PrettyInScarlett

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...

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...

Following on from my recent post, last night was our first visit to the National Arts Centre for pianist Radu Lupu 's show Rapture and Fire. The pieces performed were: Peter Paul Koprowski 's In Memoriam Karol Szymanowski ; Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op 54 ; and Brahms Symphony No 4 in E minor Op 98 . We went early for the pre-show talk 'Constant Farewells' by music critic Jean-Jacques Van Vlasslaer. Something of a new concept for us, but it was interesting and helpful to have a short explanation of the evening's programme, complete with audio samples. Van Vlasslaer was describing the social and musical links between Schumann and Brahms revolving around (amongst other themes) Schumann's musical theme for his wife, Clara. Following the talk, we headed into Southam Hall, and were very pleasantly surprised both by the near-capacity crowd and the broad range of people attending. For many of our visits to Cardiff's St Davids Hall and Wales Millen...

I have finally sorted out my site links to reflect some new/renewed interests and my current location. We have something of a National Arts Centre bonanza shortly: I had already booked to see Angela Hewitt on 16th Feb but found a good ticket offer on LivingSocial.com to see Radu Lupu this coming Wednesday, 26th. In addition to all that, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross (his recent book, Listen To This , is excellent, as well as his previous tome, The Rest Is Noise ) is giving a talk there on 13th February. This is all followed in March by a complete about turn to the Bronson Centre to see Finnish band Apocalyptica . They have been somewhere on my radar for a while but I was spurred on to book tickets after a bout of nostalgia. M and I were regular visitors to Wolverhampton UK to see various bands at Civic Hall/Wulfrun Hall; a few months ago a mutual friend posted on that there Facebook thing about seeing said Apocalyptica at Wulfrun Hall. Nostalgia for the venue and renewed intere...

Something of a late review.... M and I went to see Melissa Auf der Maur at Mavericks on 5th November - first 'dingy venue' gig in Ottawa. Not that Mavericks is at all bad - seemed on first impressions to be a mixture of The Boardwalk and Clwb Ifor Bach. Nice and cosy, although the 'locals' seem to drink less. In keeping with the usual pattern of support bands, the touring support Final Flash (whom I believe are from Montreal) were quite interesting and obviously had some solid fans in the crowd, but local support The Balconies left a lot to be desired (although they also had a few keen fans). The young lady fronting The Balconies seemed to run out of breath part way through lines. They were clearly targeting the catchy-tunes-trio idea but said front-woman also lacked sufficient guitar skills to really pull it off. Melissa (and band - who also doubled up as road crew but were very polished players) played a set mixed from new album Out Of Our Minds and previous solo ...

Something of a random spot in the free Metro paper. Sunday 31st October M and I attended 'an afternoon of classical guitar, flute and violin' sponsored by the Embassy of Japan but held in the auditorium of the National Gallery of Canada. We thought, maybe it would be similar to the Swiss Ambassador's Award Concert last year - we were wrong. The NCG auditorium holds many more people (a few hundred at least) and is much more modern. The show, free and not ticketed, was also completely full - mixture of dignatories, Japanese local residents and others. According to the Ambassador's preamble, almost 100 people were turned away! The 3 musicians - Yasuji Ohagi , guitar; Kazunori Seo , flute; Gentaro Kagitomi , violin - have played a string of concerts across Canada, in Vancouver , Montreal and Quebec City as well as Ottawa. The programme was a mixture of (predominantly 20th century) Eastern and Western music for solo, duo and trio. M and I thought the solo works (Ysäye: Sona...