PrettyInScarlett

In addition to all the fun of JUNOfest, those of us who like pianos were treated to the JUNO Pianos concept, inspired by Luke Jerram's Play Me, I'm Yours installations worldwide. Instead of having pianos on the street, JUNO Pianos featured 12 pianos in locations around Ottawa available for anyone to play. I found and played the Yamaha in University of Ottawa's Tabaret Hall and the Steinway grand piano (woop!) in Carleton University Art Gallery .  After playing in Tabaret on Wednesday 28th, I and the other people in Tabaret Hall were treated to a semi-impromptu concert (well, announced on Facebook) by some U of O music students for a few piano pieces, a flute sonata, violin solo and an opera song! The Steinway at Carleton University Art Gallery Saturday afternoon and a cycle ride to Carleton to meet some friends at the Art Gallery to play on another JUNO Piano, this time an antique Steinway grand. I'd not been to Carleton University Art Gallery bef...

Classical JUNOs performers Something of a musical melange weekend but an excellent set of events! Eschewing some of the bands and artists we knew, we chose less familiar sounds for our JUNOfest experience. First up was the Classical JUNOs in Concert event at the National Arts Centre , featuring both nominated performers and composers. The mix of contemporary music was brilliantly played by Christina Petrowska Quilico , Susan Hoeppner , Heather Schmidt and the New Orford String Quartet . Quilico amazed the almost 100-strong audience with her performance of Derek Charke's Sepia Fragments   in a reduction for piano; I found this piece a really captivating mix of earthly and ethereal elements. Quilico's second performance was of Ann Southam's Glass Houses No. 5 , an hypnotic piece which sounded both fiendishly difficult to play but also very clean and unembellished. Susan Hoeppner's excellent performance of Eldin Burton's Sonatina for Flute and Piano got the po...

After having read Steven Mazey 's column, a free Monday lunchtime on 27th February and I headed to the NAC Fourth Stage to see University of Ottawa music alumnus Bryan Wagorn . Mr Wagorn, who is currently New York-based (at the Metropolitan Opera), gave a recital as part of the 'UOttawa on the NAC Fourth Stage' series. On a sunny day it was slightly strange sitting in a very dark space, but for the 25 or so attendees that soon ceased to matter. Wagorn's programme consisted of: J. S Bach's Partita No. 1 in B flat Major, BWV 825 ; Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales ; and the suite Mana by 20th century French composer André Jolivet. After the measured-ness of the Bach Partita , the first of Ravel's Valses came as a sharp wake-up! Of the three suites performed the varied and fun Valses were to me most appealing. Jolivet's Mana , as introduced by Wagorn, is a suite of six pieces written for six copper wire dolls. These were all rather different fr...

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...

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...

A busy week! A mixture of events centred around music and talk. Firstly, M and I went to the National Arts Centre (NAC) on Sunday 13th to see/hear Alex Ross 's lecture 'Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues'. The talk is based on a chapter of his current book Listen to This. He 'talked with music': a playlist of tracks to illustrate his thesis. It was very interesting to hear the samples rather than just read their titles or description; almost the 'book with soundtrack' although not quite in the same vein as Vikram Seth's An Equal Music . A sell out, too. From there we headed to University of Ottawa's Freiman Hall (Perez Hall) for the flip side: 'music with talk'. This was courtesy of Ottawa-born pianist Frank Horvat , who was visiting as part of his Green Keys tour. Horvat is an eco-friendly musician and uses his shows (which are free, as the Green Keys tour is sponsored by eco-friendly businesses) to promote sustainability. Horvat explained t...