the Saskatoon Children's Choir perform music dedicated to ideas of peace and international understanding; students at a Brazilian music school in Montreal; mentors and students in Winnipeg playing jazz; the Mushfiq Youth Ensemble performing East Indian music in Ottawa; students of fiddler Oliver Schroer coming together to perform one of his pieces in Toronto; the band Ohbijou taking part in an indie band workshop at the Banff Centre; and a youth marimba band joining a percussion group in Vancouver in an event called Sprit of Africa.
A lot of great musicians have had mentors who are also great musicians, only stands to reason. That's one of the areas of music education Tonic (6 p.m.) explores tonight, as a reflection of Music Monday.
I'm sure most musically-inclined people remember someone, or someones, who changed our lives musically. A teacher, a friend, a parent. Because though obviously much of music education is about learning the mechanics, the techniques, the principles and the history, a lot of it is about learning how to listen, and having great music to listen to. Something I imagine the Marsalis kids grasped from a very young age...as this version of the family playing Struttin With Some BBQ shows.
Jurgen Gothe's approach to music is always, well, just so very Jurgen. Today's special feature on DiscDrive (3 p.m.) in honour of Music Monday is no exception. That Jurgenness evidences itself with Robert Lafond’s Sym-funny Orchestra, classical music well-played on toy instruments. Also, with what has been described as "a grownup approach to Chopsticks." Plus some music in the likely more expected category -- Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.
I wonder what memories you may have of your school or church or community choir days, if you count yourself among that number?
I have many, including faking the ability to sight sing for a considerable amount of time before the conductor caught on and convinced me it was worthwhile to actually learn to read music. I also remember singing in a radio broadcast where one girl was so nervous I had to talk her out of the bathroom in time for the broadcast. (I was nervous too, but the thrill of live radio outbid the nerves.)
But mostly what I remember about early choir days was the fantastic feeling of singing with other people. The power of voices. The beauty, when we got it right.
Today there are some kids (probably getting a little nervous themselves right about now) who will be singing live on CBC R2, on Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) in the third hour of the programme. They'll be singing the Music Monday "signature tune", called Our Song, which was written by the singer-songwriter duo Dala for the occasion -- four children's choirs will perform it from the atrium at the Toronto CBC Broadcast Centre.
For those in the building that's very special -- the singing draws them from behind their computers, people sneak out of their offices to ring the balconies around the atrium and listen. And that live energy transmits itself through the airwaves, so wherever you are listening, I hope you enjoy it!
But it's actually not just singing you can hear on S'sparks today, it's also kids playing. That's in the first hour of the show, when CBC Radio 2 producer Kelly Rice goes to Ecole Marguerite-De Lajemmerais in Montreal, where 30 young classical guitarists will be standing by to play. Tuning, and re-tuning as we speak, no doubt. Bon chance, buena suerte, good luck to all of the young performers on the show.
One more note -- if you are curious about the theme song for Music Monday, you can listen to it online here. And this is what its composers (Amanda Walther and Sheila Carabine, aka Dala) say about their own public school music education days:
Our journey to become professional musicians naturally began in our high school music class. Having been blessed with a passionate teacher, a creative environment, and an inspired group of students, it is no surprise that music has been ringing in our hearts (and ears) ever since. When we were invited to compose the theme song for Music Monday this year, it felt like a true homecoming. Supporting music education in schools is critical, and for us to be able to use the very skills we learned in the classroom to do so is an absolute pleasure! - Sheila and Amanda
I gratefully receive the baton from Ms. Markowitz (see last post) who has been keeping the blog fires well-stoked (a mixed metaphor is always an invigorating way to start the day, don't you think) these past couple of weeks.
Yes, it's Li back in the blogging saddle, and many thanks to Philly for doing such an admirable job filling in. I hope you've enjoyed her work on the blog -- among other things her predilection for sharing interesting factoids about music and musicians, such as Carla Bley's passion for roller skating, just to cite one example. So again, thanks P.M.!
And now to the matter at hand -- Music Monday, with its featured programing all day on CBC R2. Coming up after Music &Co., it's Here's To You (9 a.m.), where for the past couple of weeks Catherine has been asking listeners to write in with their memories of a music teacher who inspired them. Today Catherine will share some of those memories, including a story from a listener in Ottawa who points out the, ahem, fortitude that high school music teachers must have to stand up in front of a hundred teenagers armed with loud instruments. In a similar vein, a London, Ontario woman reflects on her childhood piano teacher’s knack for keeping reluctant teenagers interested in music.
Perhaps I was lucky. Every music teacher I ever had inspired in some way -- which must be why I remember them all. Now, I can't say the same for those who taught me science, but that's likely no fault of their's. Still, it makes you wonder -- do you have to be musically inclined to be inspired by a music teacher? Or if that the true gift of a good music teacher -- that they could open up a whole world to someone who had previously been, say, the science teacher's pet...
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 5-08 at 06:14 AM
In addition to today being Music Monday, it is also the day that your regular CBC Radio 2 blogger - the erudite Ms. Li Robbins - returns from her well-deserved holiday. I sincerely hope it was a relaxing respite and that Li comes home to us re-vitalized and full of insights and stories to share.
I have had a lively and interesting two weeks here at the ol' blogging post - I hope you've enjoyed reading my (often rambling) posts as much as I've enjoyed writing them for you.
Welcome home Li. I look forward to reading a post I haven't written sometime later today!
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 5-08 at 12:00 AM
The big day is finally here.
It is Music Monday, and from coast to coast to coast, children and the adults who educate them will be taking their instruments outside (weather permitting) and letting live music be heard in and around their communities.
I'll admit I felt a little swell of pride when I looked at the Coalition for Music Education in Canada website that listed the many schools that have registered for this event and saw my own kids' school there. I know for a fact that the instruments have been cleaned and polished, the children have been practicing, and that later today they will form just one tiny part of a giant orchestra that will be playing the same song at the same time nation-wide.
Thinking about Music Monday over the past few days has brought to mind a series of unexpected but wonderful images and memories from my own musical childhood. One random example (of many) is the day I spent measuring and cutting lengths of copper plumbing pipe and laying the pieces out "just so" to create a home-made xylophone for "invent your own instrument day" in Miss Shannon's Grade 6 class (a task which brought into play not just music but math and construction skills, as well). I can still sing you the song I wrote with my friend Diana, which started "you can't go wrong singing your song, doing your thing, get up and sing". OK, obviously I was no Mozart, but 30 years later, the joy of that project is still with me.
And that is precisely what music Monday acknowledges: the joy of learning, teaching and creating music. Whether you are (like me) a passionate amateur, or a skilled musician of any kind, music education is the foundation on which a lifetime of joy is built.
Today CBC Radio 2 celebrates Music Monday with a full slate of programs, starting with 3 hours of music from child prodigies on Music and Company, and ending with an interview with Friendly Rich on The Signal (who, by the way, encourages kids in Brampton, Ontario to build and play instruments of their own invention - in the spirit of my own Grade 6 class).
Other highlights of the day include a live broadcast from the Atrium of the Toronto Broadcast Centre featuring 4 childrens' choirs on Studio Sparks, and a special edition of Canada Live with concerts from 8 cities across the country.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 4-08 at 08:40 PM
The Signal with Pat Carrabré gets a head start on Music Monday this Sunday night. Pat spins music by, for and about children. You’ll hear the Gryphon Trio, Kara Keith and Laura Barret.
Pat's also got Oliver Knussen’s opera based on the Maurice Sendak classic, Where the Wild Things Are. The fantastical 1960's book is about to get a film adaptation by director Spike Jonze for release in 2009. I'll admit I have mixed feelings about this. Hollywood seems unable to let good books remain good books, preferring to milk the collective childhood memories of the baby boomers and re-make, re-model and re-market them - shiny and new-ish - to the next generations. Prepare for licenced Wild Thing products to hit store shelves everywhere, and prepare to become bored (6 months later) with Sendak's marvellous characters and images which will undoubtedly be emblazoned on everything from plastic crowns to underwear. Sigh.
The concert segment tonight features musical protégées, as Montreal composer Michel Gonneville showcases some of his exceptional students in a Toronto performance.
By the way, Pat keeps his own blog for The Signal: visit to see his post about Music Monday.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 4-08 at 06:45 PM
It's a concert from a jazz legend in hour 2 of Canada Live tonight.
For four decades jazz dynamo Carla Bley has broken boundaries, refused to be typecast and let her imagination result in creative jazz at its best. The daughter of a piano teacher, Bley left the instrument as a teen to follow her passion for roller-skating. A job as a cigarette girl at Birdland re-immersed in music and introduced her to Paul Bley, who would become her husband (and from whom she is divorced).
Carla Bley was a pioneer in the free-jazz movement in the 1960's, working alongside and encouraging the work of countless other musicians including Gary Burton, Art Farmer and Jimmy Guiffre. In the mid-1960s she helped co-ordinate the Jazz Composers Guild, co-led the Jazz Composers' Orchestra and started the JCOA record label, all of which brought together the most innovative musicians in New York at the time. In the 1970s, Bley helped create the New Music Distribution Service, an independent distributor of music on the edges of conventional genre boundaries.
By the 1980s, Bley was in demand as a composer and arranger, sought out by musicians such as Robert Wyatt, Anton Fier and Jack Bruce and producer Hal Wilner (who included Bley on the Kurt Weill tribute album, Lost in the Stars.) Bley continues to be an innovator in her genre, working closely with her partner legendary jazz bassist and composer Steve Swallow and other musicians far and wide.
In tonight's concert from Toronto's Distillery District, she heads the Art of Jazz Orchestra, together with special guests, Steve Swallow, and multi-instrumentalist Howard Johnson.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 4-08 at 06:44 PM
In an intimate club gig in Toronto, k.d. lang performs songs from her new album, "Watershed" on Canada Live.
When k.d. busted out of the gate 25 years ago in her cowboy boots and tattered dresses spittin' nails and singing torch and twang, she had bravado. As a mature artist, k.d. lang demonstrates a confidence and clarity of vision that you can hear in every note.
Watershed is comprised of 11 new songs which were written, produced and recorded by k.d. herself. This release is the first self-produced collection in the 25-year career of the four-time Grammy winner, and it's one that prompts me to ask "what took you so long?"
With this new disc, k.d. has proven that she is as skilled a writer, arranger and producer as she is a vocalist. Influences have been pulled in from all aspects of her varied career and blended seamlessly into one flawless-sounding testament to her many talents.
In her own words, k.d. explains: "Watershed is like a culmination of everything I've done -- there's a little bit of jazz, a little country, a little of the Ingénue sound, a little Brazilian touch. It really feels like the way I hear music, this mash-up of genres, and I think it reflects all the styles that have preceded this in my catalogue."
Tonight's concert includes several tracks from Watershed, plus songs penned by Neil Young, Jane Siberry and Leonard Cohen for good measure. k.d. will embark on a cross-Canada tour beginning in Ottawa on May 24th.
The second half of Canada Live this evening is a concert with pioneering jazz-woman Carla Bley (separate entry to come).
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 4-08 at 04:11 PM
This week on Skylarking, a show that's strange even by Skylarking's standards!
The music is wonderful - of course - everything from jazz to a song about a month. (I wonder, September Song? April in Paris? Get Me Through December? Really, you can't go wrong with any of them.)
André will also take us from Daniel Johnston (pictured) to Shakespeare, from Raymond Chandler to the American eccentric Henry Darger. Actually, on second thought, this week's Skylarking is perfectly normal. It's the rest of the world that's strange.
The portraits are six special programs that look at the life and music of some of this country’s finest jazz musicians. You might call them our elder statesmen: artists who built the foundations of Canada’s jazz scene and who continue to push it forward today. Pianist Renee Rosnes, herself a young star on Canada’s jazz scene, hosts this six-pack of conversations with Canadian jazz giants.
This week, she’s in Toronto at the home of composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Don Thompson. The multiple Juno- and National Jazz Award-winning Thompson is one of this country's finest jazz musicians, composers, arrangers and educators (yes, conveniently themed to reflect our Music Monday celebrations).
When I was young, I thought there was more than one Don Thompson, or "D.T." as I'd heard him called. There was the piano player who also played vibes and drums, and then there was the bass player. It took me a long time to figure out that the Don Thompson of the keys, mallets, sticks and strings were - and are - one and the same. How my admiration grew!
Tune in today for a glimpse into his marvellous musical mind.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 4-08 at 10:40 AM
Even by the generous standards of the typical Montreal flat, Gregory Charles has one heck of a big living room.
The host of In the Key of Charles marks Music Monday with this special Sunday Prelude. Gregory's invited 30 former students of his – the young men and women of Le Collège Vocal de Laval – to join him in his living room for an impromtu choral jam session of gospel, pop, classical and folk music. Also on the programme, cuts from the original New York cast of Grease, Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, Barbara Streisand, Lizz Wright, Jack Johnson, Buddy Miles and Jimmy Smith.
They'll sing, dance (one assumes he'll have moved the furniture out), and celebrate the inspired combination of music and youth.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 4-08 at 07:29 AM
Choral Concert offers a preview (or perhaps a running start) to CBC Radio 2’s Music Monday special this weekend. Howard Dyck will celebrate the enduring and indomitable spirit of children and the joy of singing, as expressed in the music of Benjamin Britten, R. Murray Schafer, John Rutter and others.
You’ll also hear Dona Nobis Pacem - A Hymn for World Peace (originally appended to the work African Sanctus) by British composer, traveler and ethno-musicologist David Fanshawe.
The Dona Nobis Pacem I know best is the common sacred round dating back to the 16th century which is still sung around the world today - a melody that once heard is impossible to forget. Just thinking about the opening phrase "Do-O-NAH, no-o-BEEss" virtually ensures 2 things for me:
1 - fond memories of all the times I have heard and sung this lovely, simple round at peaceful gatherings of all kinds
2 - that I will be humming it to myself (complete with the mistakes I've learned and can't seem to unlearn) for the rest of the week.
I suppose as earworms go, having this melody stuck in my head is a small blessing.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 4-08 at 05:25 AM
In co-operation with the Coalition for Music Education in Canada, the nation-wide celebration of music-making and music education begins today on CBC Radio 2.
You'll hear special programming today starting with Choral Concert, and including contributions from In the Key of Charles and The Signal - all of whom plan to feature music by, for and about children.
Here's the schedule, including tomorrow's programming highlights, as well.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 4-08 at 12:00 AM
It's a Western roundup this week - but don't expect to hear the theme from "The Magnificent Seven" or even "Rodeo".
This week on Sunday Afternoon in Concert, Bill Richardson serves up some recent performances by the Calgary Philharmonic and the Regina Symphony orchestras, plus there's some added spice from the Vancouver Recital Society.
So, what do you get when you cross Brazilian folk music with the music of Bach? Bachianas Brasileiras, of course - Heitor Villa-Lobos’ collection of Brazilian/Baroque fusions! An intriguing program from the CPO features the best of both performed by its Brazilian Maestro Roberto Minczuk and soprano Donna Brown. The concert from Jack Singer Hall includes Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major and Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 & No. 7
From Conexus Arts Centre, the Regina Symphony Orchestra led by Victor Sawa welcomes two outstanding string soloists from opposite points on the musical compass. George Gao is a virtuoso performer on the erhu, sometimes referred to as the Chinese violin. It is a bowed musical instrument with two strings, pitched in the treble register like a violin, but held upright in the lap in a similar fashion as a cello. George joins the orchestra to perform four 2,000 year old compositions found in Dunhuang Province, China, and for "Galloping Horses," a piece that exemplifies the Mongolian people's love of horses.
Also being welcomed by the is cello soloist Denise Djokic (pictured), who brilliantly exploits the full resources of her instrument in Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 2. In addition, there's a world premiere of a new composition, I Ciarlatani, by the RSO's Principal violist Jonathan Ward.
To add a little dash of paprika to the musical mix the Vancouver Recital Society welcomes Gypsy violinist extraordinaire Roby Lakatos and his ensemble in their Vancouver debut. Be it classical, jazz or the folk music of his native Hungary, music courses through the veins of this fiddler, composer, and arranger. He can trace his musical heritage back seven generations to 18th-century Budapest, in a fiery mix of Romany melodies and classical counterpoint.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 3-08 at 09:20 PM
This evening Pat Carrabré slips the new CD from rock'n'roll cellist Matt Haimovitz, “Vinyl Cello” into high rotation, playing five tracks from this former child prodigy (and now Canadian resident).
In concert, it's great improv from the Ottawa Jazz Collective with work from Yves Martel, Petr Cancura, Michael Fahie and Mike Essoudry.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 3-08 at 07:01 PM
Canada Live comes from Vancouver this evening, with 2 concerts in celebration of Asian Heritage Month.
Pandit Debi Prasad Chatterjee is a highly regarded name among Indian musicians as an outstanding Sitarist and teacher of Indian Classical Music. He has been honored with many awards throughout his illustrious career including the "President's Award" and was named "National Scholar of Music" for his contributions to the promotion of Indian Classical Music.
Chatterjee brings his instrument to CBC Studio One for a concert with local musicians Sunny Matharu and Peter Berkham. A collaboration between some of Canada's rising Indian musicians and an international star.
To start the show, Tambura Rasa takes you on a musical journey. From the richness of India and the upbeat sounds of West Africa, to the sensual rhythms of the Middle East, the joyous dance of the Balkans and the Flamenco of Spain, Tambura Rasa's tour is non-stop. Tambura Rasa a quintet featuring vocals, multi-percssion, bass and violin includes rich ancient traditions from diverse corners of the world with an acoustic underpinning that keeps the sound grounded.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 3-08 at 04:56 PM
Get sociable Saturday on Tonic with the great "cong-istador" (yes, I made that up and I quite like it) Poncho Sanchez, who'll bring us the Ultimate Dance Party!
Sociable host "Tim Tam" has new recordings from Vancouver's Cellar Live label, music from Sergio Mendes and some great duos. You'll also hear from Nancy Walker, Mike Allen and One Up One Down.
PS - technically the term for a conga player is "conguero".
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 3-08 at 12:38 PM
This weekend, members of über-Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip (pictured) and Beethoven interpreter, pianist Anton Kuerti were among those being awarded prizes at the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 3-08 at 11:46 AM
This week on Saturday Afternoon at the Opera with Bill Richardson the curtain comes down on a season of broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. True to the old show biz adage "leave 'em laughing," The Met is signing off in fine comic style with a production of Mozart's farcical singspiel The Abduction from the Seraglio.
In Mozart's time, audiences were fascinated with the exotic culture of the Turkish Ottoman empire (rather like the Victorian England's penchant for Japanese culture - think of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Mikado"). The once-fearsome miltary dynasty was now less of a threat and Europeans revelled in what they imagined to be Turkish culture: harems, exotic clothes, water pipes, and cruel tortures. A Turkish costume was a popular choice at masked balls, and Turkish characters cropped up in all sorts of plays and operas. Mozart's "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" toys with these stereotypes.
The international cast includes the sensational German soprano Diana Damrau singing the role of Konstanze (see photo), a young Spanish señorita abducted by pirates and sold into the harem of a Turkish ruler. Tenor Matthew Polenzani is Belmonte, her would-be rescuer from the clutches of Pasha Selim (a speaking role for German actor Matthias von Stegmann). The superb cast also includes Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak as the maid, Blondchen, Malaysian tenor Steve Davislim in his Met network debut as the valet Pedrillo, and Icelandic bass Kristinn Sigmundsson as Osmin, the guardian of the palace harem. The American conductor David Robertson leads the performance.
Intermission content will include backstage interviews with the artists as well as the final Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Quiz of the season hosted by the vibrant soprano Natalie Dessay. Since 1940, the broadcasts have been heard in Canada, and in 1990 they expanded to include regular transmission to Europe.
What better way to experience some of the greatest music ever written for the violin than through the ears of one of the finest violinists of our time? Join Maestro Pinchas Zukerman, music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, and host Eric Friesen for part five of the ten-part series, The Concerto According to Pinchas.
It's the earliest of the great romantic concertos and it's also the most difficult - according to Pinchas. Come along as Eric and the Maestro discover the heartbeat of Beethoven's masterpiece.
The Saturday edition of Inside the Music airs at:
- 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. in Ontario, Quebec, Central, Mountain and Pacific
- 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the Maritimes
- 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in NL
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 3-08 at 06:44 AM
There's a new Concert on Demand at the CoD site: the CPO's Brazilian Baroque.
And no, this isn't the opening line to a joke...
What do you get when you cross Brazilian folk music with the music of Bach? Bachianas Brasileiras, of course - Heitor Villa-Lobos’ collection of Brazilian/Baroque fusion! This program features the best of both composers played by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Brazilian Music Director, Roberto Minczuk.
You can have a listen now, then tune in Sunday afternoon to hear the whole performance - with erudite host Bill Richardson - on Sunday Afternoon In Concert.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 2-08 at 07:13 PM
Polish up your dancing shoes because tonight on The Signal, Pat takes a look at the roller coaster ride that is the career of electronic music producer, social commentator and vegan activist - Moby.
As someone with a few Moby CDs in my own collection, I can attest to the fact that the quality of Moby's output is unpredictable. His famous collaborations with superstars including David Bowie, Lou Reed and Michael Stipe have ranged from fabulous to ho-hum, but Moby remains an artist whose work is highly anticipated and appreciated with rabid fervour by his many dedicated fans.
Also, In concert from Vancouver’s GUITARS! GUITARS! Festival, an epic piece by Nicolas Bragg-The Burial of Count Orgaz: 2 guitars, loops and enough effects pedals to sink a small tugboat.
And finally, Pat peels the wrapping off a few fresh CDs and spins some “Sad Ocean Space Bear”, Animal Collective, Baby Dee, Destroyer and more.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 2-08 at 07:01 PM
Two concerts from Montreal tonight on Canada Live:
Kora player Zal Idrissa Sissokho brings several generations of tradition to his music. As a descendent of the Sissokho "griot" line, he was born to make music and to keep the stories of his forefathers' kingdom alive: just as the griots have done in West Africa since the empire of the great Sundiata Keita in the mid-13th century. Now based in Montreal, he blends new influences with the music of his native Senegal. Hear him lead his band Buntalo in concert tonight on Canada Live.
Also on the program, a tribute to Hammond B-3 legend Jimmy Smith by Montreal's Altsys Jazz Orchestra. Not one but three B-3 players - Vanessa Rodrigues, Martin Petersen and Kevin Dean. Hmmmm - sounds a lot like the fantastic B3 summit I mentioned last week on the Tonic pages!
You can catch these shows on Canada Live tonight at 8 p.m. (8:30 NT) on CBC Radio Two.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 2-08 at 05:03 PM
Get your weekend off to a great start this evening with Tonic. You'll hear music from the films "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" (yeah, baby!) and "The Postman Always Rings Twice."
Also, a set of tunes from the Deep Blue Organ Trio recorded live at the Green Mill in Chicago. Plus Brazilian funk from neo-bossa favourites Trio Mocoto, great vocals from Stacey Kent, and jazz guitar from Herb Ellis with the Oscar Peterson Trio.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 2-08 at 02:44 PM
I have been virtually inundated with requests from listeners wanting to know if the Choral 2008 live-to-air broadcasts will be repeated.
Well, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is no, the live-to-air finals will not be re-broadcast again as-is. Alas, that's the fleeting nature of live radio.
The good news is that the next stage of Choral 2008 is still to come. On Sunday May 18th, at 1:00 p.m. (that's the Sunday Afternoon in Concert airtime) all the first place choirs will compete live and in person in a Gala Winners Concert from Laval, QC - again with host Gregory Charles.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 2-08 at 11:59 AM
What is "body music?" If you ask Keith Terry he is likely to answer, "clapping, slapping, snapping, stepping, and vocalizing." Terry became a "body musician" while he was rehearsing with the renowned Jazz Tap Ensemble. In his words, "I stood up and moved what I was playing on my drums to my body. That's how I came to it".
Keith's lifelong quest of music and dance has just been rewarded with a highly-coveted Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue collaborative work with body musicians in Brazil, Turkey, and Indonesia. A highlight of this grant will be the inaugural International Body Music Festival held in the San Francisco Bay Area this December featuring the stellar Brazilian body music ensemble Barbatuques and Keith's own Slammin All-Body Band.
The ambitious festival will take place in San Francisco and Oakland in December 2008, and will include performances and workshops by Brazil's Barbatuques, as well as performers of other body music traditions, such as Hambon or South African Gumboot.
For more about Keith Terry's "body" of work, visit the Crosspulse website.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 2-08 at 10:05 AM
"Hey, we have that poster in our classroom!" That's what my daughter said to me while reading about Music Monday over my shoulder earlier this week. She'd already brought home her clarinet so she could practice for the upcoming Music Monday concert at her school (my son is starting on piano and drums and didn't cart anything home, thankfully).
On the first Monday of May each year, students and teachers take their music programs into the open air or into their communities to perform a short concert. There are outdoor concerts right across the country from the elementary level right through to secondary schools - some small celebrations, some large.
The magic of the event is that at the same point during that day, that is, at 10 am Pacific time, 11 am Mountain time, 12 pm Central time, 1 pm Eastern time and 2 pm Atlantic time, and 2:30 in Newfoundland, schools right across the country are united by one piece of music. The idea is that if one were to open the front door of his or her home and stand on the street on the first Monday in May, one would hear music and the skies would be filled with melody. What an inspiring initiative.
This year, CBC Radio is an active participant in Music Monday on the airwaves, with wall-to-wall special programming dedicated to music education and educators, starting Sunday May 4th, and running throughout the day on Monday May 5th. Stay tuned to CBC Radio 2 for details, and have a look at the schedule so you can plan your listening day.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 2-08 at 07:55 AM
As a preview to Music Monday, Catherine Belyea will present a couple of the (MANY!) letters listeners have sent in about their musical education on Here's to You.
Emily in Vancouver will tell us about her experience of trying to play a band instrument when all she knew was the piano. A very patient music teacher finally came up with the perfect instrument for her: the triangle! She loved it and requested something with lots of triangle in it.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 2-08 at 05:48 AM
This week, Tom brought us another "Everything Must Go" Cage Match. The contenders were a pair of cowboy themes: the finale of Borodin's 1st symphony, and Elmer Bernstein's Magnificent Seven.
Tune in this morning at 7:30 (8:00 in NL) to see which one stays in the paddock and which one heads off to the glue factory.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 1-08 at 08:07 PM
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra celebrates the keyboard as part of the New Creations Festival tonight on The Signal with Laurie Brown. Anthony Newman shines in the Harpsichord Concerto by minimalist master Philip Glass.
Then, Jean Laurendeau takes you deep into the complex musical world of Olivier Messiaen, performing on the rare and fascinating electronic keyboard, the Ondes Martenot. Also from this concert, The Gryphon Trio playing Equilateral by Canadian composer Jeffrey Ryan.
I have a very tenuous connection to the music of Messiaen, a "six degrees of separation" that actually involves the Gryphon Trio. A couple of years ago, a friend directed me to a study taking place at the University of Waterloo under the direction of Daniel Smilek. Smilek was studying syneasthesia - the condition that prompts some people to blur sensory perceptions so that they "taste" sound, or "see" music.
I have a very mild from of what might be called "proto-syneasthesia", whereby I associate colours with numerical values. All the women in my family seem to have it. Through my discussions with Smilek's team and with Sean Day, director of the American Synesthesia Association, I was invited to talk to Roman Borys of the Gryphon Trio. Borys was preparing a show of Messiaen's music (to debut in June 2008), and with the knowledge of Messiaen's own music-colour syneasthesia in mind, Borys was looking to interview anyone who might be able to help create the multi-media component of the show.
Sadly, I didn't have much to offer. I don't see dancing colours in front of my field of vision when I hear music. However, I became preoccupied with the amazing numbers of composers who were and are syneasthetes, and have a new appreciation for the work they create (the list includes Nikolai Rimsky-Korsikov, Duke Elligton and Franz Liszt).
To bring this all back to tonight's keyboard celebration, you may want to have a look at the Lumigraph: a "colour organ" keyboard that was designed by Oskar Fischinger to project colours as the notes were played.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 1-08 at 05:01 PM
Two great concerts from the Glenn Gould Studio tonight on Canada Live tonight: Gregory Hoskins followed by Harry Manx.
Gregory Hoskins is one of those "best kept secrets" type of artists. Those who have come across him and his musical friends generally describe the live concerts more as "communion" than entertainment. Pun intended - one of Hoskins's first gigs was to open for Mother Theresa... yes, THAT one, from Calcutta. Hoskins has been working away at music for the better part of 20 years, balancing his career with family in a way that few full-time musicians choose.
This performance is a one-time-only attempt to capture the "Hoskins spirit" in a live concert recording.
The evening will also include half the program arranged for strings, courtesy of international award winning composer Jonathan Goldsmith. Not happy to tread where others have gone before, the strings have been arranged for 2 distinct quartets operating as separate identities on stage, coming together only occasionally. The result is a highly innovative, intoxicating high wire act. With all this musical firepower on stage, this is no ordinary presentation of a singer/songwriter, but an elevation of the genre.
Harry Manx has been called an "essential link" between the music of East and West, creating musical short stories that wed the tradition of the Blues with the depth of classical Indian ragas.
He has forged a unique sound on the slide guitar and mohan veena (a guitar hybrid with sitar-like sympathetic strings) that is hard to forget and deliciously addictive to listen to. Harry created tonight's special event at Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto to further explore this delicate balance. Harry will be joined by Kevin Breit, a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist of endless creativity and virtuosic technique (and go-to side-man to Norah jones, Cassandra Wilson and others); Steve Marriner on harmonica; Ravi Naimpally, tabla; George Koller, bass; and introducing South Asian vocalist Samidha Joglekar.
Manx loved this concert and the CBC's recording of it so much, he's releasing this show as a live disc on his own label, Dog My Cat Records later this week.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 1-08 at 04:47 PM
Tonic will rock your Thursday evening with music from the funk band Down to the Bone. Katie will also have some new music from soul singer Estelle, samba from the Paulo Ramos Group and great neo-be-bop jazz from drummer Daniel Barnes.
Plus a set of tunes recorded almost 20 years ago in Glasgow by a quartet led by saxophonist Stan Getz, whose sweet and mellow tone has no doubt launched thousands of romances (including the one with my husband, many years ago). It's my guess that only Barry White can be credited with more!
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 1-08 at 01:52 PM
Jurgen samples some interesting new releases today on DiscDrive. He'll have pianist Anton Kuerti's new Haydn recording (there's Anton again!), plus this year's CD from Melody Gardot.
As well, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra has just released an intriguing disc of Beethoven's music that incorporates narration; you'll hear an excerpt, and last but not least the inimitable Roy Forbes (pictured) will sing music by equally inimitable Neil Young.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 1-08 at 10:59 AM
Call it a predictably Canadian response, but I get a little frisson whenever home-grown artists make it big (or even get mentioned) on the international stage.
Today on the BBC music pages there is a review of the latest disc by Newmarket, Ontario's Tokyo Police Club. The disc is called Elephant Shell and was just released - in fact, there are launch concerts scheduled in Toronto tomorrow and Saturday nights.
Having spent part of my childhood in Newmarket, I seem to be able to store the town's musical trivia with ease. For example, Tokyo Police Club isn't the first band from Newmarket to be named after the Japanese city. Before the 80's popsters Glass Tiger were... well, Glass Tiger, they were called "Tokyo". Tyler Stewart of BNL hails from Newmarket, Toronto visual artist and musician Kurt Swinghammer was born there, and honey-voiced songwriter Justin Hynes makes the town his home.
Phew! Please don't ask me to do the same listing for your town. There's only so much room in this brain for trivia.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 1-08 at 10:05 AM
We here at the R2 blog are thrilled to see the massive response to the special live-to-air broadcasts of Choral 2008 on Canada Live Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Several people have asked to see the line up for the evening's shows.
You'll find the names of the ensembles with links to their individual websites on the original blog posts, here.
You'll find the information about the individual works at the playlist section of the website: here's Tuesday and here's the playlist for Wednesday.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on May- 1-08 at 07:42 AM
This morning on Here's to You, Catherine reads a letter from Sandrine in Toronto. She says we all know it's spring when we start hearing what people are listening to through their open windows. Sandrine recently passed a house and heard the strains of Beethoven's Sonatina in G - a piece she played as a young piano student. Hearing a bit of that music brought back lots of memories for her and she'd like to hear the whole piece.
...no not Doug, but and Bill. Tune in tonight to The Signal (10 p.m.) to hear the "existential cinematic sounds" of Bob And Bill of Montreal.
Kingston...You'll Be Amazed! Anyone who drove into Kingston, Ont. during the 1990s will recall this official government roadside sign, which was possibly greeted with a small chuckle. Not to say that Kingston isn't a lovely city, but "amazed?" Well, one woman's amazement is another woman's...
Today Stuart McLean brings you a tale of wedding woe. So common, those wedding woe tales. In this case the woe begins when when Morley’s old friend Lesley announces that she is getting remarried and Morley realizes she has to not only don a bridesmaid dress, (probably in seafoam green), but also deal with someone's "issues." 
It was only a matter of time. Al Gore's 
One-man bands used to be guys dripping percussion, maybe with a woodwind or harp in mouth. Now, thanks to laptops, samplers, loopers and keyboards the possibilities are vast, far beyond percussion and tambourines affixed to your head. (I'm thinking about 
As you are no doubt well aware, TV shows are the new commercial radio. Get a song played on a popular show or anything broadcast by HBO these days, and your career might take a new turn. Or at least, your downloads might pick up. 
A reminder that this week's 
Signalites take note, The Signal (10 p.m.) may be joined in progress due to 
With this subject heading you might have thought, hmm...American Idol? Because even though this year's winner, 
Guitarist Django Reinhardt's music lives on world-wide. So interesting, when you think about it, that such a specific style so associated with one musician should be so pervasive. Tonight you can hear a Newfoundland take on Reinhardt's music on Canada Live (8 p.m.), with the 
Today on 
The legendary Canadian soprano
This week
Earlier this month musicians including Stompin' Tom Connors, Bryan Adams, Edith Butler and Robert Charlebois were honoured when 
Spooky coincidence! I happened to be listening to a new recording called Miles From India: A Celebration Of The Music Of Miles Davis, when I sat down to write about featured music coming up on Tonic (6 p.m.) this evening, only to see that Katie will be featuring music from the recording tonight. What can it mean?!? Absolutely nothing, but still. 
Don't know about you, but I'm finding it kind of thrilling to have a vicarious experience of all things 
Some "post-mountain jazz" from Norway is promised tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.). Well, earlier we had "tractor-jazz" (see previous post). However, "post-mountain" is, I suspect, a tad more specific a term. It's a way of trying to describe the reaction to the ambient and landscape-inspired jazz produced in Scandinavia in the 1980s. I'm thinking like Jan Garbarek, but certainly there were other artists playing music in that vein, and some in more of what you could call a "new-age" way. 
The other day, a nice rainy holiday Monday, the other person who inhabits my house (a.k.a. the husband) was thumbing through the old jazz LPs, looking for old trio recordings by 
Eric will be brushing up his Shakespeare today, as Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) presents a suite of music inspired by the Bard. 
Years ago I read 
So here are a few items making music news today, for your procastinatory pleasure: Martin 
Now this is intriguing. The Signal (10 p.m.) is presenting some music from what they describe as "a new musical crime drama." (I don't think it's a terribly exhaustive genre.) Anyway, it's called The Crime Report, and it's from
"My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often -- in fact mostly -- at the expense of everything else in my life."
It’s all about spring today on Here's To You (9 a.m.) from Primavera from Respighi's Three Botticelli Pictures to 
Whenever there is a live broadcast on CBC that goes across the country, things get a little complicated back at the ranch. Missives fly about (I think they're called NRT's) saying things like "live-full-east distribution pattern," and using more abbreviations than you can shake a stick at, should you wish to shake a stick.
Stuart McLean confesses this week. Yes, he owns up, comes clean. Again. There are more words he can't pronounce. And they include a surprisingly familiar fruit. (Stuart, apple isn't that hard, no, really, just think "ap" as in, um, "ap." Then "pple" like "pull." It's easy, really!) 
I know it's a little early, but it is heading into the long weekend when many thoughts turn to "two-fours" and for those in the sipping classes (or aspiring to win the 
How many know what a 
I confess I was unaware of the Jimi Hendrix Vancouver connection until hearing about the 
It's a sign of remarkable fame when a nickname conjures up the person. And in the case of Old Blue Eyes it also seems remarkable that it's already been ten years since he died. No wonder Frank beat out the other 50,000 contestants and wound up on 
File this under: Just when you thought things couldn't get any stranger...a robot conducted the 
As you know if you are a CBC Radio 2 listener, it was not long ago that we celebrated Beethoven's symphonies with a rather magnificent 
The Music & Company (6 a.m.) weekly 
Now, you could interpret that subject heading in any number of ways. First, that everyone is charging en masse to listen to The Signal (10 p.m.), which may well be true. 
A wee Canadian music news roundup for you:
Much big music news over the weekend, from the 12-year-old trombonist's victory, reported earlier in 
Grammy/Juno award winning violinist 
"Playing the trombone is fun. It's something I always wanted to do. I didn't want to pick a boring instrument." 
It's Mother's Day today. Some feel that it's a wonderfully tender day to celebrate mothers of the world, others find it a kind of Hallmark holiday. My own mother always eschews it, although she takes a rather interesting stance by saying "every day should be mother's day." I'll call her today anyway. 
Sometimes it seems that bands form and break up as fast as you can say "another singer-songwriter." So it's impressive when a band has longevity. And I'm not talking about the longevity of, say, The Rolling Stones. More impressive than that is the longevity of 
For those who follow Finnish music the name 
Back in Prague, in March of 1881, Dvorak's Symphony No. 6 was performed for the first time. 
Every year the International Fleet of Tall Ships makes its way to ports around the world -- you've probably seen them at some point, even us non-nautical types find it thrilling. For those who know their barques from their barquentines and sloops from their schooners, (clearly I do not, but I'm assuming there are differences, thus the specific names), it must be even more so. 
Let me count the ways. The Signal (10 p.m.) counts a few of them tonight, as Laurie takes a look at how keyboards, turntables, digital effects, and laptops have changed how music is made. A fascinating and vast subject, which Laurie illustrates with music from 
I wonder what memories you may have of your school or church or community choir days, if you count yourself among that number?
I gratefully receive the baton from Ms. Markowitz (see last post) who has been keeping the blog fires well-stoked (a mixed metaphor is always an invigorating way to start the day, don't you think) these past couple of weeks.
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