And Soprano towards Diva

Scholarship Winners, Stories / / ,

And Soprano towards Diva

Simone Osborne, after her “surprise” debut at Music in the Afternoon on November 19, 2015, will take another large step forward in her career next year. The Canadian Opera Company has announced that its new season will include a remounting of Harry Somers’s grand opera Louis Riel in a co-production with the National Arts Centre. Composed for the 1967 centennial, this return will celebrate the work’s 50th anniversary, and will help mark the 150th anniversary of Canada’s confederation. Simone will play the rôle of Marguerite, a part which includes the famous “Kuyas”, the lullaby sung by Riel’s wife to their child at the beginning of Act III. The title part will showcase Russell Braun, whose first performance of many with the WMCT began with his debut as a scholarship winner in 1992.

About Harry Somers’s Louis Riel
About the COC revival next season

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Mezzo to Soprano

118th Season, Stories / / ,

Mezzo to Soprano

“Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it.”  Eliza Tabor (1835-1914)

“The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”  Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Planning for the WMCT’s November 19th Concert with mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard (Met Opera star, Grammy Award and Richard Tucker Award winner) began two years ago. Artistic Director Simon Fryer suggested Miss Leonard to the Artists Selection Committee as a possibility for the 2015/16 Season.

Questions: How long-ago had a mezzo-soprano performed at Music In the Afternoon?
Would the season be balanced with Canadians and internationals, established and up-and-coming musicians? Was Miss Leonard available? Would she like to sing for us and did she have a pianist in mind?

The fit seemed just right, so a date was chosen and the agent’s contract was signed. Brochures were printed, website updated. Ads were placed, tickets sold. Lyrics were received, translations verified. Pre-concert talk arranged. Programmes printed. Critics invited. Refreshments purchased. One day left. Ready to go!

And then the agent’s phone call! “Miss Leonard is ill. Her doctor advises her not to fly from Chicago to Toronto. She has to cancel!”

What to do? Should we scrap the concert? Can we inform everyone in time? NO! A substitute must be found! Let’s try the agent. Is there another singer available on short notice? Maybe. Let’s try Canadian Soprano Simone Osborne. She just performed  with the Toronto Symphony.

“Oh! You’re in Winnipeg!…But you’re not busy tomorrow….You’d love to do it!…. You know the pianist, John Arida…. You have a programme ready to sing….There’s a flight this afternoon….You and John can rehearse this evening….”

Simone

And so the disappointment became resolve, the difficulty became opportunity, and the Mezzo became the Soprano!

Thanks to Artistic Director Simon Fryer, and Past President Annette Sanger, for a day full of emails and phone calls, avoiding disaster, and bringing us an unexpected treat.

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CDA Winner Plays Toronto Concert Jan. 15

Career Development Award, Scholarship Winners / /

Charles Ridhard Hamlin smallThe Royal Conservatory of Music has announced the addition of a joint recital featuring CDA winner Charles Richard-Hamelin and Tony Yike Yang, both winners at the recent International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. The Conservatory concert takes place January 15 at 7:30 pm yang_yike_webin Mazzoleni Concert Hall, located in historic Ihnatowycz Hall.
Both artists will perform works by Chopin.
Charles Richard-Hamelin won the WMCT’s $20,000 Career Development Award live competition last April and will play in the Music in the Afternoon 2016-17 season.

No Canadian has ever played in the finals of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition and this year there were two. Charles Richard-Hamelin, of Montreal, placed second and also won the Krystian Zimerman Prize for best performance of a sonata. Tony Yike Yang, of Toronto, placed fifth and at 16, was the youngest laureate in the history of the competition. The January concert is a unique opportunity to hear the two Canadian rising stars before they embark on a tour of Japan and South Korea.
Ticket information:
http://performance.rcmusic.ca/event/yang_hamelin

More Information:
http://www.broadwayworld.com/toronto/article/Tony-Yike-Yang-Charles-Richard-Hamelin-Added-to-Royal-Conservatory-Concert-Season-20151210

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Simone Osborne’s Surprise Debut

118th Season / / ,

“Surprise!”

Pianist John Arida with Simone Osborne
Pianist John Arida with Simone Osborne

Simone Osborne threw her arms in the air and her signature big smile beamed as she greeted the Music in the Afternoon audience in Walter Hall Nov. 19.

Scant 30 hours before Isabel Leonard – due to illness – had cancelled her performance and Simone Osborne had graciously agreed to make her debut with the WMCT.

“The audience was indeed pleasantly surprised’, says Joseph So in his La Scena Musicale review.

“…it was a truly an auspicious WMCT debut.”
Read review

 

 

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Congratulations Emily D’Angelo

Scholarship Winners / / ,

5119ec_a1a150c7513d4ac58f7d350f85a1e089.jpg_srb_p_600_674_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_jpg_srbEach year young singers from across Canada – preselected in auditions – are invited to compete in the Centre Stage finals for a spot in the COC Ensemble the following season. Mezzo soprano Emily D’Angelo, this years’ recipient of the WMCT’s $10,000 Centennial Scholarship, won both First Prize ($5,000) and the Audience Choice award ($1500) in the competition held at the Four Seasons Centre Tuesday, Nov. 3. Despite having to appear on crutches – she has a broken bone in her foot – Emily dazzled us all with her performance.

The second and third prizes went to BC mezzo Lauren Eberwein and Quebec baritone Bruno Ray.

WMCT scholarship winners usually perform at our Annual General Meeting, but Emily was unable to do so this year as she was in New York to perform in the Gerda Lissner Lied/Art Song competition, where she won an “Encouragement” grant, and also to appear in the Mary Trueman Art Song Competition, where she was selected as a finalist – and will return to New York for the final in mid-March. While in New York, she also auditioned, and was accepted, for the Gerdine Young Artists Program offered by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, which provides an opportunity for young singers to sing in the chorus, occasionally understudy and also enjoy extensive coaching and master classes. In addition to all this, Emily has also been awarded the Jim and Charlotte Norcop Prize for singers at the Faculty of Music, and will give a recital in Walter Hall on March 31, 2016, from 12 to 1 pm. A rising star indeed!

More information in the U of T Bulletin

~ Susan Johnston, WMCT Archivist

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Iain Scott TYM Speaker Nov. 19

118th Season, Tuning Your Mind / /

Iain Scott photo1Iain Scott – Tuning Your Mind Speaker
Nov. 19, 12:15 pm
before Isabel Leonard concert

Iain Scott is one of Canada’s leading experts on opera and the singing voice. He grew up in a small village in Scotland and came to Canada 45 years ago; he now lives in Toronto with his wife, Barbara. After a 30-year career working with engineers in Shell, chartered accountants in Deloitte, and consulting actuaries in Mercer, he founded his own company “OPERA-IS” (the IS is for “Iain Scott’) in 2002 to develop opera appreciation courses, lead opera tours and offer opera guides. He is much in demand as a writer, lecturer, and broadcaster about opera.

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“Justly proud…”

Career Development Award, Stories / /

“Justly proud…”

And indeed we are.

Dang Thai Son

The Wholenote Magazine managing editor Paul Ennis notes in the current issue that the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto was “justly proud” when Charles Richard-Hamelin won silver in the prestigious 17th Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw last week. And even more than overly proud that the piano sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58. performance that won him the Krystian Zimerman Prize for best performance of a sonata is the very sonata that won him first prize in the WMCT’s Career Development Award competition last April.

Puffed our chests for sure.

Yike (Tony) Yang and Dang Thai Son
Yike (Tony) Yang and Dang Thai Son

But there is another connection as Wholenote editor David Perlman notes on page 6. Sixteen-year-old Toronto high school student, Yike (Tony) Yang who placed fifth in the Chopin competition is taught by Dang Thai Son. Dang graced the cover of the Wholenote in February 2000 in the context of what he called “my real Toronto debut” – at the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto – 20 years after he “burst seemingly out of nowhere, onto the world stage in 1980, and won first prize at the 10th Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw”.

See online theWholeNote:

While checking theWholenote notice page 26 where Isabel Leonard’s Nov. 19 concert is recommended. “The Women’s Musical Club of Toronto can always be relied on to provide artists and programs of interest. I’m looking very much forward to the recital by the American mezzo …..” Hans de Groot.

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Composer Connects Hip Hop and Classical

117th Season / / , ,

Composer Connects Hip Hop and Classical

John Mayo, left, with son Christopher at Music in the Afternoon première.
John Mayo, left, with son Christopher at Music in the Afternoon première.

Composer Christopher Mayo, whose WMCT commission Twentieth Century Ikon premièred at Music in the Afternoon last May, has made the leap from Hip Hop to Classical. His classical arrangement of Hip Hop superstar Drake’s Know Yourself was performed by members of the TSO at the 2015 Polaris Music Awards Gala in Toronto September 21.

Christopher Mayo’s WMCT commission was premièred by Ensemble Made in Canada, on May 7, 2015. His father John Mayo has for many years written the notes for Music in the Afternoon programs.

 

The CBC video of both Drake’s Hip Hop version and the TSO version can be seen at Musical Toronto website here.

 

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Richard-Hamelin Wins Silver in Chopin Competition

Career Development Award / /

Charles Ridhard Hamlin smallCharles Richard-Hamelin, first prize winner in the WMCT’s Career Development Award competition last April, has won Silver in the 17th Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. In addition he won the Krystian Zimerman Prize for best performance of a sonata – Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58. – the same sonata that won him first prize in the CDA competition.

The CDA competition prize includes a concert in Music in the Afternoon.  Charles will play in the spring of 2017.

Seong-Jin Cho, of South Korea was the Chopin competition first place winner.

No Canadian has ever reached the final stage of the competition and this year there were two. Toronto-based pianist Tony Yike Yang took fifth prize.

Of Charles’ CDA performance, one juror remarked:

“…one of the finest performances of this work I have ever heard on any professional stage”.

 

CBC story

Musical Toronto story

Chopin competition

 

 

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