Category Archives: Reviews

New Creations Festival Finale: Miller, Bjarnason & Lizée

Posted on March 12, 2017 by barczablog

Tonight’s Toronto Symphony New Creations Concert to close the festival was a demonstration of the old maxim “less is more”, an epithet I used to use as a personal motto (at least for its pun-potential).  If I had any objection … Continue reading →

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Straub & Huillet’s History Lesson

Posted on March 10, 2017 by barczablog

I saw History Lesson (or Geschichtsunterricht ) at TIFF tonight, a 1972 film by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet that’s my latest instalment in the retrospective “Not Reconciled”. Straub & Huillet adapted an incomplete fragment of a novel by Bertolt … Continue reading →

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Pallett – Ehnes TSO #NCF17

Posted on March 9, 2017 by barczablog

Tonight’s New Creations Festival Concert by the Toronto Symphony gave us a closer look at the co-curator Owen Pallett, who stepped into the spotlight with a premiere of his own, alongside two other world premieres and a recent composition from … Continue reading →

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#NCF17 begins

Posted on March 5, 2017 by barczablog

The Toronto Symphony’s 2017 New Creations Festival aka #NCF17 co-curated by Owen Pallett and Peter Oundjian began tonight. And I couldn’t help feeling, this is what it should feel like when I go to the symphony.  Usually? The place is … Continue reading →

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Immolation Nation

Posted on February 26, 2017 by barczablog

The morning after the end of the world feels pretty good, especially if you’re one of the little people and not one of the old gods swept aside. I am not Barack or Hillary, just one of the little people who … Continue reading →

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Toronto Symphony Ratatouille

Posted on February 18, 2017 by barczablog

I’ve been loving the live performances of film-scores accompanying screenings of films presented by the Toronto Symphony over the past couple of years.  They set up a huge screen above the stage, the orchestra assembles in their usual place, but … Continue reading →

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A Bach Tapestry

Posted on February 11, 2017 by barczablog

It’s been a JS Bach sort of week, what with the tiff screening on Wednesday (“Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach” coming Friday, March 3 at 6:30 p.m)  and the press release announcing the upcoming Bach Festival, including a reconstruction of … Continue reading →

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Chester Brown’s Louis Riel

Posted on February 4, 2017 by barczablog

Last week a fun outing with a child to a bookstore led to a windfall.  I hadn’t expected to find a book for myself but as I browsed through graphic novels I saw a title that grabbed me. “Louis Riel” … Continue reading →

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Toronto Consort’s Utopian Kanatha/Canada: First Encounters

Posted on February 4, 2017 by barczablog

I totally loved what I saw tonight from Toronto Chamber Choir in collaboration with the Toronto Consort led by their artistic director David Fallis, so much so that I’m taking a moment to double-check. I’m writing about something very complex, … Continue reading →

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Götterdämmerung

Posted on February 3, 2017 by barczablog

When I did my year-end review of the highlights of 2016, I cited the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Wagner’s Siegfried in January. Here we are beginning 2017 and once again I’ve experienced something that will be hard to beat. … Continue reading →

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | 1 Comment