PrettyInScarlett

As a final Ottawa concert and a break from mad packing, M and I attended the Rush Hour Concert: Music Miniatures by the Chamber Players of Canada on 12th February. Our interest piqued by Apartment 613's enthusiastic write-up of Monday evening's concert, we spent a fun hour in St Andrew's Church. The fare varied from lesser known works by Mahler and Prokofiev to relatively obscure composers such as Charles Lefebvre and William Grant Still. I really enjoyed the Mahler selection, Quartet for Piano and Strings - a little miniature by a young Mahler but certainly anticipatory of his later, larger works, with a unison pizzicato ending coming almost by surprise; the opening piano theme was also somehow familiar, as if it has been borrowed many times. M preferred Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew Themes - according to Julian Armour's introduction, it's a rare example of Prokofiev using other melodies as a reference for a composition.  Howard Cable's The Petty ...

Heading towards February and the variety of event choices has increased somewhat; M and I tried out the NAC English Theatre's production of Ovid's Metamorphoses and the inaugural Nature Nocturne at the Canadian Museum of Nature . I heard about Nature Nocturne via Apartment 613 and the concept immediately caught my eye. An adults-only cultural/nightlife event in an amazing building? Tickets bought. The attendees were a very diverse crowd, including a lot of smartly attired people giving the event something of a cocktail soirée vibe (perhaps this says something about the range of events, or lack of them, in Ottawa...). The refurbished tower held a very packed dancefloor and I especially recommend the current exhibition Fury: Portraits of turbulent skies by artist Stephen Hutching. We wandered around the Vale Earth Gallery having fun with the sedimentator, magmanator and metamorphicator machines (fantastic fun!) and trying out artist Greta Grip's kitted QR codes...

As an addendum to my review of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - In Concert, local Ottawa blog Apartment 613 has a great review available here .

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...