2P4H In this issue: “The Mirvish season also includes the return in the spring of 2 Pianos 4 Hands starring its creators and original stars, Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt.” Jennifer Parr, p 13. Flash back ten years, Vol 17 No 3, and you’ll find Dykstra and Greenblatt in a very nice Robert Wallace story, “bringing home arguably the most successful play in the history of Canadian theatre … opening on November 2 [2011] for a limited run at Toronto’s Panasonic Theatre, before it moves to Ottawa’s National Arts Centre in January”. The show was already in its 15th season by 2011, featuring seve ..read more

Audiences returned to Roy Thomson Hall on November 10 for the first time since March 2020, welcoming the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and their new music director, Gustavo Gimeno, for a musical triptych—three programs spread over seven evenings. It was Gimeno’s initial foray into repertoire selection for the TSO, his first venture into curation—which became a means for conductor and audiences alike to get reacquainted with their orchestra.  Unusually, the opening trio of concerts began with a stage empty of musicians. Half of the orchestra members entered single file from a door on the left ..read more

Musical couple Maryem and Ernie Tollar have been performing music in Toronto for about 35 years. Born in Egypt, Maryem works with Arabic lyrics and melodic inspirations to inform her work. Ernie, who plays saxophone, bansuri and ney, has contributed to the Toronto music scene and performed in jazz and folk festivals around the world. Together, they’ve made a life of music. Although the work is not always stable, the two have been able to subsist over the years in downtown Toronto, supplemented by Maryem’s public school teacher salary. That was, until the pandemic hit, and everything changed fo ..read more

In Stephen Hough’s wonderful 2019 book Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More, the polymath pianist, writer, composer, religious scholar and music educator recalls an experience when he was confronted by the music of a pianist he did not recognize, performing the music of a composer he did not know. It turns out, when he inquired, that it was him at the keyboard, performing the music of Benjamin Britten, something that he had done countless times previously during his long and storied career. While this anecdote fits easily alongside the many other thoughtful and humorous stories that are ..read more

OPERA ATELIER’S ANGEL WHAT: Oct 28 7:00: Opera Atelier. Angel. A 70-minute film fully staged and filmed at St. Lawrence Hall, with music by Edwin Huizinga, Christopher Bagan, Jean-Philippe Rameau, William Boyce, Matthew Locke, and Max Richter, and featuring Measha Brueggergosman, Mireille Asselin, Meghan Lindsay, sopranos; Colin Ainsworth, tenor; Jesse Blumberg, baritone; and others; Marshall Pynkoski, stage director; Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, choreographer; Artists of Atelier Ballet; Nathaniel Dett Chorale; Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra; and David Fallis, conductor. www.OperaAtelier.com.&nbs ..read more

This fall from September 30 to November 25, Hot Docs is streaming the new Tom Surgal film Fire Music: The Story of Free Jazz, which explores the birth of free jazz from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. Presented in-person for one screening at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in Toronto on September 29 and now available for at-home viewing through the Hot Docs website, the documentary outlines the early years of a genre that Hot Docs describes as full of “emotion, fire and fury.” Whether you’re a die-hard free jazz fan, a bebop enthusiast, or an occasional jazz patron, Fire Music is not to be mi ..read more

For many of us, Saint-Saëns’ Le Carnaval des animaux was one of the first pieces of classical music we were able to recognise as children. Though written in 1886, when Saint-Saëns should have been working on his “Organ” Symphony, the piece received its public debut decades later in 1922, a year after the composer’s death. (Saint-Saëns, concerned for his reputation, only permitted the comic piece to be performed privately in his own lifetime, apart from the solemn “Le cygne” cello solo.) Despite the composer’s misgivings, the piece has become one of his most well-known works, and it continues t ..read more

Once again, it’s time for the Toronto International Film Festival (September 9 to 18) and The WholeNote’s 10th annual TIFF Tips guide to festival films in which music, in one way or another, plays an important role. Our picks are based, variously, on track record, subject matter and gleanings from across the Internet. Out of the 177 titles (118 features, 45 shorts, 14 docs) from 64 countries that make up the festival’s 46th edition, I’ve focused on 18, beginning with a handful of documentaries directly tied to music. Music Documentaries Prolific documentary filmmaker Barry Avrich’s Oscar Peter ..read more

How much energy does it take to build a career as a classical violinist in Canada? And then how much more does it take if you are a Black woman. This struggle sits at the core of my conversation with Toronto-based violinist Tanya Charles Iveniuk – and what enthralls me is the career that she has created for herself within this genre. Born in Hamilton with roots in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Iveniuk is an established performer and avid educator. She has a Bachelor of Music in Performance from the University of Toronto, an Artist Diploma in Orchestral Performance from the Glenn Gould Scho ..read more

There is an intriguing beauty that lies in the parts and processes of trees that we don’t see. We observe a tree’s life story from looking at it aboveground, but what’s beneath – the understory – often goes unseen. Musicians Germaine Liu (based in Toronto), Nicole Rampersaud (based in Fredericton), and Parmela Attariwala (based in Vancouver) are committed to building—and telling the understory of—a new, nationwide artistic network. Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and in partnership with Toronto’s MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), Understory is a new online improvised music series th ..read more