PrettyInScarlett

Lang Lang with Anita Pari Like many National Arts Centre regulars, the idea of a Lang Lang concert sounded fantastic... except that for me the Gala tickets are rather too expensive. As a result the turnout for today's masterclass with young artists Anita Pari (Ottawa), Alexander Malikov (Calgary), and Tina Chong (Banff) in Southam Hall was pretty good. No surprises that there were photographers and a TV camera all over the stage... so much so that during Lang's analysis of Malikov's rendition of  Transcendental Étude No 8 'Wild Hunt' (Liszt), someone shouted at the cameraman to move. To my mind they seemed a little intrusive on the performances, but none of the artists seemed to take any notice. Lang Lang with Tina Chong Up first and for me the best performance was Anita Pari with the captivating Ballade No 1 by Chopin. In comparison, Malikov's performance did not have anywhere near as much projection. Final performer Tina Chong seemed ...

This year's format change for Ottawa Folk Festival involved a divide between free and paid events and a slight change to the site layout. Thankfully some of the sound bleed and bad sound mixes of 2011 were gone as well as the stupid split audience for the CUPE stage. M and I had paid tickets for Friday 7th and went to free events Sunday 9th. The one downside of the paid/free divide is that people who want to mix between the 2 halves frequently have to go through security every time... Kathleen Edwards Nonetheless, Friday's lineup was excellent and had clearly enticed lots of people to brave the weather forecast; to my eyes a much bigger audience than last year. We arrived to see the end of Alberta Cross's set (no complaints there) and finally managed to hear Kathleen Edwards . I've read a fair bit about Ms Edwards recently but had so far only managed to hear one song, 'Change The Sheets', but thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the set from this popular son...