Category Archives: Music and musicology

2 Natural experiments with audience

Posted on December 12, 2015 by barczablog

Every performance is an experiment, or so said Joyce Wilkinson, a wonderful professor I encountered at OISE a number of years ago.  Performance is a kind of proposition (and you can take that both ways). When you think about that, … Continue reading →

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An Electric Messiah comes to Messiahville

Posted on December 9, 2015 by barczablog

We may as well be living in Messiahville. There are so many performances of this work in Toronto, it’s amazing that they don’t play excerpts on the organ at hockey games (but then again, there’s been so little cause for … Continue reading →

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, Popular music & culture, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

All Tchaikovsky TSO: cause for celebration

Posted on December 6, 2015 by barczablog

Tonight the Toronto Symphony played an all-Tchaikovsky program to a full house at Roy Thomson Hall, and the TSO make it feel like a genuine occasion. The audience loved the performances, first a concerto, then a symphony. And afterwards we … Continue reading →

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Sondra Radvanovsky: Beneath The Lights Of Home

Posted on December 5, 2015 by barczablog

There’s a song Deanna Durbin once sang that seemed particularly apt tonight as one of the encores coming after Sondra Radvanovsky’s recital at Koerner Hall with Anthony Manoli piano. I can see the lights of home Shining brightly o’er the … Continue reading →

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | 4 Comments

10 Questions for John Relyea

Posted on December 5, 2015 by barczablog

John Relyea?  I remember hearing that one of Canada’s great singers, Gary Relyea, had a son who was making a name for himself in the USA, first at the Merola program of the San Francisco Opera and inevitably at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Interviews, Music and musicology, Opera | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

L’Homme et le Ciel: worth the wait

Posted on December 4, 2015 by barczablog

I attended the opening of Adam Scime’s opera L’Homme et le Ciel at the Music Gallery, produced by FAWN Opera, directed by Amanda Smith and conducted by the composer. While I’ve seen two other presentations of portions from Scime’s opera –one … Continue reading →

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Vocalis 2 in the Great Hall

Posted on December 3, 2015 by barczablog

There are so many opportunities to hear great music in this city that the one I chose tonight could easily have slipped under the radar.  There’s so much going on at the Faculty of Music, check out their schedule (click … Continue reading →

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, University life | 1 Comment

Nuts for Stewart Goodyear’s Nutcracker

Posted on December 2, 2015 by barczablog

I was never koo-koo for Coco-puffs, but the headline ambushed me as I sat listening, enthralled.  If it sounds childish, that might give you some idea of how this recording moves me.  I associate Nutcracker –the ballet, and the score– … Continue reading →

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Two Peters and The Wolf, with a little help from Rick Mercer

Posted on November 27, 2015 by barczablog

Over $50,000 was raised at the first Toronto Symphony benefit for Sick Kids Hospital, likely to be an annual affair. The TSO put on a brilliant show.  There were two Peters, both the fictional one in the Prokofiev story and … Continue reading →

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OSM: was it good for you?

Posted on November 26, 2015 by barczablog

I could use technical jargon, I could be very polite, OR I can simply tell the story as my viscera understood it. L’Orchestra Symphonique de Montréal—aka “OSM”—came to Toronto led by their music director Kent Nagano to play at Roy … Continue reading →

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