Anya M. Wassenberg's Blog: Art & Culture Maven, page 33
April 19, 2021
Classical Solo Piano: François Bourassa » L'Impact du silence (Effendi / April 16, 2021)
François Bourassa » L'Impact du silence
(Effendi / April 16, 2021) Get 'L'Impact du silence'
What's the impact of silence?
Perhaps it's an odd question for a composer to ask as the title of his album, but music is, in the end, a dance between sound and silence. Veteran pianist and composer François Bourassa's recent release is his first for solo piano after a career playing in jazz ensembles and other groups.
The mood of the album veers from thoughtful to dramatic, accessible to more esoteric. The composer talks about blending diverse directions on the album, and you can hear the drama of early 20th century music in some tracks. He mentions Scriabin in a video interview.
The music is modern, in that it uses a vast palette of music making tools from various eras to create expression, with an attention to melody (at least in bits and fragments) and rhythmic flow.
François talks about putting the album together in a documentary video.
On solo piano, his musical imagination ventures in a variety of compelling directions. Small Head is moody and rhythmic, a piece that would lend itself to dance. Triadique sparkles, ebbs and flows with emotion. The interludes (Interlude Y and Z) were short and striking - a single musical idea. Andante pays homage to the spirit of late Romanticism.Musique pour Film is a standout track, appropriately cinematic in scope. It's a longer piece on the album that cycles through a range of moods
Bourassa is known for his long career as a pianist in Québec's flourishing jazz community, and abroad as a visiting and touring musician. He's released nine albums prior to this one, including a 2001 Juno-winning live album with his quartet. In his 2017 release Carla und Karlheinz, he explored the influences of Carla Bley and Karlheinz Stockhausen in a jazz mode. This time, he delves more purely into the realm and language of Western classical music.
His change of direction is in part due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Still, a solo piano release was part of the jazz legacy that had drawn him to the piano in the first place - a legacy of artists like Chick Correa, Keith Jarrett, Monk, and others.
It's music that is meaty enough for serious listening, but still compatible with the mood playlist model that is keeping classical music relevant in the streaming era.
Stay in touch:https://francoisbourassa.com/https://www.facebook.com/officiel.francois.bourassahttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRPSgTYQKkMiZoKghMfqJqgBlues MasquéPiano / Composition: François Bourassa; Recording/Enregistrement: Studio La Buissonne; Animation & Concept: Sylvain Robert; Artistic Director: Mathieu Bourassa; Producer: Heidi Fleming; Consultant: Pei Yao Xu
NYC Reopens: Brooklyn Rooftop Jazz April 23 2021
From a media release:
NYC Reopens:Brooklyn Rooftop Jazz
April 23, 2021 Get Tickets
Following his sold-out, socially-distanced April 9 Rooftop Jazz show, impresario Michael Brovkine (Founder of Made in New York Jazz) continues to guide music fans across NYC on a timely return to the live concert world with this exciting set from the acclaimed Brazilian jazz drummer Duduka Da Fonseca.
Fonseca will be accompanied by Helio Alves on keys, Peter Washington on bass, and joined by special guest vocalist Maucha Adnet. Prior to the performance, attendees are invited to join us on the rooftop early for a fashion show of the RTW and Couture Collections, presented as part of Fashion Week Brooklyn.
This set is part of Mr. Brovkine's ongoing, biweekly Brooklyn Rooftop Series, currently hosted in Brooklyn. These shows will be staged on open-air rooftop space to best take advantage of social distancing protocols and the warming weather and will feature regular dinner and drink service throughout the evening. In the event of inclement weather, limited and socially distanced indoor seating is available. Paid tickets guarantee entry and socially-distanced dinner seating. All attendees must wear masks while at the event. Please refer to our complete COVID protocol information below.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Duduka Da Fonseca is a three-time Grammy nominee. He has appeared on over 200 albums alongside American and Brazilian jazz icons, making him one of the most recorded Brazilian drummers in his idiom. In 2002, Duduka's first solo album, Samba Jazz Fantasia, was nominated for the American Grammy Award. He is one of the very few Brazilians and the only Brazilian drummer thus far to be nominated for this prestigious award.
Duduka was a founding member and co-leader of Trio da Paz, nominated for an Indie Award as Best Latin Jazz Group in 1993. Their recording Partido Out won the Jazz Journalists Association Awards for best Brazilian Jazz Album of 2002. In 2016, Trio da Pazwon the Hot House NYC Award for the best group and was nominated for the American Grammy in the Best Latin Jazz category with their album 30. From 1984 to 2000, Duduka was a faculty member of the Drummers Collective NYC. He has also conducted workshops and master classes in Brazil, Europe and Asia.
In 2002, he formed the Duduka Da Fonseca Quintet featuring Anat Cohen, Guilherme Monteiro, Helio Alves and Leonardo Cioglia. The Quintet has recorded two critically acclaimed albums. Their second album Samba Jazz-Jazz Samba was listed among the ten best albums of the year in Jazziz Magazine. In 2009, Duduka formed his Brazilian-based Duduka Da Fonseca Trio, featuring David Feldman on piano and Guto Wirtti on acoustic bass. The Trio's fourth album Duduka Da Fonseca Trio Plays Dom Salvador, was released by Sunnyside Records in 2018.
Reservations for the April 23 event are available now on Eventbrite.PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING COVID PROTOCOLS
Space for this event is limited and available by reservation only to insure proper social distancing. All tables are separated by six feet distance and the performance stage will be a minimum of twelve feet from the dining tables. The wearing of masks by all attendees excluding performing musicians is mandatory.
Socceroof Rooftop is an open-air outdoor space to better accommodate COVID protocols. Please dress weather appropriately. Socceroof Rooftop will be serving dinner and drinks for all attendees who have reserved seats.
In the event of extreme inclement weather, there will be indoor seating in Socceroof's RoofTop Lounge. The indoor space has smaller capacity, so please make sure to reserve your tickets in advance. Starting as of April 2nd, at the instruction of Governor Cuomo, performances and live entertainment events in NYC are allowed to resume and indoor venues with a capacity of less than 1,500 attendees can reopen at 33% capacity.
Free parking is available outside of the building and via a nearby garage.
West African Supergroup: Coup de Coeur Free Livestream April 24 2021
From a media release:
West African Supergroup:Coup de Coeur
Free Livestream April 24 2021 RSVP Required
Batuki Music Society and Alliance Francaise Toronto present a virtual concert featuring Coup de Coeur on Saturday April 24th at 8:00 PM. Enjoy the concert from home!
Coup de Coeur is a new group based in Montreal, curated by Batuki Music Society, that features Senegalese musicians; Sadio Sissokho on kora, percussion and vocals, Assane Seck on guitar, vocalist Seydina Ndiaye, Malian musician Diely Mori Tounkara on kora and vocals and Carlo Birri on bass guitar.
This star-studded collective unites the talents of these artists, each an expert in their individual style and together performing songs that define regional variations, styles and melodies of traditional and popular West African music forms.
Coup de Coeur Virtual Concert - 8:00 PM
Date: Saturday April 24, 2021
Please consider making a donation. Your support is very valuable in enabling our institution to offer quality cultural events. Cultural institutions have been very strongly affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Today, more than ever, you can support our action.
Donation Link: bit.ly/2TVdlftBatuki Music Society gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council and Alliance Francaise Toronto.
Diely Mori Tounkara at a previous performance at Alliance Francaise Toronto for a taste of the sound:
April 4, 2021
Digital Dance Film: Harbourfront Centre Celebrates 20 Years Of Red Sky Performance - Streaming April 14 to 20 2021
From a media release:
Harbourfront Centre Celebrates 20th Anniversary of Indigenous Art InnovatorsRed Sky Performance with Digital Dance Film
- More Than Dance, We Are A Movement -
Streaming April 14 to 20, 2021
Third Digidance Presentation Features Excerpts from Award-Winning Creations Trace & Miigis, and Interviews from Collaborators Charting Company’s Extraordinary Journey
Get Tickets/Find Out MoreToronto, ON – Harbourfront Centre, in partnership with Digidance, announces the Canadian digital broadcast of More Than Dance, We Are A Movement, streaming April 14-20, 2021. The film marks the 20th anniversary of Toronto’s own interdisciplinary innovators Red Sky Performance - showcasing excerpts of their award-winning work and the remarkable story of their rise to one of the world's most prolific and celebrated Indigenous performance creators. Playing out over three distinct parts, the 58-minute film will include the exhilarating work Trace, interviews with Executive and Artistic Director Sandra Laronde and her company of collaborators, and Miigis - an exploration of unique connections to land and water, the environment and conservation.
Red Sky Performance (Miigis) by Wim LanserThe broadcast of More Than Dance, We Are A Movement is due to the coordinated effort of Digidance, a national initiative formed in response to COVID-19 between Canada’s leading dance presenters: DanceHouse (Vancouver), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), and Danse Danse (Montreal), and co-presented with Springboard Performance (Calgary).
“For two decades, Red Sky Performance has been at the forefront of innovative Indigenous performance, sharing their artistry with audiences across Canada and around the globe. We could not be more thrilled to mark this milestone than with the presentation of this new film,” says Nathalie Bonjour, Director, Performing Arts at Harbourfront Centre and Digidance Partner. “Viewers will experience the company’s powerful, highly kinetic performance and gain profound insight into the company’s extraordinary journey.”
Red Sky Performance (Trace) by David HouFilmed in celebration of the company’s 20th anniversary, More Than Dance, We Are A Movement captures the creative drive of Founder and Executive and Artistic Director Sandra Laronde and the exceptional artistic vision that propelled Red Sky Performance to prominence and critical acclaim. The film also contains extended excerpts from two of the company’s award-winning creations, choreographed by Jera Wolfe: Trace, the recipient of two Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2019, and Miigis, which received the Lieutenant Governor's Ontario Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation in 2018.
Trace is a highly kinetic contemporary dance work inspired by Indigenous (Anishinaabe) sky and star stories, offering a glimpse into Indigenous ancestral origins as well as the future evolution. Trace made its world premiere in Toronto at Canadian Stage in November 2018, before its international premiere at the iconic Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the US in 2019.
Miigis represents the “the perfect breath” of life, a symbol that informs our origin story of travel from the Atlantic Coast to the Great Lakes. Fusing contemporary Indigenous dance with athleticism in an extraordinary form, Miigis explores the catalysts for movement, ancestral forces and living memory, and the cycle of life. Having premiered as a site-specific work at Fort York in Toronto in 2017 and toured to the Venice Biennale in 2018, the featured excerpt gives audiences an intimate view on the nuanced and elaborate creation.
Red Sky Performance (Trace) by Rob DiVitoIn the fall of 2021, Red Sky Performance will embark on their first international tour since the global COVID-19 pandemic, bringing Trace to cities across the US and Canada. This continues the company’s extensive history of touring, which to date includes more than 2,750 performances in 17 countries and four continents, including two Cultural Olympiads (Beijing and Vancouver), the World Expo in Shanghai, and the Venice Biennale, among others. At the same time, Red Sky Performance remains deeply rooted and invested on a grassroots level, regularly performing in urban, rural, and reserve communities across Turtle Island.
For tickets and information on More Than Dance, We Are A Movement and Digidance, visit: harbourfrontcentre.com
About Digidance:
Digidance is a new joint initiative of Canadian dance presenters to deliver exceptional, full length Canadian and international dance content online to patrons across the country. Created in July 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Digidance consists of the following leading dance presenters: DanceHouse (Vancouver), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), and Danse Danse (Montreal).
Chamber music/spoken word: Gina Biver - Nimbus (February 19, 2021 / Neuma Records)
Gina Biver - Nimbus
(February 19, 2021 / Neuma Records)
Nimbus, for electroacoustic chamber ensemble, voice and spoken word
music composed by Gina Biver
poetry by Colette Inez
Fuse Ensemble:
Tula Pisano, voice; Jennifer Lapple, flute; Angela Murakami, clarinet; Greg Hiser, violin; Erin Snedecor, cello; Ethan Foote, bass; Ina Mirtcheva Blevins, piano; Scott Deal, percussion; Gina Biver, spoken word and live audio
Poet Colette Inez has an extraordinary tale to tell. Her parents were a priest and a young scholar who had been sent to help him with some research. Naturally the affair was hidden from public view in 1930s Nérac, France. While they loved each other, they couldn't contemplate parenthood, and left the baby at an orphanage in Belgium. Lust, religion, abandonment - it's all there.
Composer Gina Biver met Colette and they became friends. Eventually she came to know her story, and they collaborated on this work.
It's spoken word with a strongly rhythmic component, Ms. Inez' elderly voice a contrast with Tula Pisano's clear soprano and the woodwinds. The words are spoken with a storyteller's flair, and elegant chamber music accompanies them with a sense of the theatrical.
The poems are short vignettes that examine the themes inherent in her story. Some are sweet and lilting, while others are more emotional and dramatic. Ms. Inez' voice has a memorable resonance that adds to the impact of the words.
It's an intimate collaboration with moments that really sparkle and bring a compelling story to musical life.
Indie Folk: Thorin Loeks - In This Place (Independent / March 20, 2021)
Thorin Loeks - In This Place
(Independent / March 20, 2021) Check It Out On Bandcamp
In This Place is an album and a mood - one that is closely linked to Thorin's travels. Over the last 8 years or so, he's bicycled and canoed over 15,000 km across North America - acoustic guitar in tow.
The title track is a nice showcase for his polished vocals, with a hypnotic beat. His rich voice and a rhythmic take on folk takes the traditional genre into pop ballad crossover territory in tracks like Open Sky.
Violin, keyboards, and backing vocals add texture to the sound in Ice Age, a meditative track. Tonight is a standout track with an earworm groove and lovely harmony vocals.
He's an interesting songwriter with imagination. Game Plan has a jazzy edge, while Still Here is an atmospheric instrumental chorale.
Thorin comments in a media release. "It's written from personal experiences and inspired by people and places I've spent time connecting and communing with. It's easy for us to get disconnected in this world, and I hope these songs can be a source of authenticity and warmth where people can draw upon them and know they aren't alone."
In the summer/fall of 2017, Thorin bicycled 4,300 km from his hometown of Whitehorse, Yukon to San Francisco, USA on a tour for his sophomore album, Shine Through The Dark.
In the fall of 2020, Thor embarked on another 600 km canoe journey down the Kluane, Donjek, White, and Yukon Rivers in the Yukon Territory to Dawson City - a wilderness trip that he says helped him reconnect with his roots right before starting work on the new album. Some of the visuals captured were used on an upcoming music video for the title track of his new album.
Strong vocals and a sense of invention keep things interesting on this atmospheric release.
Tracklist:
Intro; In This Place; Open Sky; Ice Age; Tonight; Game Plan; Still Here; Let it Rain; With You; All That's Left
Contributing Musicians: Johnson Cheung (Violin), Theras Wood (Vocals), Gert Talberner (Harmonies), & Kaija Loeks (Harmonies).
A Spiritual Deconstruction: Robert Moran - Buddha goes to Bayreuth (February 19, 2021 / Neuma Records)
Robert Moran - Buddha goes to Bayreuth
(February 19, 2021 / Neuma Records)
Stefan Görgner, Countertenor (Part I)
KammerChor KlangsCala Salzburg
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester
Rupert Huber, Conductor
Atmospheric and spiritual, you don't need to know the details behind the conception of the music to enjoy the heady openness of Robert Moran's Buddha goes to Bayreuth.
A young Richard Wagner, as it turns out, had often thought about writing an opera about the life of Buddha, but as we know, it didn't come to fruition. Philadelphia composer Robert Moran was inspired by the idea, and decided to take it on for a music festival in 2011. Time and space become one; spirit and sound become one - those were the concepts behind the work for two choirs, two string ensembles, a countertenor, and "very long reverb" (according to the liner notes).
The text is made up of fragments of Tibetan mantras, and the music is based on Moran's favourite Parsifal. The composer describes how he wrote the work in the liner notes.
Robert Moran at Music of the Ruhrtriennale 2011 (October 1, 2011) © Ursula Kaufmann (CCOC)“I had been given the ancient Book of Changes, the I Ching, by my old friend, John Cage. Sixty-four possible hexagrams are available, and I selected from Acts I and III of PARSIFAL my favorite chords from the orchestral score, reducing each to a simple piano reduction, submitting all of the materials to the I Ching and chance-operations, re-orchestrating each as selected, and for one or the other choruses and/or string groups. The work needed to have a magical quality for me as I have loved PARSIFAL since I was a teenager… Hearing and experiencing Buddha goes to Bayreuth will not suggest specific PARSIFAL chords but a totally new arrangement of sounds.”
Countertenor Stefan Görgner's voice is ethereal and floats above the music - you can hear the acoustics of the Salzburg Cathedral where it was recorded. Part II, with chanting instead of his voice, is darker in tone. It's meditative, with a swell and ebb of tension and release.
It's gorgeous music that I'd call ambient if that term hadn't been stolen by techno.
March 29, 2021
Art Glass: Glasstress Boca Raton 2021 - Until September 5 2021
From a media release:
Art Glass:Glasstress Boca Raton 2021
On view until September 5, 2021 Check It Out
From Europe to America, the world premiere of this major international show has landed on the shores of the U.S. after three years of preparation. "Glasstress 2021 Boca Raton" is on view through September 5th -- featuring free virtual programs for the global public to enjoy online.
Among the 34 artists in this new exhibition:
Ai Weiwei, Fred Wilson, Joyce J. Scott, Jimmie Durham, Ugo Rondinone, Fiona Banner, Vik Muniz, Monica Bonvicini, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Laure Prouvost, Renate Bertlmann, Thomas Schütte, and Erwin Wurm. Most of these works have never been seen elsewhere.
Three years in the making, with 2020 being such a challenging year to coordinate an international exhibition of this size and scope due to the pandemic, this effort serves as an important reassurance that art is an essential and enduring part of humanity.
This Glasstress 2021 exhibition is also a tribute to the resilience of Venice’s surviving the floods, and continuing to make art through the pandemic.
Above: the artist Ai Weiwei with his massive glass-blown sculpture "Blossom Chandelier," in Venice. The large-scale installation bursts with unexpected shapes emanating from white glass flowers to surprise the eye: menacing handcuffs, twitter birds, security cameras, and the artist’s own hands flashing his middle finger (his angry response to the Chinese government that imprisoned him). Photo by Karolina Sobel.
Some of the works were created during the pandemic lockdowns, with artists collaborating remotely via Zoom with their glass artisan partners in Italy, after initial on-site work at the glassmaking studio in Venice.
Above: the Italian artist Monica Bonvicini works on her glass artwork "Bonded" at the Berengo glass studio in Venice, Italy.
Some of the world's leading contemporary artists were invited to breathe new life into centuries-old glassmaking in Venice to create these new works ― maestros of glassblowing from the legendary Berengo Studio residency helped these art stars manifest their visions.
The exhibition presents 34 new works that explore some of today’s pressing subjects, including human rights, the pandemic, climate change, racial justice, gender issues and politics.
The Boca Raton Museum of Art has dedicated more than 6,500 square feet of exhibition space to this collection. A fully illustrated printed catalogue is also available.
A Life In Theatre: All the Rage (A Partial Memoir in Two Acts and a Prologue) by Brad Fraser
From a media release:
A Life In Theatre:All the Rage
A Partial Memoir in Two Acts and a Prologue
by Brad Fraser
A Canadian playwright's rise to fame amid the terrors of the AIDS era
Preorder/Order From AmazonBRAD FRASER is one of Canada's best known playwrights.
Brad Fraser suffered an impoverished and abusive childhood, living with his teenage parents in motel rooms and shacks on the side of the highway in Alberta and Northern British Columbia. He grew to be one of the most celebrated, and controversial, Canadian playwrights, his work produced to acclaim all over the world.
Born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1959, Brad won his first playwriting competition at the age of seventeen, and has been writing ever since. Brad's international hit play Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love premiered at the Alberta Theatre Projects' PlayRites Festival in 1989. It has since been produced worldwide, in many languages, with highly successful runs in Toronto, New York, Chicago, Milan, Sydney and London.
Poor Super Man, developed by Canadian Stage, was first produced by the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati in 1994 and has enjoyed successful runs in many cities, including Toronto, London, Sydney, Edinburgh and Denver. It was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award for Drama and adapted into a feature film, Leaving Metropolis, written and directed by Brad. Poor Super Man, like Unidentified Human Remains, was listed by Time magazine as one of the top ten plays of its year. Many other plays have followed in successful productions.
Brad has also written extensively for magazines and newspapers, including The Globe and Mail and the National Post, and for three seasons was a writer and producer on Showtime's Queer As Folk. All the Rage chronicles Brad Fraser's rise as he breaks with his past and enrolls as a performing arts student. He is pulled into the newly developing Canadian theatre scene, where he shows great promise. But his early career is full of challenges, some of which result from his upbringing and prejudice against his queerness. But just as many challenges arise from his combative personality and willingness to take on the establishment. Few Canadian artists have been as abrasive, notorious and polarizing as Fraser was in his youth.
Woven through this tale of artistic development is his journey as a queer man coming into himself during the most exhilarating period in the Gay Liberation Movement, and the dawn of a global health crisis. What should have been a triumphant time in a young, successful playwright's life was tainted with the terrifying emergence of AIDS, and the sickness and death of comrades and lovers.
This is both the story of an artist's evolution and an important work of gay history that has rarely been recounted from a Canadian perspective. Written with Fraser's trademark wit and candour, All the Rage is unsparing, sometimes shocking and always enthralling.
All the Rageby Brad FraserHardcover | 352 pages Doubleday CanadaMay 18, 2021Touchstone Theatre's Kill Me Now by Brad Fraser (2018)
Nu Classic Rock: Elford, Davies and Baldini - The Real Story (Independent - 10 March 2021)
Elford, Davies and Baldini - The Real Story
(Independent - 10 March 2021) Stream It On Spotify
Classic rock from yesterday, the music of Elford, Davies and Baldini is rooted in the guitar-driven sounds of the 1970s.
End is Nigh offers up a combination of alt rock guitar and catchy rhythms, with poetic lyrics and a bit of a surf rock vibe. The mood turns to country rock with Sigh of Despair. Come Back Home is an anthemic love song.
While the trio has played together before, and had another release under their belt ("Land of the Living" as Keith Elford and the Weekend Kings), the flavour of the new music was different - hence the new name. Produced entirely remotely during the lockdown in their native South East UK, it nonetheless has an organic feel to it.
In his other life, Elford is a vicar (along with management consultant and researcher). That's where WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) comes from.
"WWJD is about a few people I've known, because I'm a churchman and see a lot first hand. But it turned from a riff and a series of jokey remarks into a serious song based on the victim in the story of the Good Samaritan," he notes in a media release.
Musically, it's solid driving Texas-style rock.
Other songs tackle current events. "One of the things that most angered me about the Brexit process is the way that right wing nationalism claimed a monopoly on love of country. This Fair Land is my riposte to that line and a plea for a patriotism built in the best in our past, not the worst."
The Real Story is a highlight of the release, a song with a real sense of presence and drama. Sinners and Saints is the first single.
Personnel:
Keith Elford lead vocals; Simon Davies guitars, bass, keys, backing vocals; Major Baldini drums, percussion, backing vocals with Annabelle Elford (backing vocals) on Come back Home and After the Flood; Christina al-Wakil (trumpet and backing vocals) on This Fair Land and (backing vocals) on The Real Story; Josie Simmons (saxes) on Take Back Control; And very special guest Doug Lipinski (guitar) on WWJD.
Tracklist: The End is Nigh, Cry of Despair, This Fair Land, Come Back Home, Sinners and Saints, Western Stretch, WWJD, An Hour Away, Take Back Control, The Real Story, After the Flood
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