PrettyInScarlett

Two very contrasting concerts to continue December's music madness. First, another U Ottawa School of Music concert, 'Piano Duets and Duos' on 7th December. 17 performers under the direction of Frédéric Lacroix presented a variety of well-known and lesser known pieces arranged for four, six, eight and twelve hands on 1 or 2 pianos. Whilst Rheinberger's transcriptions of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations were the headline pieces, I preferred some of the other pieces, such as Rachmaninoff's Romance and the comedy of Lacroix's arrangement Für Malcolm in homage to Beethoven's Für Elise . A fun festive treat for the  appreciative crowd in Tabaret Hall.  Having missed their last few shows (including the 360 show at the Elmdale that won Best Live Show 2011 in Ottawa Xpress ), it was interesting to see The PepTides again and in a different venue. Whilst atmospheric, the stage area at Mercury Lounge seemed a bit cramped. In the support slot, the excellent D

After Karkwa's excellent show on Thursday, we were eagerly awaiting the triple bill of Austra , Young Galaxy and Tasseomancy on Saturday 3rd... not to mention Feist! We first saw Tasseomancy in April supporting Timber Timbre ; I was impressed by them then. This time, the songs were still excellent (I've since listened to their new album Ulalume , which is superb) but their dreaminess seemed a tiny bit lost in Ritual.  They had a reasonable reception but I'm not sure how many concertgoers were familiar with their stuff. Young Galaxy In my mind Young Galaxy were equally as big a draw as Austra. Definitely an eagerly awaited set after muptiple spins of Shapeshifting ! Like Tasseomancy, Young Galaxy were limited to 30 minutes of performance; starting with 'Blowminded' and 'Long Live The Fallen World' certainly charged up the crowd! The rest of the set included songs like 'Peripheral Visionaries', 'We Have Everything' and 'Cover Y

As a precursor to a busy December and something of an impromptu idea, we attended U of O School of Music 's Wind Ensemble concert on 25th November, featuring Victor Herbiet on saxophone. Wind ensembles are something of a rarity in our (classical) concert calendar, so it was interesting to find that most of the programme was 20th century. To suit the Friday evening mood, the first piece performed was Edward Gregson's Festivo , with it's jaunty edge - almost like the opening movement to a classic film. Much of the evening's performance was of exciting, engaging music. True to Steven Mazey's pre-review, Herbiet's solo in Claude T Smith's Fantasia for Alto Sax was superb, with a 'sax solo' interlude reminiscent of (or maybe inspiring) electric guitar solos. A high level of musicianship all round and on this basis, much of the 2011-12 season should be very good! A forthcoming concert that has caught my attention is the School of Music's Piano Duets

The programme for Angela Hewitt 's latest NAC concert on 3rd November started with a difference: Hewitt's recital was after the interval and not before. In addition, the first auditory experience was the supposedly least-accessible of Sibelius' symphonies, Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op. 63 . Prior to the performance I was completely unfamiliar with this piece, but no less interested in hearing the NACO's premiere performance.  The programme notes describe the piece as both severe and stern. After hearing even the first few minutes of the symphony, I beg to differ: these terms seem to be excessively negative. I prefer 'spare elegance', especially in relation to the first and third movements. The piece may have its bleak moments but, especially in the hands of the NACO, the resulting sound is smooth, measured and very beautiful. Having heard quite a bit of more recent Nordic music, Sibelius' influence on modern bands is clear. Unfortunately, a fair few

After Vinyl Tap Stories, the exciting mix of music and words at this autumn's Writers Festival kept the audience enthralled. I didn't see the Marshall McLuhan Centenary event on Friday 21st October, but heard some of the accompanying music by Hilotrons ' Mike Dubue. The Marshall McLuhan Concerto , performed on cello, electric guitar, vibraphone with effects, was indeed captivating.  Moving straight into the following event, Musical Language: The Songwriting Circle (presented by CBC's Alan Neal ) proved very popular; Louise Burns , Ann Vriend , Matthew Barber and Emm Gryner together supplied first-class entertainment; Ambre Mclean was also there to perform 'So Over', the winning song from the All In A Day competition . Fitting in with the theme, they are all singer-songwriters, but within that the songs showcased on Friday encompassed indie-folk-alt country, different styles of guitar accompaniment and piano-based songs. Out of all 4, I most enjoyed Ann

In anticipation of this autumn's Writers' Festival M and I headed out to Southminster United Church for ' Vinyl Tap Storie s' with the legendary Randy Bachman . Known to me by reputation through songs such as 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' but without having heard his Vinyl Tap radio programme, it was interesting to see and hear the man behind the hits. Southminster United Church looked pretty much full as 7pm came and host Laurence Wall came onstage. The evening started by scene setting in 1960s Winnipeg and covered Bachman's early musical life with plenty of humourous 'on the road' stories. Most of the remaining time was spent discussing the origins of songs such as 'American Woman' and 'Taking Care of Business'. A very appreciative audience warmly applauded anecdotes and snippets of music. The 'B.B. King story' was one of my particular favourites, as well as the 'piano man' story related to 'Taking Care

After my hectic July and more relaxed August, M and I saw out the summer with a trip to Folkfest yesterday (Day 3). Initially tempted to attend by Basia Bulat's inclusion on the Ravenlaw stage, we had a fun and relaxing day in the sun. I now know more about banjos than I did on Friday, thanks to the afternoon workshops; we also saw the end of the Song Maps workshop.  The Moon stage - The Little Stevies As a Folkfest first timer, I can't comment on the new site vs old site, but there is certainly plenty of room at Hog's Back Park. Our only real complaint features the main CUPE/SCFP stage area. Whilst the rest of the site had a great laidback, fun vibe, the CUPE/SCFP stage was much more anonymous and less laid-back. The division of the main stage audience area into (presumably) VIP/seating and general was quite weird. Whilst the Moon stage  - smaller acts from other stages doing short inbetweeny sets - is a great idea, the CUPE/SCFP stage just wasn't inviting. The

Now both chamber festivals are over, I've finally had a chance to sit back and relax! As to which festival I most preferred, Music and Beyond and Chamberfest serve slightly different audiences and purposes; I found both immensely enjoyable. Chamberfest had the edge on big name stars, for example both Simone Dinnerstein , Marc-André Hamelin and Anton Kuerti on the piano side, along with groups such as the Nash Ensemble of London . Like Music and Beyond, I didn't go to a bad concert (there was some concert-goer discussion about the merits of Dinnerstein but I missed that show) so picking a clear favourite is difficult! In terms of innovation, Chamberfest's Late Night at the Kildare series was brilliant, with a wide range of 'fringe' chamber music. Cello grunge (courtesy of the Samurai String Squad ), Lara St. John performing Stomp! and Starbachs: The Coffee Cantata were all fantastic. It's a great breakout too - smaller audience, more intimate feel, slight ba

All of a sudden I am now covering Chamberfest for The Festival Goer as well. No complaints here! Another varied festival program with some very interesting sounding concerts. Cello grunge? Yes, the Samurai String Squad are performing a late night 'classical grunge set'. New artists, new music and free events too - including New York's Asphalt Orchestra. The programme can be viewed online ; further details about the Asphalt Orchestra's street performances in Byward Market will be posted onto Chamberfest's Facebook page . Check The Festival Goer for further updates.

The whirlwind that was Music and Beyond has now finished. My final tally was 24 events, pretty much all of them excellent. Perhaps the only disappointing show was Don Campbell's 'Beyond the Mozart Effect', which whilst having excellent musical performances, was rather more an illustrated history of Mozart than an evening about The Mozart Effect . Top marks to Igudesman and Joo for their hilarious 'A Little Nightmare Music' - I highly recommend their online videos! Of the more traditional style concerts, The Jupiter String Quartet were amazing, as was Stéphane Lemelin, who looked and sounded as if he was having a great time. The Music from Turkey concert with Tahir Aydoğdu on kanun was riveting and highly entertaining, as well as the 'tango' concert from Les Violons du Roy and Tango Boreal. From the closing gala, I also really enjoyed Marc Djokic's performance from Richard Mascall's Labyrinth . Reminded me of Nicolas Bolens ' Tempus Fugit .

A short break from Music and Beyond took M and I to The Elmdale Tavern for another gig by The PepTides (of Jazzfest fame ). Firstly, it was very refreshing for us Brits to find a 'pub' style bar venue, where one can buy a drink at the bar without getting funny looks. Big tick. We arrived earlier than the show start time, which turned out to be fortuitous, as the stage area had been rearranged to accommodate singers + band. Quite a few people were standing at the back by showtime. The whole place had been decked out in quirky vintage gear, from old radios lining the stage to bakelite-style telephones (the ones with a rotary dial - a real blast from the past). The PepTides The PepTides did not disappoint, earning raucous applause from the crowd. Having listened to FTHHHI (albeit only once - busy busy!) and now having seen them again, the structure of the songs and lyrics becomes clearer. You either 'hear' and boogie along without necessarily finding the deeper mean

Ottawa chamber festival Music and Beyond starts today with a highly anticipated event featuring renowned Canadian actor Christopher Plummer. Sadly, I'm not going, as I only have  a 'standard' pass. Not to complain, though, as there are 72 concerts on offer between today and 17th July!  I am covering Music and Beyond as official 'reader-blogger' for the Ottawa Citizen. Their reader-blogger page, The Festival Goer , features blogs from JazzFest, BluesFest and Music and Beyond, with ChamberFest and Folk Festival still to come. My posts are under 'MusicBeyondBlogger'. As an aside, M and I plan to attend The PepTides ' next Ottawa show tomorrow (8th July) at the Elmdale House Tavern. 

First up, another plus from the diplomatic circuit. After last November's popular free concert at the National Gallery of Canada, the Embassy of Japan (this time in collaboration with the Embassy of Austria ) hosted an evening of Austrian and Japanese music for violin and piano on 30th June, once again at the National Gallery's Auditorium. This time, reservations were mandatory and the event seemed much better organised. From the programme details and introductory remarks, the two soloists (Mayumi Seiler, violin, and Kyoko Hashimoto, piano) are both Canadian residents and (if I remember rightly) German speakers. After the speeches, including a brief history lesson on the links between Austria, Japan and European-ism by His Excellency Ambassador Ishikawa, the concert commenced. The works, listed below, were each introduced by Mayumi Seiler, which was a nice touch: W.A. Mozart, Sonata for piano & violin in A major, KV.526 Toru Takemitsu, Distance de fée for violin & pi

Rain-drenched early crowd Second day of JazzFest complete with full waterproofs and wellies. A few hardly souls, myself included, headed to Confederation Park to see, in theory, the Laila Biali Trio . Another new one for me, but the JazzFest profile promised pop-oriented jazz from the pianist-songwriter plus George Koller and Larnell Lewis on bass and drums respectively. Sadly, Biali was held up at Ottawa Airport by the adverse weather, so the impromptu Koller-Lewis duo performed a set for the bedraggled attendees - at this point there was not so much a crowd as people in a field! The show also included a demonstration on dismantling Koller's new bass, which was very interesting! By the time Elvis Costello & The Imposters took to the stage the downpour had abated and more people had arrived. As a taster of things to come, the set started with Pump It Up and went on to include gems such as Watching The Detectives, Red Shoes and Alison, as detailed below (from Elvis Costell

First big music festival of the summer (and my first full summer in Ottawa) and a meditation on the steel city on the Don, Sheffield. The previous time I saw Robert Plant , in Sheffield way back in 2002, it was in a packed-out university venue. Not a shade on the crowd gathered in Confederation Park on 23rd June, though. According to a fellow attendee, this was maybe the biggest crowd ever at JazzFest?! Due credit to support act Bahamas - new to me but the band, with frontperson Afie Jurvanen, payed a good mix and received more than a polite response from the ever-growing audience, and not just for a few lines of Led Zeppelin.  Thunder and lightning added to the atmosphere as Robert Plant and the Band of Joy (including Grammy winner Patty Griffin) took the stage with a 'jazz time' take on Black Dog. The majority of the set comprised songs from recent albums Band of Joy and Raising Sand, with the combined vocals of Plant and Griffin and talents of the Band creating a captivati

The diplomatic cultural events circuit seems to become busier now that summer is here! First Doors Open Ottawa (during which M and I sampled the Norwegian Ambassador's residence, French Embassy, 7 Rideau Gate amongst others) followed by a return to New Edinburgh for a garden party on Thursday 16th. GartenFest was organised by the German Embassy as the third in a series of summer events (the first two were a fundraiser for the Ottawa Bach Choir and a Community Celebration). The more informal event of the three saw an audience/guest list attended the Ambassador's residence on Coltrin Road for a klezmer concert (not to forget the delicious food and wine!) featuring Berlin band Di Meschugeles . After attending a short klezmer concert during the Welsh Proms in 2010 featuring local group Klezmer Kollectiv, the theme seemed interesting. Di Meschugeles ' aim, as explained by singer Ofer Waldman between songs, was to rediscover the distinctive sound of klezmer as a 'secular

Summer is pretty much here and with it a plethora of festivals. Firstly, to recap, M and I finally made the Canadian Tulip Festival on its last weekend. As well as tulip-related events, there was a live music stage, food tent and market - a lesson for next year to go earlier! Friday 20th May we turned up for the Capital Sounds evening. The schedule featured local bands, only slightly disrupted by a thunderstorm. We saw The New Records; Claude Munson and The Storm Outside; and Shannon Rose and The Thorns (Capital Sounds bios available here ). The New Records (photo above) played a mixture of covers and original songs , which was a smart choice for a high school indie band. A momentary 'what year is it' moment during their rendition of The Strokes' 'Last Night'; generally quite polished, and I think their forthcoming EP should be interesting. Claude Munson, plus his band The Storm outside, played a set much more rooted in blues, folk and country in the singer-song

A brief summary of the 7th May recital can be found on Angela Hewitt's website , news update of 9th May. Secondly, I believe that the first encore was Schumann, and the second Bach's Jesu, joy of man's desiring .

After thoroughly enjoying Angela Hewitt's February concert at the National Arts Centre, 3 friends and I attended her chamber concert on 7th May at Christ Church Cathedral. Promoted by the Chamber Players of Canada, the recital was in aid of the Bruyère Foundation and, according to their representative and the Ottawa Citizen's review , raised over $26,000 for the Foundation. Our group arrived very early (on advice from Chamber Players regulars) and found good seats in the front of the 'regular' section. By the time the concert started with speeches, the cathedral was very definitely full. The programme comprised of: 10 of Bach's 15 Three-Part Inventions (Sinfonias); Variations and Fugue, Op. 25 'Eroica' by Beethoven; then, after the interval, Bach's French Suite No.3 in B minor and Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 by Brahms. Although not an enormous Bach lover, I did enjoy the French Suite particularly well along with the Beethoven varia

Something of a late April/May bonanza for shows - now that spring is here (mostly - in between the rainy days) there seem to be events galore! First up, an interesting and unusual evening. M and I received complimentary tickets to see Chamber Music of Healey Willan from Chamber Players of Canada , 23rd April. Neither of us were familiar with his works, but there's a first time for everything. I particularly liked the evening's premiere, which was a Willan piece for cello and piano completed by Matthew Larkin. Very very interesting, but sadly far too short! The trio in B minor was pretty good too. The first half programme (Fugue in G minor, Introduction/Allegro, Romance for Violin & Piano, Sanata in E minor for Violin & Piano), didn't engage us quite as much, though. The Chamber Players series also includes Angela Hewitt on May 7th. From one festival to another. The Prairie Scene (co-promoted by the National Arts Centre) is a showcase of music, visual arts/media, th

Timber Timbre have been described (by Ottawa Xpress amongst others) as folk/blues/gothic, i.e. hard to label music, and by themselves as writing music 'with chilling authenticity' (quoted from their website ). Timber Timbre consists of Taylor Kirk (who released his self-titled Timber Timbre in 2009) along with fellow multi-instrumentalists Mika Posen and Simon Trottier. Making waves as far as the Polaris long list, plus the playlists of BBC 6 Music and British online music magazine The Line Of Best Fit , the combined package was too enticing to refuse. Hence M and I headed to another new (for us) venue, First Baptist Church, for the album launch on 9th April. The church is pretty reasonable for a venue, dry again but this time for obvious reasons. A sizeable crowd turned up for the evening's entertainment which commenced with duo Tasseomancy - again quite hard to define, but maybe new/alt folk is a good place to start. Formerly known as Ghost Bees, the duo of Sary and R

Different Embassy, similar theme.... On Friday M and I attended the regular Arts Cafe hosted by the Austrian Embassy/Austrian Cultural Forum here in Ottawa. Still on a musical theme, the Cafe of 25 th March was promoting 25-year old Austrian pianist Stefan Stroissnig and celebrating the bicentenary of Liszt's birth. For a first taster of the Austrian 'circuit', this was promising: a very good turnout (though rather older on average than audiences at recent NAC events -I do find that slightly depressing) at U Ottawa's Tabaret Hall, though sadly no wine ! Stroissnig's programme was as follows: Liszt ' Bénédiction de dieu dans la solitude (Harmonies poétiques et religieuses )' S173/3 Brahms: Sonata No 2 in F sharp minor Friedrich Cerha : Netzwerk - Fantasie Schubert: Sonata in D major, D850 ' Gasteiner ' The curiosity was the piece by Cerha , a contemporary Austrian composer. Neither of us were really enamoured with the piece, couldn't re

Something of a departure from our recent outings to see Finnish band Apocalyptica on 11 th March. After somewhat 're' discovering the band via this route , we were quite excited by the time Friday came. To detail the evening in reverse, Apocalyptica's show was superb, with a range of songs both old and new/transcriptions and originals. I particularly liked the more introspective mid-set performance of Beautiful (with drummer Mikko Sirén on a 4 th cello) and Sacra. As far as I recall and compared to setlists from other shows (none available for 11 th March), the setlist (compiled here from setlist . fm ) was as follows: On the Rooftop With Quasimodo 2010 Grace Master of Puppets ( Metallica cover) End Of Me (with Tipe Johnson) I'm Not Jesus (with Tipe Johnson) One ( Metallica cover) Refuse/Resist ( Sepultura cover) Beautiful ( Mikko Sirén left the drumset to play Cello for this song) Sacra Bittersweet Last Hope Bring Them to Light Seek & Destroy ( Me