Tali sets MCO on new era of music-making

Fri May 18 2007
by Gwenda Nemerofsky
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, with Anu Tali and Karl Stobbe
Westminster United Church, Wed 16 May 2007
Attendance: 820
4.5 out of five stars

As 820 cheering audience members rose to their feet on Wednesday night, it was clear that the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra has embarked on a new era of music-making.

Under the direction of new music director and conductor Anu Tali, the orchestra seemed to find new inspiration, playing better than it has in recent memory. This diminutive 34-year-old Estonian brought new life and vigour to the ensemble's playing, which bodes well for seasons to come.

And seasons were on the menu. In some imaginative programming, the orchestra intermingled Vivaldi's The Four Seasons with Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla's Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), arranged by Leonid Desyatnikov.

Concertmaster Karl Stobbe was the violin soloist and he truly outdid himself. Playing with scintillating passion and technical prowess, he was the master of every movement, from the chilliest winter to the most scorching summer. The allegro from Spring was a cheerful, pastoral dance, with Stobbe's nimble, clean playing bringing to mind fields of young grasses blowing in the breeze.

A quick switch to Piazzolla's Summer saw Stobbe attacking with grit; thrilling descending glissandi and strains of Vivaldi motifs snuck in seamlessly for an intriguing effect. This was stylish, purposeful playing — full of confidence.
Vivaldi's Summer opened gently, with light breezes and insects buzzing, truly atmospheric. Tali added a lovely nuance to the ending of the allegro in the form of an elegant rubato. She used the baton for select movements only and employed a rather physical style of conducting, bending and swaying, tilting her head and often using large sweeping arm movements.

This was the MCO the way we always thought it could sound. Alive, vigorous and, most of all, in tune. Nary an off-key note was heard from the oft-imprecise violin section. They were on — really on.

While Stobbe was undoubtedly the star of the evening, there were some laudable performances from his colleagues. Yuri Hooker played a wonderfully moving improvisational-sounding and melancholy solo in Piazzolla's Autumn. The orchestra and Stobbe joined in with some sizzling licks.

You couldn't help but get into the momentum of the final allegro movement of Vivaldi's Autumn, with its galloping motion reminiscent of the hunt. Stobbe played his heart out in this pleasingly hearty rendition.

Gears changed again with the sensuous Winter of Piazzolla, with jazzy picking by the basses and Stobbe giving it all the swoops and swerves needed to preserve the Latin flavour.

It was a memorable night, with Stobbe showing his technical wizardry and Tali making her official debut. The touching Tune of Homeland by Estonian composer Heino Eller, which Tali introduced as "almost like an anthem for us," opened the evening with bittersweet emotion. The night ended, however, with enthusiastic anticipation for the upcoming season.

Laid-back MCO concert misses mark

Thu Mar 29 2007
by Holly Harris
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, with Alain Trudel and Michelle Grégoire
Westminster United Church, Tue 27 March 2007
Attendance: 650
2.5 out of five stars

JAZZ — as a cooler cousin to its classical music kin — can be many things.

It can knock your socks off with its daring innovation and powerful drive.

It can breathe fresh life into old, well-worn standards. Or it can lull you into a state of Zen-like bliss, with lush harmonization and velvety chords.

The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra's jazz-infused concert ended up Tuesday night as a well-intentioned but ultimately schismatic program that wasn't exactly the party promised us by MCO's charming artistic adviser/conductor, Alain Trudel. The concert featured a world premiere by local jazz pianist, Michelle Gr?goire, who also performed several numbers accompanied by bassist Steve Hamilton and drummer Rob Siwik.

In fairness, the ultra-laid-back evening would have flowed better if the original program order had remained intact. Awkward stage changes necessitated lumping all the orchestral works in the first half, with Grégoire's band appearing only after intermission.

Nevertheless, if you looked beyond all the ebbs and flows of the unevenly paced program — and the fact that 60-year old chamber music relics were swinging harder than the jazz tunes — there were moments well worth a listen. Grégoire is quickly making a name for herself both for her tastefully elegant playing chops as well as her burgeoning career as a jazz composer. A regular player with the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, she received critical acclaim for her debut CD, Reaching, released in 2004.

Her latest project, the CBC-commissioned Gratitude Suite, is a mature, three-movement work for jazz trio and string orchestra, composed specifically for the MCO concert.

The 15-minute work's hymnal opening and warmly expressive theme showed off Grégoire's innate musicality and expansive writing. Particularly intriguing was the combination of the jubilant third movement's richly harmonized strings and the band's rhythmic groove.

An arrangement of poignant Miles Away didn't fare quite so well, with the orchestra's doubling of the piano's arching melody and lush chord structures feeling somewhat superfluous.

You might think that including a Gershwin tune would be a no-brainer, but choosing melting ballad Embraceable You — rather than any of the composer's snappy numbers — only slowed things down even more, despite the band's best attempts, including a nifty trombone solo by Trudel.

You always want to leave 'em wanting more. But in this case, the fact that there was no encore seemed to be just fine with the audience.

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Brueggergosman, fans continue love affair

Thu Mar 1 2007
by Holly Harris
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, with Anu Tali & Measha Brueggergosman
Westminster United Church, Tue 27 February 2007
Attendance: 900 (sold out)
4 out of five stars

WINNIPEG'S love affair with Measha Brueggergosman continued Tuesday night as the Canadian soprano superstar returned to the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra stage.

The Maritime-based singer, who first performed with the orchestra in 2001, has been skyrocketing to international fame since her last local appearance three years ago. Her debut CD, So Much to Tell, recorded with the MCO, earned her a Juno nomination in 2005.

The sold-out crowd could barely restrain its adoration for her, prompting Brueggergosman to thank the fans for "making me feel like I can do no wrong."
She probably couldn't. Even when she performs more challenging repertoire, it's still beautiful.

The statuesque performer hit the stage after the first work of the evening, Grieg's Holberg Suite, Op. 40, and stole the show with her dramatic stage presence alone.

Hindemith's Des Todes Tod (Death's Death) was a darkly flavoured set of three songs composed in 1923 for soprano and string quartet. In anyone else's hands, this could be trouble. It's a difficult work that would probably not be the wisest choice to win over a new audience, but the singer was preaching to the converted. The third song, Des Todes Tod, performed as a duet with Daniel Scholz, was a highlight, with Scholz's viola intertwining and rising in tandem with her soaring voice.

Brueggergosman also treated the audience to a performance of four songs from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn). Mahler's music can turn on a dime from folksy charm to bittersweet melancholia, demanding the utmost sensitivity and mature depth from its singers. Brueggergosman seems born to sing this music, particularly bewitching the audience with a playful interpretation of Verlorne Muh (Wasted Effort).

The evening also featured the MCO — and Canadian — debut of Estonian conductor Anu Tali. Her impassioned approach, conducting the entire program without baton, brought gorgeous lyricism to Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.

And then there was the encore. After sharing a few charming anecdotes -- and her larger-than-life personality — with the audience, Brueggergosman pulled out all the stops with a harrowing, a cappella solo of spiritual Were You There.

Its final climatic verse, with her powerhouse voice soaring up to heaven, nearly brought down the house, leading to a rousing standing ovation from an audience that just can't seem to get enough of this charismatic dynamo.

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Celebrated baroque music trio a rare treat

Fri Jan 19 2007
by Gwenda Nemerofsky
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, with Jane Glover, Emma Kirkby & Daniel Taylor
Westminster United Church, Wed 17 January 2007
Attendance: 675
4 out of five stars

IF you want to hear great baroque music, go to the experts.

That's exactly the recipe the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra (MCO) followed on Wednesday night when it presented its special concert, an evening with English soprano Emma Kirkby and Canadian countertenor Daniel Taylor under the baton of famed British conductor Jane Glover.

The collaboration of such a celebrated trio is a rare happening for our city. And, in fact, it almost didn't happen.

Just a few notes into the Stabat Mater Dolorosa by Pergolesi, Taylor put out his hand to halt the music. With a shake of his head, he approached the audience to ask for a few moments of repose. Orchestra members put down their instruments and Taylor and Kirkby returned to their seats on the stage. A few minutes later, Taylor announced that he would be right back and left the stage with Glover and Kirkby. Audience members murmured in bewilderment until MCO board president Ted Bock announced that Taylor had asked for two minutes and that the concert would resume shortly.

In fact, it was a half hour before it did. Apart from Taylor clutching a chair for support during some of his arias, nothing else seemed amiss. His glorious voice never failed him, and he completed the entire program with all the polish and spirit that have earned him success.

A pared-down orchestra accompanied the singers and came to life under Glover's precise direction. She uses some very sharp movements, alternated with big sweeps of the arms to get just the right flow and fervour. This was a much-renewed ensemble from their December concert.

Kirkby is fun to watch. She is so animated -- her face and mannerisms express everything so openly. One senses that she is being entirely candid with the audience, using her hands along with her voice to tell the story. Lascia ch'io pianga from Handel's Rinaldo was replete with palpable emotion, sorrowful without being morose. Kirkby's trills were like feather-light flutters, as delicate as can be. Each note is finely formed, without any hard sounds. This was a more ornamented version than some, but always smooth and flowing -- a most touching performance.

Taylor included the show-stealing Domero la tua fierezza from Giulio Cesare in Egito. He sang this with the MCO last year and audiences can't get enough of his passionate rendition of this fiery aria. With his most stern and threatening glare, he sings of domination and humiliation, summoning all his strength and shifting from his countertenor voice to his baritone register. It is quite an effect. Dramatic and exciting, it showed Taylor's great versatility -- and it reassured us that he was feeling better. The crowd literally erupted when he was finished.

The Stabat Mater was performed after intermission and moved along at quite a clip. Kirkby and Taylor, despite their very different voices, make a terrific duo. While Kirkby has a pure and simple delivery, matching timbre with the instruments, Taylor is more finely buffed, with notes so rounded and finished, they seem to be wrapped in the finest veil of silk. Put these together and you get a treat that won't likely be heard again in Winnipeg for quite some time.

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Teen fiddler steals MCO holiday show

Thu Dec 7 2006
by Gwenda Nemerofsky
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, with Sierra Noble and Madrigaïa
Westminster United Church, Tue 5 December 2006
Attendance: 920 [sold out]
3 out of five stars

A slim young woman sitting on the stage, simultaneously playing her fiddle and step-dancing, quickly stole the hearts of the capacity audience Tuesday night at Westminster United Church.

She also unintentionally stole the show.

It was the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra's French Holiday Fête with guest conductor Kevin Mallon on the podium, but 16-year-old Winnipeg fiddler Sierra Noble is the performer people will be talking about.

Taking the stage midway through the first half of the program, she first accompanied host Sylvia L'Écuyer, who read the opening of the story Métis Spirits by children's author Deborah Delaronde. A previously fidgety audience sat motionless and mesmerized by the smoky, mood-setting music as Noble cast a spell, summoning simpler times gone by.

No sooner did her slow, effortless playing lull the audience than the music erupted into a lively fiddle tune, with Danny Flett accompanying on guitar. Seated and smiling as she played, Noble tapped out a rhythmic step dance. Unfortunately, sight lines at the church prevented all but the front-row patrons from watching the steps, but the light-hearted enthusiasm could be heard throughout the sanctuary.

Noble received wild applause and hooting after her performance, prompting L'Écuyer to assure us that "She'll be back later."

The orchestra performed two sets of noëls, Charpentier's Noëls sur les Instruments, scored for strings, two flutes and bassoon and Corrette's Symphonie des Noëls, No. 4. Despite Mallon's precise and crisp direction, the orchestra was rather lacklustre on this night, lacking energy and conviction.
Even the much-touted vocal ensemble Madrigaïa failed to impress. Traditionally an a cappella group, they performed several songs with the orchestra, in arrangements masterfully crafted by Mallon.

The seven women of the group have undeniable talent, but have yet to settle on a style that is cohesive. Rather than performing as a unified ensemble, they sing as seven soloists, not attempting to blend, but almost seeming to compete. Even during seasonal songs like Il est né le divin enfant, the singers felt it necessary to sway and gesture. While stylistically inappropriate, what stood out even more was that each performer moved in a different way, not choreographed or synchronized. The result was a distracting mass of disorganized movement.

There are pleasing voices in the group, but again, with such disparate styles, even within the same song, things don't hold together. That's very much the way this collaborative concert played out, with the orchestra, for all intents and purposes, playing interludes between Noble and Madrigaïa and the parts being greater than the whole.

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Composers salute Shostakovich

Friday, November 24th, 2006
Winnipeg Free Press
by Holly Harris
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Westminster United Church, Wed 22 November 2006
Attendance: 550
3 out of 5 stars

There's another birthday boy on the block. After music fans spent almost an entire year celebrating Mozart's 250th birthday, Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich received his just due Wednesday night from the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra with a program dedicated almost exclusively to his music. The concert commemorated Shostakovich's 100th birthday (officially Sept. 25) in a special live-to-air broadcast included as part of CBC Radio 2's month-long tribute.

The orchestra was led by Anne Manson, former music director of the Kansas City Symphony with T. Patrick Carrabré serving as host.

The Shostakovich DSCH Motif Composition Project is a fascinating idea in theory that generally came across as more like a compositional exercise in practice. CBC set an ambitious task to 10 Canadian composers, commissioning each to create a short, three-minute orchestral work derived from Shostakovich's musical monogram: DSCH, or the notes D, E flat, C and B.

The program included pieces by Amir Amiri, Phil Dwyer, Marilyn Lerner, Richard Moody, Michael Oesterle and Douglas Schmidt, arranged as two suites, with the remaining four (Jocelyn Morlock, Andy Creeggan, John Korsrud, Robert M. Lepage) performed last Sunday with Vancouver's CBC Radio Orchestra.

Although each composer brings something entirely different to the table, including diverse influences ranging from jazz to Indian classical music, hearing many short successive pieces germinate from essentially four notes becomes a bit tiresome.

Still, Oesterle's rhythmic agitation in Compression, essentially a mini-violin concerto performed admirably by concertmaster Karl Stobbe, and Amiri's (co-composed with Andrea Young) pizzicato laden, textured Sheesh were highlights. Lerner's Meditations on Mitya was another surprise, with the former Winnipeg-based jazz musician's first foray into the medium showing an aptitude for orchestration.

The second half of the program included Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a, transcribed from his eighth string quartet composed "in memory of the victims of fascism and war." Although Manson's crisp direction could have benefited from a more romantic approach, the second movement, Allegro molto, bolted out of the gate as aggressively as it should. The orchestra dug in hard throughout, ending with surges of expression in the last -- and final -- Largo movement.

Four Preludes for Piano — actually excerpts of 24 Preludes, Op. 34 transcribed for string orchestra — showed the versatility of Shostakovich's writing that easily adapts to solo instrument, duo (as this work is more usually heard in its piano/violin guise) or full chamber orchestra. A more angular interpretation would have brought greater depth to the work, but overall captured the biting, sardonic wit of its complex composer.

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Massed choir pleases masses amassed for mass

Thursday, 09 November 2006
Winnipeg Free Press
by Gwenda Nemerofsky
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra / Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir / Winnipeg Singers
Westminster United Church, Tue 7 Nov and Wed 8 Nov 2006
Nov. 7 Attendance: 950 [sold out] [MCO note: both perfromances were sold out]
4 out of five stars

Masses of Winnipeggers amassed at Westminster United Church Tuesday evening for a massed choir performance of Mozart's Mass No. 17 in C minor.

Seats were at a premium as audience members squeezed into the pews for what turned out to be a glorious performance (a second show was held Wednesday).

Much had been made of the fact that Mozart never completed the work, and that American musicologist and internationally acclaimed concert pianist Robert D. Levin had reconstructed and completed the mass. The performance demonstrated that after thoroughly examining Mozart's compositions, Levin has pieced together a thoroughly convincing and thrilling finished product.

Filling the stage was the host group, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, surrounded by a 75-member choir made up of the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir and the Winnipeg Singers. Add to this four talented soloists -- Tracy Dahl, soprano; Anita Krause, mezzo soprano; Kurt Lehmann, tenor; and Victor Engbrecht, baritone -- and inspiring choral conductor Yuri Klaz and we knew we were in for a treat.

From the opening notes, the sanctuary filled with joyous music, permeating the senses and captivating our attention. Every chorus was full and alive, making for a fulfilling and exciting experience.

The soloists gave enjoyable performances; most notably Dahl in Et incarnates est, a smoothly phrased slow movement that she approached with great poise and lyricism. Accompanied sweetly by the woodwinds, she sang with apparent ease, hardly seeming to stop for breath. Exquisitely executed trills and supreme control made this a listening pleasure. Klaz was at his best in maintaining the flow and synchronization of accompaniment and singer.

Lehmann wisely left his powerhouse operatic voice at the door for a refreshingly modest rendition of Et in spiritum sanctum. His more demure delivery suited the movement perfectly and he was at his most musically elegant.

Krause has a pleasant stage demeanour and handled some difficult vocal lines with confidence and spirit. She unfortunately encountered a few intonation difficulties throughout the evening.

Engbrecht sang in just two movements, but gave his usual reliably accurate, rich-voiced performance that always imbues a warm feeling in his listeners.

The orchestra was responsive to Klaz's bright direction, and except for a few ragged entries and intonation problems in the violin section, provided a good base for the singing.

But the real stars radiated from the choir. They never let up for a second -- vivacious, accurate, perfectly blended, they brought the spiritual message of this moving work to life with panache. They were raptly attentive to and trusting of Klaz, who guided them through a rigorous 90-minute vocal workout, every detail tidy and intact, every nuance accounted for.

The entire ensemble truly deserved the spontaneous standing ovation the audience gave this impressive feel-good concert.

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Powerful pianist's concert a triumphant affair

September 29th, 2006
Winnipeg Free Press
by Holly Harris
Janina Fialkowska
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Westminster United Church, Wed 27 September 2006
Sept. 27 Attendance: 850
4 stars out of five

Iinternationally acclaimed pianist Janina Fialkowska showed her mettle at the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra's 34th season-opener. She is a soloist who has earned her place in the world's top echelon of keyboard artists.

But she also proved she is a formidable fighter who has stared down her own demons, successfully winning a battle with cancer that included several delicate surgeries on her left arm. Diagnosed with a tumour in January 2002, the Canadian pianist beat the odds and returned to a full schedule of touring, recording and teaching a mere two years later.

Wednesday night marked her first appearance with the MCO in nine years. It became a triumphant -- and emotional -- homecoming for the well-loved artist.

Fialkowska's perfect balance of grace and temperament in Beethoven's Piano Concerto, No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37 brought new shades of colour to the timeless work. Powerful technique and careful honing of phrases brought out all the drama of the first Allegro con brio movement, contrasted by sublime voicing and a luminous tone that seemed to suspend time in the second Largo section. It is always a pleasure to hear Fialkowska, particularly in the intimate setting of Westminster United Church. Let's hope she returns soon.

The MCO continues its highly commendable record of commissioning new works, and this program was no exception.

Still waters run deep in local composer Michael Matthews' The Language of Water for 22 Solo Strings, an evocative one-movement work that submerges the listener into a soundscape of his own devising.

In this work scored for 22 independent voices, Matthews (in attendance for the world premiere) seamlessly crafts a fabric of sound that ebbs and flows through shimmering harmonies and motivic rivulets. The surprisingly romantic 17-minute work washes over the ear, with every note carefully set in place and an ambiguous ending that hints at depths yet unexplored.

The concert opened with Prokofiev's high-spirited Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25 (Classical) which has retained its buoyant charm throughout the years. Guest conductor Theodore Kuchar imbued the performance with his own high energy, setting a breakneck tempo in the Finale that at times careened towards derailment.

MCO continues to pack houses with winning programming that offers something for both the music traditionalist and the restless explorer. A respectable mid-week audience of 850 is a positive sign that this orchestra is doing everything right, and bodes well for a rich new season of music making.

 

Anne Manson / Music Director and Conductor

MCO's 2010/11 season is sponsored by The Great-West Life Assurance Company.
Support has been received from Media sponsors The Winnipeg Free Press, CBC Radio One 990,
CBC Radio 2 98.3, Espace musique 89,9 and Golden West Radio. Heartstrings gala sponsor:
Mann Financial Assurance Limited. Sponsor of open dress rehearsals: Canadian Bridge Federation.
Arts Accessibility Program: Sun Life Financial.

© 2010 Manitoba Chamber Orchestra