Culture Weekend: Music and Beyond and the National Arts Centre

Following on from a successful 2012 festival, Music and Beyond held a Celebration Concert on Saturday, 29th September. The selection of works included repeats of festival favourites as well as a few new choices. One person commented to me that the sheer variety meant that the flow of the concert was a little disjointed (the stage had to be set for each individual performance), but the quality was superb.

NAC Culture Days - contemporary dance

Again I really enjoyed Howard Cable's The Petty Harbour Bait Skiff along with the evening's offerings from the 'Jewish Composers Through The Ages' concert: Popper's Hungarian Rhapsody and Glick's 'The Rabbi's Wedding at the Palmerston Street Shul' from The Old Toronto Klezmer Suite. Both of these fun party tunes received great applause, even more than Seventeen Voyces' rendition of Java Jive. Yannick-Muriel Noah dazzled with 'Es gibt ein Reich' from Ariadne auf Naxos, whilst Julie Nesrallah added a touch of the unusual with Respighi's Il Tramonto. All in all an enjoyable evening!

Yesterday we headed to the National Arts Centre for their Culture Days offerings. M is a keen photographer so initially we headed to the Studio for a photography workshop on contemporary dance, with dancers from The School of Dance and tuition from SPAO. I caught a few of the dancers myself but also relaxed and enjoyed their performances! Later on we had a look backstage as well as taking in Glenn Gould's piano, Steinway CD318. This was our first Culture Days visit to the NAC; it was really interesting and comes highly recommended for future years.

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Pigeon Funk

Notes on a very random purchase. Earlier today I acquired Venetian Snares 'Rossz Csillag Alatt Sz ü letett ' purely on the basis of the language and artwork. Its certainly something different - and most definitely not pop. After a bit of searching: Venetial Snares is, according to Wikipedia, the performing name of Aaron Funk, who seems to specialise in experimental tracks in odd time signatures. Article here . The sleeve notes for this album (whose title is Hungarian for 'Born under a bad star') poses the question: what if, for just a day, we could both be pigeons? Interessant. Apparently this concept (a day in the life of a Hungarian pigeon) is non-typical of Venetian Snares sound, but one could ask, does Mr Funk do 'typical'? On first listening, the sound of this CD mixes classical/traditional Hungarian sounds and breakbeats. but aside from that? Definitely a 'listen for yourself' artist; try the website , fan site or myspace .

Lang Lang: a little bit of stardust in Southam Hall

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

New talent at Southminster

As a follow-on from last weekend's excellent Chopin concert, there is an afternoon of New Artists from the NAC's Summer Music Institute at Southminster United Church on 17th June. Entitled 'Dover Beach and other works for summertime', the concert features new artists Katarzyna Sadej , Emily Nenninger , Drew Santini, Hannah Min, Paul Casey , Karen Kang and Bryan Wagorn. I had the chance to hear Bryan Wagorn at one of University of Ottawa's Concerts at the NAC 4th Stage concerts back in February and thoroughly enjoyed his performance. The proposed programme is very enticing: MENDELSSOHN String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13 MONIUSZKO Sen (The Dream) Prząśniczka (Spinner Girl) SZYMANOWSKI Lecioły Zórazie (The Swans Were Flying) Ściani Dumbek (The Dark Forest) CHOPIN Piosnka Litewska (Lithuanian Folksong) Moja Pieszczotka

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