The twelfth version of the Royal Conservatory’s 21C Pageant rings within the new 12 months with new music, opening in January with a collection of concert events that culminate in Could. Measha Brueggergosman-Lee and Bruce Hornsby are among the many headliners, with a mixture of Canadian and worldwide artists and works.
Mervon Mehta Govt Director, Performing Arts on the RCM, spoke to LvT about this 12 months’s lineup.
21C Music Pageant
The competition consists of eight concert events, with 14 premieres (together with two world, one North American, and 11 Canadian), and 21 Canadian composers and artists.
“I at all times work with the artists on programming,” Mehta explains. “However we’re drawn to programming that is a bit more adventurous.”
Reserving worldwide acts nicely prematurely provides to the complexity. “With new music, generally, you’re reserving one thing a 12 months prematurely, and the music continues to be to be written,” he explains. “We’re at all times in search of fascinating issues which might be off the overwhelmed observe.”
Michelle Cann and the Imani Winds (January 18)
The 2024 Grammy Award-winning Imani Winds carry out with pianist Michelle Cann in a blended program:
- Paquito D’Rivera: A Little Cuban Waltz
- Lalo Schifrin: La Nouvelle Orleans
- Francis Poulenc: Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano, FP 43
- Valerie Coleman: Portraits of Langston (Canadian premiere)Francis Poulenc: Sextet, FP 100
Composer Valerie Coleman describes Portraits of Langston, impressed by the poetry of Langston Hughes.
“Portraits of Langston is a set in six quick actions, and is my tackle Hughes’ poetic recollections of Harlem and Europe (primarily Paris).” She continues, “I selected Langston not due to who he’s in literature, however as a result of he was actually, an eye-witness to legends born. His poems are so descriptive of the period, with references to specific settings and people that influenced him: Josephine Baker, Helen Keller, the nightlife/music of Harlem jazz golf equipment and Parisian cabarets. The imagery that Hughes offers provides me fairly a historic palette that evokes me as an example a piece actually distinctive to duo repertoire. Stylistically, this work incorporates many alternative components which might be translated into woodwind approach: the stride piano approach, huge band swing, cabaret music, Mambo, African drumming, and even conventional spirituals.”
21C Afterhours: GGS New Music Ensemble (January 18)
Composer/concudtor Brian Present curates an eclectic night of music. Brian is head of GGS’ New Music Ensemble, as Mehta factors out. “These college students are actually serious about increasing the envelope,” he says. Present can also be inventive director of Toronto’s New Music Live shows.
The repertoire is a mirrored image of the abilities of the ensemble. “He tends to choose issues as soon as he is aware of the place the present superstars are within the faculty,” Mehta provides. “It’s a manner of bringing our college students into the concert events, which we’ve executed since day 1.” The competition itself was moved to its present winter/spring time slot, partially, to open the alternatives for pupil involvement.
Soprano McKenzie Warriner, a 2024-25 Rebanks Fellow, will sing Luca Francesconi’s Etymo, which units the poems of Beaudelaire to music. Beaudelaire’s poetry is famous for its mastery of each rhythm and rhyme, and romantic sensibility. College students from the GGS will accompany.
Additionally on the invoice is Alice Ho’s Darkish Waters and C’est Pas Beau?, and a world premiere by Canadian composer Kalaisan Kalaichelvan. Kalaichelvan was lately named as a recipient of the $10,000 Kathleen McMorrow Music Award, which acknowledges modern classical music by Ontario composers.
The Journal of Hélène Berr with Elena Howard-Scott (January 21, 22, 23)
Solely beforehand carried out in France, the concert events signify the North American premiere of Bernard Foccroulle’s work. Foccroulle set the phrases of Parisian Jewish diarist and musician Hélène Berr, who was ultimately deported to Auschwitz, to music. Her diaries, which she stored from April 7, 1942, till February 15, 1944, simply earlier than she and her household have been taken in a raid and deported, have been rediscovered by a niece in 1994.
“That was dropped at us by the Koffler Centre,” Mehta says. With out the performing area the piece requires, the group thought it might be preferrred for 21C. “I learn the ebook, I listened to the music.”
Soprano and actress Elena Scott-Howard was a 2023/24 Rebanks Fellow, and also will be performing within the RCM’s manufacturing of Into The Woods in early January. “Her profession is actually type of taking off. She’s a superb, wonderful actress,” Mehta says.
He likens the story of Hélène Berr to that of Anne Frank, though Hélène is in her early 20s versus Anne’s early teenagers. “It’s a really banal journal on some ranges,” he says. It begins with the daily particulars of her life as a librarian, from the mundane trivia of labor to the primary sightings of tanks within the streets, after which the rising horror round her.
As destiny would have it, she was one of many final Jews in Paris to be despatched to a focus camp, and one of many final to die in Bergen-Belsen camp in 1944, not lengthy earlier than it was liberated by Allied troopers. She had given the diary to her boyfriend, who would preserve it, overwhelmed for many years by his grief. It lastly noticed the sunshine of day when her niece tracked it down.
Belgian composer Foccroulle was impressed to put in writing a lyrical drama for voice, piano and string quartet, utilizing textual content immediately from the journal. Elena will likely be studying from the ebook in an English translation, however singing within the authentic French, accompanied by pianist Jialiang Zhu, and The Rebanks Household Fellowship Quartet.
Measha Brueggergosman-Lee: Zombie Blizzard (January 24)
This 12 months’s programming started with speaking to Measha Brueggergosman-Lee and Aaron Davis. “We knew we have been going to do the Zombie Blizzard work,” he says. “However what else can we placed on this system?”
The brand new track cycle is a collaboration between band chief/composer Aaron Davis, Margaret Atwood, Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee, the Hannaford Road Silver Band, and the Aaron Davis Trio. The artwork track cycle blends classical and jazz idioms, utilizing textual content based mostly on Margaret Atwood’s 2020 ebook of poetry, Dearly. You possibly can take a look at LvT’s interview with Measha and Aaron right here.
The primary half of the live performance will include works by all the artists.
Continuum Modern Music: Spanning (January 25)
A live performance by Continuum Modern Music will highlight flutist and core ensemble member, Leslie Newman. She’ll be performing Terrestre by composer Kaija Saariaho because the soloist. The ensemble may even carry out works by Carolyn Chen, Anna Höstman, Jocelyn Morlock, and Ana Sokolović, together with the world premiere of a chunk by Canadian composer Kotoka Suzuki.
“It’s a bit of little bit of a unique inventive alternative,” Mervon explains. Continuum has appeared at 21C earlier than, as he factors out. “We at all times save one evening for one more group.” Previously that has included Soundstreams, for instance. He says Continuum approached them with the undertaking.
“It’s their evening.” Proceeds from the live performance may even go to Continuum. “We try this yearly with at the very least as soon as group outdoors the RCM,” he explains. “In the long run, these are tough concert events to promote, and we need to unfold the wealth with different new music warriors.”
An elevated reluctance to take dangers on unknown artists and works has emerged as a lingering impact of the COVID pandemic. “Cash is tight.” New music concert events really feel the pinch greater than most, with an elevated give attention to huge acts which might be thought of a positive draw. “It’s onerous to get by the litter.”
Bruce Hornsby & yMusic current: BrhyM (Could 3)
Three-time Grammy Award winner Bruce Hornsby might be nonetheless finest identified for his work with the pop band The Vary and their 1986 megahit The Approach It Is. Nowadays, he’s additionally a musical adventurer with the yMusic ensemble, a New York based mostly sextet made up of trumpet, flute, clarinet, violin, viola, and cello.
Collectively, they current BrhyM, and can carry out items from Hornsby’s catalogue in addition to new collaborative work. BrhyM has already launched one album, Deep Sea Vents, impressed by Hornsby’s love of the underwater world.
“Bruce Hornsby has been with us a few instances,” Mehta says. On the final event, they have been socializing again stage, and within the dialog, Bruce occurred to say yMusic. “That’s how that advanced,” Mehta says. “It began with these type of conversations. It by no means begins with what number of hits have they got on Spotify,” he provides.
The work he likes to program within the competition has a deeper and extra private reference to its viewers. “Issues that want a dialog with the artist,” he says. “We’ve been doing that for the reason that starting with this competition,” he provides, with a fluid imaginative and prescient of what “classical” could indicate with regards to music.
“It’s at all times about music that’s newly written, newly minted.” He acknowledges that their mandate goes past the everyday 4 chord pop music. “It’s items which might be written in a classical format, however not essentially classical music.”
Closing Ideas
Mehta can also be involved about what occurs to all these world premieres after their preliminary outing. “We do are likely to carry issues again,” he says. It’s simply as vital for brand new works to see their second, and third presentation as it’s for his or her premiere.
He’s holding on to at least one extra want for the competition. “My one huge dream is that Margaret Atwood will come for Zombie Blizzard and browse her poetry,” he says. It’s a dream that has but to solidify.
- Discover extra info and tickets to all of the performances [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.