Brott Music Festival at Theatre Aquarius

Thursday evening we took in another of the "classical" concerts by the National Academy Orchestra, this time at Theatre Aquarius in downtown Hamilton. The main theatre seats about 700 and I would estimate that it was half full, a considerably better crowd than the last of their concerts that we attended. For all that, they were selling off admissions for $10 on the day of the show (not the pricier ones, I hope)

The concert was conducted by Jean-Marie Zeitouni who had conducted the HPO at another show we'd attended (Barber Adagio, Copland Appalachian Spring, Raum Violin Concerto). That was part of the audition parade for the new Music Director of that organization. He didn't get the job which I view as unfortunate as he's qualified, very capable and a Canadian. He's also an engaging speaker and a exuberant conductor.

They opened the concert with Pierre Mercure's Pantomime, a short work for winds and percussion. It's a lovely modernist piece and was a remarkable accomplishment for the 21 year old composer. 

This was followed by Ney Rosauro's Marimba Concerto played by one of the NAO's percussionists, Nathaniel Mears. Mears also plays with the Ottawa and Kingston Symphony Orchestras. His performance was impressive. He's a wonderful marimba player (marimbaist?)

The composer is a marimba virtuoso. The work, in four contrasting movements, demonstrates what the instrument can do. Mears played with both 2 and 4 mallets. There were lots of arpeggios and various scale passages played, sometimes while performing other figures with his other hand. By rapidly re-striking a bar without too much  force, Mears was able to approximate sustain while playing melodies on the instrument while simultaneously performing patterns with the other three mallets.

Each movement had its own mood and overall metre so was quite different from the others. The composer was obviously influenced by Brazilian folk music, jazz and polyrhythmic music using each to good effect. 

The first half ended with Ravel's Ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose) Suite. Ravel composed the piece for piano-four-hands (1910) for a friend's children and orchestrated it a year later. It is this version that we heard. He then added additional music and turned it into a ballet.

It's an understated piece containing some really lovely melodies and harmonic effects. The second movement Petit Poucet (Tom Thumb) is so short and similar to the first movement Pavane that I missed it entirely. I wasn't bowled over by the performance, though, and will be interested to hear the HPO play it in their 24/25 season. 

The second half made up for that, however. They played Dvořák's Eighth Symphony and it was a spectacular reading. The work is full of dances, lively rhythms and dazzling melodies.  Zeitouni's clear and animated conducting elicited a very energized performance from these mostly young professional players. None of its four movements ever dragged. The third movement waltz was notably lovely. The brasses, which feature in sections of the work, were especially effective. The second oboe (doubling English Horn) played a beautiful solo. 

Next up in the "classical music" list is a concert at 7:30, Thurs. Aug.1 at Mohawk College (easily accessible from The Linc, by the way).  Artistic Director Tania Miller conducts. They're playing Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un Faune, Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream Overture and the ever popular Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky.

Cymbelline at Stratford

We made the 80 minute drive to Stratford yesterday to the see Shakespeare’s Cymbeline performed in the new (to us) Tom Patterson Theatre. Patterson was one of the founders of the festival in the early 1950s. Productions were originally staged in a tent (!) and are now presented at 4 venues. 

The theatre was constructed on the same site as the previous theatre which was, out of festival seasons, a curling rink. The thrust stage and purpose built raked seating were thus re-assembled each spring and taken down in the fall when performances concluded. For all that, it worked very well as a theatre, in spite of its shortcomings, and they resolved that the characteristics of the new performing space would be similar.

The new theatre is spectacular in every way. It is located just metres from the placid Avon River which runs through the city’s downtown and the forecourt is a large garden. The building is fronted by glass curtain walls and contains the well appointed 700 seat theatre, additional public spaces and lounges as well as rehearsal halls.

As for the performance itself, neither of us were familiar with the play. That’s in part why we decided it would be the purpose of our only trip to the festival this year. The play was published in the First Folio of 1623 and is the fifth last that he wrote. It was described then as a tragedy, which it isn’t by any definition, and later as a romance or comedy, both of which it is. The name of the character, Cymbeline is based upon an actual historical king whom Shakespeare discovered in his research and much of the action of the play borrowed from an earlier one.

I won’t get into a synopsis. However, the play employs various devices that will be familiar to anyone who knows Shakespeares oeuvre. There’s a wager regarding the faithfullness of a wife, a woman disguised as a man, mistaken identities, comic characters living in the woods, a potion that makes one appear to be dead, not merely asleep, appearances by the god Jupiter and more.

Moreover, in this production, the king, Cymbeline becomes a queen (played by Lucy Peacock) and his scheming wife becomes a Duke (Rick Roberts). 

There’s a large cast. Standout performances came from Jordin Hall (Posthumus), Tyrone Savage (Lachimo), Christopher Allen (Cloten) and Wahsonntí:io Kirby (Cornelius).

In conclusion, we familiarized ourselves with the play before (and during) the ride to Stratford, always a good policy when attended an unfamiliar classic one (or opera, for that matter). I’m not sure that we’d have gone if we’d known the play at all before we bought the tickets but don’t let that put you off since it was a very entertaining afternoon watching an excellent performance of an outrageous play.

In the end, love conquers all, and they all live happily ever after except for those who die, one of whose headless body plays, in one scene, an important role.

Brott Music Festival at Mac

On Wednesday evening, we attended a performance of the National Academy Orchestra with soloist Ian Parker. They played Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto and Brahm's 4th  Symphony as well as Andrew Balfour's Pyotr's Dream for strings. 

We parked on the street, close-by the Sterling Gates, and did not join a throng of other concert goers making their way to the theatre. I'd been forewarned as one of my Facebook friends had been offering comps to the concert. The hall seats 350 and as the concert began, there were might have been 100 people in the audience altogether. This is really quite sad considering what local classical music lovers missed. They will play the same program again tonight, June 27, at the Burlington Performing Arts Center.

The orchestra is comprised of young musicians from across the country but this is not a school orchestra. Many of the players have already graduated and some are pursuing graduate work. I've heard them play some pretty spectacular performances in past years and have a professional calibre live recording of my own F# Minor Piano Concerto with pianist Valerie Tryon.

Tonight they were conducted by this season's Artistic Director Tania Miller and her assistant Emma Colette Moss. 

They opened with the Balfour piece. Coincidentally, the HPO opened their final season concert (Beethoven's 9th) with one of his choral pieces. It was quiet and nicely played and a fitting contrast to the Sturm und Drang that followed. Moss conducted this as well as the first movement of the Rachmaninoff.

I grew up with a recording of the Rachmaninoff concerto played by Van Cliburn. It was so piano-forward that it wasn't until I was in my teens and had a two piano score that I realized that the orchestra, which one could hardly hear, takes the the melodies when the pianist isn't playing them.

Ian Parker must have played this concerto dozens of times. He was certainly comfortable with it and, at times, took the conductor and orchestra along with him. We were 5 rows back, not 25 feet from the keyboard, really a perfect place to watch and hear.

This Steinway has a very percussive sound and the multi-purpose theatre has virtually no ring at all so the performance came off as a little harsh.

As for the orchestra, they coped very well with this warhorse. There were a few miscues and some uneasiness in the winds. The flute soloist has a big beautiful sound and played a couple of gorgeous solos. The strings, as one might expect, don't have the breadth of professional players in spite of the presence of a half dozen pros, the mentors, who played with the youngsters.

The Brahms followed after the interval and it's a big challenge for any orchestra. The first movement went very well as did the second. Miller took the third movement at a surprising clip but everyone kept up. The last movement is the hardest to bring off and didn't seem to hang together as well as the rest of this performance but I'll bet many far more experienced groups have fared far worse.

I don't envy Conductor Miller (or her predecessor Alain Trudel who was only here for one year) following in the footsteps of the absent Maestro who had immense experience, was a crowd-pleasing charismatic speaker and spent much of his career mentoring young players, and growing this orchestra after its founding. 

It was a completely enjoyable concert and I have a list of four more to attend before they wrap it all up in August including Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, Dvorak's 8th Symphony and the one for which I can hardly wait when they close the season, Mahler's 5th Symphony. There's lots more on the website.