Call for Applications: Toronto Summer Music Festival

After some financial difficulties and a change in the Artistic Director, it would appear that the Toronto Summer Music Festival has streamlined its voice program.  This year they are offered classes for advanced singers with Sir Thomas Allen and Roger Vignoles.  Here is a snapshot of their Art of Song Program:

The Art of Song

for singers and pianists

July 24 - August 7, 2011

Maximum 10 singers and 3 pianists

NEW THIS YEAR: FULL FELLOWSHIPS FOR ALL YOUNG ARTISTS! 

All participants will receive a full fellowship covering tuition. Housing will be provided where possible with participants placed with host families in private residences and/or in university residences.

The Art of Song program is intended for a select class of pianists and singers on the threshold of professional careers.  The program offers a two-week immersion in the world of art song under the guidance of baritone Sir Thomas Allen, pianist Roger Vignoles, and some of Canada’s most renowned specialists including pianist Michael McMahon.

The 2011 session will be focused primarily upon the study and performance of German and English repertoire. The significance and context of the poetry and the expression of text will be studied and a close relationship between collaborative partners will be encouraged and developed. ...
Art of Song Resident Artists 

Sir Thomas Allen, voiceMichael McMahon, pianoRoger Vignoles, piano

The Art of Song program is two weeks in length and is open to singers and pianists between the ages of 20 and 35. 

Call for Applications: Halifax Summer Opera Workshop

This just in from Nina Scott-Stoddart:

We are thrilled to announce that the seventh annual Halifax Summer Opera Workshop will run from

 

Monday July 18 through Sunday August 14, 2011

 

The repertoire will be:

 

Les contes d'Hoffmann by Offenbach (1998)

in French with sung recitative

Music Director:  Tara Scott

Stage Director:  Nina Scott-Stoddart

 

Die Zauberflöte by Mozart (1853)

sung in German with English dialogue

Music Director: Greg Myra

Stage Directors: David Mosey and GaRRy Williams

 

In person auditions will be:

 

LONDON, ON 

Thursday February 10, New St. James Presbyterian Church (280 Oxford Street East), Sanctuary, noon to 6 pm

TORONTO, ON 

Friday February 11, Kimbourne Park United Church, in the Sanctuary, 6 pm to 9 pm

Saturday February 12, Trinity-St Paul’s United, (427 Bloor Street West, two blocks west of Spadina) in the Memorial Room, 1 pm to 5 pm

HALIFAX, NS

Saturday March 5, Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts (6199 Chebucto Road), 1 pm to 4 pm

 

DVD/CD distance applications will be accepted postmarked up to March 4, 2011.

 

If you'd like to be considered, please fill in an application form on the site.  In fact, you can find all the details of the application process and requirements on the HSOW website at:  http://halifaxsummeroperaworkshop.com/?page_id=476

New Favourite Canadian Blogs...

Happy New Year everyone!  Like all Canadians (or at the least the ones covered in snow) it is that time of year to hunker down and enjoy the winter with a good book and a cup of something hot.  Or in my case, a good blog. Recently I have found two new blogs that are fun and informative.


All Time Coloratura reviews the opera scene in Toronto with a smart and funny voice. She blogged about tweeting and the opera last summer - she seems to bring voice to her generation (20-somethings) and their need to be social all the time (think FB, twitter, and even blogging!):

I have mixed feelings about this. It drives me nuts when I can see someone’s glowing smartphone screen from three rows away. If you’re really that bored, stay home, I usually think. And it’s been a while since I’ve attended a performance where at least one cell phone didn’t go off (followed by panicked attempts to silence it). The substance of Dylan Tweney’s tweets doesn’t do a whole lot to argue his case: he mostly tweeted plot details, which don’t really benefit from a live account (imagine live-tweeting the contents of a book). On the other hand, I think a new breed of discourse is emerging on twitter, and opera companies ignore it at their peril. Opera-listening can be enhanced by communal experience, whether it’s an appreciative nod to the friend sitting next to you after a particularly well-executed high note, or chatting with a fellow opera-lover while listening to a recording or watching a DVD. 

As the COC Social and Interactive Media Coordinator, Cecily maintains their blogs as well. Check them out!

The second blog is The Cardinal's Nest written by a Canadian singer who wants to talk about MONEY.  She writes in her first blog:

I want to talk about the thing in which I have not been educated. The thing that I have had to teach myself, or, find out the hard way. That thing? MONEY. THE BUSINESS of MAKING MONEY as an entrepreneur in Canada. More specifically, as a SINGER. Did your Music Degree supply you with a semester on that?  

SAVING MONEY in a financial climate that is ever changing. SAVING MONEY in an industry that is feast or famine. We all know it. We don’t talk about it. I’m fascinated, and slightly terrified of this topic but, it does no good sitting here alone in my thoughts.

She is funny, honest and addresses something I really believe we don't deal with as professionals ...not just singing professionals but ALL professionals that are educated in commerce and finance!


So...for 2011 I will be checking in with both the Coloratura and the Cardinal to read their thoughts on the opera world in Canada.  I hope you will too!

Christmas Gift Ideas - COC's Magic Flute

Oh what a sumptuous idea - a new production of the Magic Flute - check out the teaser below to see the cool costume design sketches by designer Myung Hee Cho:




Can't wait to get mine!

COC Noon Concerts this week!

Sondra Radvanovsky took the stage yesterday at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre for a free noon hour concert.  The Free Concert Series is a 10-month celebration of creativity and diversity that takes place in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre in the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. I was sorry to miss it however, Joseph So has raved about it on the La Scena Musical Blog.


For more Vocal Series events, check out the concert tomorrow at noon (Thursday, December 16) where Canadian mezzo Krisztina Szabo will take the stage with the Queen of Puddings Music Theatre in A Tribute to György Kurtág.

COC Ensemble goes NORTH!

One of the things I didn't get to do while a member of the COC Ensemble was perform in a school tour (I was 9 months pregnant with my first baby that year and we all thought a pregnant Hansel wouldn't work very well!!!) so I was intrigued (and just a little bit jealous) when I got this press release from the COC:

Xstrata Ensemble Studio School Tour Travels a Combined 9,068 km

The Canadian Opera Company’s Xstrata Ensemble Studio School Tour completed its most ambitious tour of elementary schools to date on December 5, 2010, with the casts and crews of two productions travelling a combined 9,068 km in Ontario and Québec, and giving a collective 47 performances since November 8, 2010. This fall, the COC presented its acclaimed operas, Isis and the Seven Scorpions, by Canadian composer Dean Burry, and Cinderella, a combination of Jules Massenet’s and Rossini’s musical scores, as part of the school tour.    

At the behest of Xstrata Nickel, the School Tour Title Sponsor, the Inuit communities of Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq in the Nunavik region of northern Québec, near Xstrata Nickel's Raglan Mine, were added to the list of destinations, taking the school tour farther north than it had ever been before. The trip to Raglan Mine was documented in a series of blog posts on Parlando, the COC blog.

School Tour Facts:

• The casts and crews of both shows travelled a combined total of 9,068 km and gave a collective 47 performances 
• The Raglan mine is 600 km north of the tree line, at the 62nd parallel.
• The region surrounding the Raglan mine is is sub-arctic permafrost.
• Nunavik's population is about 10,500 people. Cinderella was performed for approximately 400 children and community members, or almost 4% of the population.
• 150 employees of Raglan mine attended the Ensemble Studio's recital program of operatic arias.
• Only 11 passengers could be accommodated by the plane that flew the Cinderella cast and crew to Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq

New BACH Summer Festival in Canada

Gerald Fagan, Artistic Director  and Friedhelm Hoffmann, Chairperson,  are delighted to announce the inaugural Bach Music Festival of Canada, South Huron Ontario!

The Bach Music Festival of Canada, South Huron Ontario has been established to create a weeklong festival featuring music of Bach and his compatriots. This international music festival will have its debut in July 11 - 17, 2011. 

Confirmed Guests Artists Include:

INSTRUMENTAL CONCERTS:

Lara St John Solo Violin Concert Recital and Master Class

Trio Alla Grande Guitar Trio Concert and Master Class

‘The Art of the Aria’     Bach Aria Symposium with renowned Basso Thomas Paul (Juilliard)

CHORAL – YOUTH TREBLE VOICES: Festival Conductor Brenda Zadorsky

CHORAL - ADULT: Festival Conductor Gerald Fagan

Gerald Fagan Singers (London Canada), conductor Gerald Fagan

Harvestehuder Kammerchor (Hamburg Germany), conductor Claus Bantzer

Regional choristers are encouraged to join in the Festival by actively participating as a week long member of the Mass Youth Choir with a final concert on Friday July 16 or the Mass Adult Choir, culminating in a concert of the B-Minor Mass on Saturday July 17! You can join with your choir or as an individual. Choristers from around the province will gather to share their love of music, and we hope you will join us too! 

Numerous concerts, recitals and masterclasses are scheduled throughout the week for audiences, scholars and musicians! Drawing upon the wealth of talent from Southwestern Ontario as well as welcoming musicians from around the world, this Festival is guaranteed to provide music lovers with numerous opportunities for sharing in the celebration of Bach and his compatriots.

Social events, regional tours, and shared meals will ensure a well-rounded experience for both adult and youth participants.

Special Early Registration rates are set to encourage you to send your registration in early. Please look at the dates and forward your registration, to take advantage of these special prices.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Bach Music Festival of Canada, July 2011!

Louise Fagan, Executive Producer l.fagan@rogers.com 519 851 0393

www.bachmusicfestival.com