The Choreography Within A Dancer Reclaims His Body by Finally Sitting Still WORDS BY MARTIN AUSTIN 07-Nov-22 One hemisphere of my pelvis is above and in front of the other. I imagine it floating there in my body, untethered, out of my control. Every morning I sit at the edge of my bed and grip my right knee to “pop” my leg back into the socket; as my pelvis always wiggles away from me while I sleep. I wasn’t born this way. In my first year at The Ailey School, I was invited to audition for the junior touring company, Ailey II. I was so eager to impress that I brought my arabesque much higher than my body could accommodate. A sharp pain shot through my body, one that I ignored without a second thought exactly as I had been trained to do all my life. Looking back, I wish I had heeded my body’s warning. But how could I have known? At that time, considering the possible consequences, or even considering anything beyond the world of dance, proved difficult. In fact, my world outside of dance – anything outside my own body – had always...

Off The Record: Peter Gregson on Peter Gregson Peter Gregson The Scottish composer, producer, and cellist rediscovers simplicity with his latest self-titled album Words by Eva Stone-Barney ISSUE 15 | ENSEMBLE It might come as a surprise that Peter Gregson – whose previous work has endeavoured to push boundaries, rubbing shoulders with the world of digital technology – has erred on the side of simplicity in his forthcoming album, Peter Gregson (out April 11th). That the work is self-titled is significant: “this music is the closest to what I hear in my head that I’ve ever reached.” What’s in Gregson’s head reveals itself to be an assortment of elegant melodies. The cellist and composer draws inspiration from Felix Mendelssohn’s songs without words – his cello becomes a singing voice, an extension of himself. Gregson made the album in “The Big Room” at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, which sits in the middle of a pond, just outside of London, as he describes it. He recorded his cello to tape, and the synthesizer digitally, to create a sound world that looks as far back as the 19th century, and as far forward as avant-garde electronic composition. There is something vulnerable about creating a record that is so paired-down, particularly for an artist as prolific as Gregson. His aim was to release something pure, music whose essence is not modified or obfuscated by the format in which it is presented. Each piece leads into the next: an imaginative, free-flowing portrait of the artist, which leaves ample room for interpretation. CANNOPY x Peter Gregson New album out April 11th, 2025.

Now on MUBI: Grand Tour PROFILE ─ Miguel Gomes’s latest film is a sprawling, messy, and dreamy odyssey that isn’t afraid to throw a few curveballs. Words by Caleb Freeman ISSUE 15 | MUBI | IN FOCUS It is the beginning of 1918, and Edward (Gonçalo Waddington), a minor English diplomat in Burma (modern-day Myanmar), wanders sullenly through a rainy Rangoon, dreaming of escape. It is not the destruction of World War I that weighs on him. Rather, it is the impending arrival of Molly (Crista Alfaiate), his fiancée of seven years, that terrifies him. In a moment of panic, Edward ditches a bouquet of bird of paradise flowers—a welcome gift for his betrothed—and takes flight, boarding a ship for Singapore and leaving word that Molly should return to London. Determined to marry, Molly instead follows Edward to Singapore and beyond, embarking on a sweeping journey through Southeast and East Asia. Thus begins Grand Tour , the sixth and latest feature by Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes (now streaming on MUBI ). The film premiered in the 2024 Cannes Film Festival’s Competition to acclaim, winning Gomes the Best Director award. Gomes’s work has earned a reputation for being equal parts charming and challenging—poetic, playful, and always ready to upend viewers’ expectations. Grand Tour is no exception. The film is a sprawling, messy, and dreamy odyssey that isn’t afraid to throw a few curveballs. One of the inspirations for Grand Tour is Somerset Maugham’s travelogue The Gentleman in the Parlour , which recounts the author’s journey from Rangoon to Haiphong. The film follows Edward on a similar route—Singapore, Bangkok, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Manila, Osaka, Shanghai, and Chongqing toward Tibet—with Molly always hot on his trail. Before writing the script, Gomes and his team embarked on a research trip along this itinerary. They began filming in 2020 but were sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic, with Gomes directing cinematographer Guo Liang remotely from Lisbon. After reviewing the footage, Gomes co-wrote the script with Mariana Ricardo, Telmo Churro, and Maureen Fazendeiro. Filming of the scripted scenes resumed in 2022, shot entirely on soundstages in Europe. Footage from that research trip is included in the film, to curious effect. The documentary footage is not disguised—it’s very clearly from the present: we see telephone poles, modern cars, locals wearing Nike. This constant juxtaposition challenges the viewer’s sense of time. We see intimate portraits of modern life: a man getting his hair cut in an alley in Shanghai, young men climbing a grease pole in Myanmar, women harvesting red lotus flowers in Thailand. One of the film’s most striking moments features a man in Manila delivering a tearful karaoke rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” before quietly sitting down to dinner alone. These scenes loosely align with the plot, using documentary footage that mirrors the characters’ locations. A voice-over—typically in the local language—narrates what the characters are doing. For example, as a tuk-tuk aggressively weaves through Bangkok traffic, a Thai narrator describes Edward’s drunken hijinks in Thailand. The result is that the division between past and present is blurred, sometimes in jarring ways. In one scene, as Edward travels through a forest en route to Thailand, we see a shot of a ringing cell phone on the ground. This is not an errant bit of documentary footage but a deliberate rupture—present bleeding into the past. This scene is perhaps emblematic of the film’s broader preoccupation with drawing attention to its own artifice. Grand Tour is explicitly inspired by American screwball comedies of the 1930s and ’40s. Waddington and Alfaiate’s performances evoke old Hollywood, as do the intricately detailed yet unmistakably staged sets. As a result, the documentary footage often feels more immediate and engaging than the scripted scenes—a tension that may be entirely intentional. As Gomes notes in the film’s press kit, there are multiple “grand tours” at play: “Above all there is this immense tour that unites what is divided – countries, genders, times, reality and the imaginary, the world and the cinema.” Throughout the film, we encounter karaoke performances, shadow puppetry, marionettes, even an opera singer bursting into an aria after a disastrous captain’s dinner. In this way, Grand Tour becomes a metacommentary on the act of filmmaking itself and its place within a global tradition of performance and storytelling. If this all sounds heady and demanding, that’s because it is. Grand Tour may be visually stunning and playful, but it's also a highly ambitious film that asks a great deal of its audience. At just over two hours, it can at times feel exasperating. By the end, the film pushes the tension between reality and artifice to its breaking point, and whether it ultimately sticks the landing remains an open question. Edward and Molly never quite emerge as fully realized, empathetic characters. It’s unclear how much we’re meant to invest in them—or in their relationship. Edward, melancholic and (we’re told) prone to debauchery, contrasts with Molly, who is indefatigable and often amused by Edward’s cowardice, expressing this through a distinctive sputtering laugh. They function as foils, but they also move through the film as allegorical figures of British colonization. Edward flirts and ogles women in ways that feel overtly objectifying, while Molly (sometimes quite literally) drags others into her journey, ultimately with tragic consequences. That these supposed agents of the British Empire speak entirely in Portuguese introduces another layer of political complexity, invoking Portugal’s own colonial legacy. This commentary only begins to unpack Grand Tour . Dreamy, visionary, and often visually arresting, it’s not a film for the impatient. But for those willing to engage with its demands, it offers a rewarding meditation on time, storytelling, and our cultural relationships with the world around us. If you are willing to sit with it, Grand Tour is worth the journey.

IVG Producer Corey Ross Corey Ross by Kalya Ramu Founder of Starvox Entertainment; co-founder of Lighthouse Immersive WORDS BY MILES FORRESTER | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS NOV 11, 2022 | ISSUE 8 The once-tentative tiptoe towards the re-emergence of the arts is gaining speed, and Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit C0-Producer, Corey Ross, has been at the forefront of the race to return. As founder of Starvox Entertainment and co-founder of Lighthouse Immersive, Ross strives to reinvent theatre, art, magic, music, and the performing arts in ways never before seen. Navigating the wild waters of the entertainment world, he has found freedom and fun in blurring the lines between performer and viewer to present something truly unique. When the pandemic storm pressed in, that wide ocean of possibilities became turbulent and unpredictable, forcing entertainment companies across the globe to moor up and take stock of what was indeed

Lan Florence Yee A Legacy of Ethnography by Lan Florence Yee Destabilising Chinatown Narratives with Text and Embroidery WORDS BY GEORGIA GARDNER | TORONTO | LIGHTHOUSE IMMERSIVE NOV 18, 2022 | ISSUE 7 Toronto-based artist Lan Florence Yee’s work centres on the fusion between text and labour-intensive creation. Yee’s art presents a stumbling block to linear narratives of intergenerational knowledge. Through the intensive process of embroidering text onto fabric, Yee showcases experiences of dead ends, futility, failure and repetition. It seeks to deromanticize queer and racialized experiences. As both a visual artist and curator of Chinatown Biennial , a digital exhibit, Yee explores the purpose of taking a closer examination into what we think we know.

Mother Sorrow: A Work in Progress Photo by Mike McClung From blueprints to footprints on stage, a contemporary dance project unfolds WORDS BY ERIN BALDWIN | TORONTO | PERFORMING ARTS FEB 28, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Artistic productions are often concealed – literally and figuratively – behind a curtain until their debut, making it easy to forget the months and years of labour that go into bringing a performance to life. Occasionally, however, we’re offered a rare glimpse into the development process, such as when Canadian choreographer and professional dancer Jennifer Nichols invited smART Magazine to a private working rehearsal of her latest venture, Mother Sorrow. Nichols first conceived of the project back in 2018, inspired to construct a retelling of Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater” that innovatively combined dance, opera, the original baroque score, and new music. Joining forces with the composer Adam Scime and the librettist, poet, and playwright David James Brock, Nichols was at last able to assemble the cast of dancers, musicians, and opera singers for three weeks of rehearsal in Toronto towards the end of 2022. On a brisk, overcast December afternoon, a small group gathered inside the Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church and Centre for...

Soundstreams Presents: The Garden of Vanished Pleasures INTERVIEW ─ Director Tim Albery leads us through a lush biographical opera as it prepares to bloom again Words & Interview by Eva Stone-Barney ISSUE 15 | TORONTO | ANY: TORONTO Like any art form, opera relies heavily on traditions and conventions: in order to be opera, a piece of theatre needs to meet certain expectations and adhere to ways of doing things. As is the case in any creative space, however, these rules are made to be broken, and expectations made to be upended. Enter The Garden of Vanished Pleasures , which will take to the Marilyn and Charles Baillie Theatre at Canadian Stage later this month (April 25-27). Directed by creator Tim Albery, The Garden of Vanished Pleasures , recounts the later years of English artist, writer, director and activist Derek Jarman’s life. Jarman, who is perhaps most known for films such as Caravaggio (1986), The Last of England (1986) or Edward II (1991) died in 1994 due to complications with HIV. An avid gardener, he spent the end of his life at a cottage on the south-west coast of England. The Garden tells this story, and provides touching commentary on themes of love, lust, loss, queerness, and isolation─accessible even to those completely unfamiliar with Jarman’s life and work. Tim Albery The Garden has itself lived an interesting life thus far. As was the case with many shows in 2020, its premiere — which was to be part of the Royal Conservatory of Music’s 21C Festival — was cancelled. Instead, Albery and his creative team took their project online, and adapted the show for digital distribution. The show has since received critical acclaim for its digital presentation – it was a finalist for Opera America’s 2022 Award for Excellence in Digital Opera. Many artists, and theatre makers in particular, suffered immensely as a result of the pandemic. Albery and his team’s creativity in the face of disaster, though, speaks to a silver lining. The forced expulsion from the dark, cozy warmth of theatres and opera houses propelled opera into the vast expanse of the internet, and with this, offered up an opportunity to tell new stories, to new audiences, in ground-breaking ways. Hyejin Kwon Now, some years after its first bloom, The Garden will finally receive its stage premiere with Soundstreams. This run of performances is musical directed by pianist Hyejin Kwon, and will star countertenor Daniel Cabena, mezzo-soprano Hillary Tufford, and sopranos Mireille Asselin and Danika Lòren. The ensemble is rounded out by cellist Amahl Arulandandam and violist Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh. Starting from top left: Daniel Cabena, Hillary Tufford, Mireille Asselin, Danika Lorèn, Amahl Arulandandam, and Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh Rather unconventionally for an opera, the music in this piece is written by not one composer, but two. Canadian composer Cecilia Livingston’s songs are woven in and around Translucence , a song cycle by English composer Donna McKevitt, which sets texts by Jarman himself. McKevitt worked with Jarman at the end of his life, scoring music for his final film, Blue (1993). While art song and opera are traditionally understood as separate entities in the world of classical singing, here they are one and the same. This act of recombination, of working with existing, disparate musical and textual material to create something new and cohesive, represents another way in which Albany and his creative team challenge the artistic conventions of opera, and open up a whole new arena of creative possibility in which to work and play. How better to honour the life and work of a ground-breaking, boundary-pushing artist like Derek Jarman. CANNOPY x Soundstreams

Jay Baruchel: All-Canadian Charmer Jay Baruchel by Kalya Ramu 15 questions with Jay Baruchel WORDS BY MADELEINE KANE | PERFORMANCE APR 11, 2023 | ISSUE 5 Sifting through any genre-defining comedy of the last decade, you’d almost certainly find the scruffy yet relaxed charismatic magnet personified by the all-Canadian charmer, Jay Baruchel. As a familiar onscreen staple, with a career spanning over two decades, Baruchel’s performances range from box-office hits to raucous blockbuster comedies, to acclaimed and poignant dramas. In recent years, Baruchel has delved fully into his life behind the camera as a writer and director. His author’s debut, Born Into It: A Fan’s Life , a memoir of lifelong devotion to the Montreal Canadiens, was published in 2018. In 2020, amidst the chaotic reshuffling of pandemic cinema,

Steve Reich Collected Works A 27-disc box set delivers a life’s worth of music to a new generation of listeners Words by Stephania Romanuik | Illustration by Dane Thibeault ISSUE 15 | LOS ANGELES | ENSEMBLE These days the works of American Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steve Reich can be heard nightly in concert halls and conservatories throughout the world ─ most of his listeners, however, first encountered Reich through recordings. Born in New York, and raised both there and in Los Angeles, Reich was part of the 1960s vanguard that broke through and away from abstract serialist soundscapes with a new American modernism. Through his recordings — the latest being a formidable 27-disc curated box set, which will be released by Nonesuch Records on March 14th — Reich awakened broad interest in contemporary classical music, and his compositions forever influenced the way we listen, perform in ensembles, and perceive musical time. Steve Reich Collected Works presents nearly six decades of the composer’s output. The box set begins with It’s Gonna Rain, an early experiment at the San Francisco Tape Music Center, and Come Out, written for a benefit for the retrial of the Harlem Six (six black men that were erroneously convicted of murder in 1965). These meticulous studies in tape loops are juxtaposed with Reich’s iconic phase pieces, including Piano Phase and the unintentionally subversive Four Organs , which feature instruments coming in and out of phase with one another. Reich’s phase pieces incorporate what he had developed with tapes into his home base of acoustic music, an expression of his creative output which culminates in Drumming, written on the heels of his studies at the University of Ghana with Anlo Ewe master drummer Gideon Alorwoyie . Subsequent standout moments include the beginning of Music for Mallet Instruments, Piano and Voice, which, when heard in context of the phase works before, departs in instrumentation and process in a way that feels startling and expansive. Steve Reich Collected Works When describing his musical style, Reich often discusses slowing down the rate of change — between harmonic, rhythmic, or melodic patterns — so that the process of composing rises to the surface of each composition. Listening to the box set is a kind of meta process: not only do we experience how patterns develop within a piece, but we also have the luxury of discovering and reflecting on how Reich grew as a composer over the expanse of his creative life. Nonesuch organized the pieces (not in strict chronological order) to illuminate this development while an accompanying series of essays provide valuable context. Each essay benefits from the perspectives of Reich’s contemporaries, many of whom are featured in the recordings. Reich’s music grew out of the necessities of beginning outside the mainstream. He was keenly aware that most performances of new music tended to be shaky because performers don’t yet have the music in their bones. As he put it, he wanted to go out and “play it right—no apologies, no excuses, just lay it down.” In 1966, he formed his own ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, who would rehearse his works as he was composing them. Early innovations took time to develop, and famously, Drumming required 60 rehearsals to put together. Today, Reich’s work has so permeated the collective unconscious that younger generations of college music students can prepare the piece for performance in just a few days. Listening to the box set underscores just how central chamber music and ensemble playing are to Reich’s output. Responses to political events, questions posed by religion, and autobiographical reflection all enter into his chamber works, which seem to intertwine both a sense of American individualism and the artistic instinct to collaborate. Reich’s Collected Works also traces the development of some of America’s finest chamber ensembles, including Bang on a Can All Stars, Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, and Ensemble Signal. Two different recordings are included of the exhilarating and vibrant Music for 18 Musicians, which catapulted the composer to mass recognition. This was also the work that opened the doorway to Reich’s 40-year association with Nonesuch Records. In 1984, Bob Hurwitz, who provides the first essay in this set, assumed the presidency of Nonesuch Records. Though originally a budget classical record company for American listeners, under the tenure of Teresa Sterne, the label had begun branching into newer classical repertoire and music of international cultures. Already acquainted through recordings made with Deutsche Grammophon and ECM Records, the first artist Hurwitz signed to the label was Steve Reich, then in his late 40s. Their debut album was The Desert Music, which calls for a large orchestra and chorus, the greatest number of forces of all of Reich’s work. This and other delicious orchestral works like Music for Ensemble and Orchestra and The Four Sections link compositionally to John Adams , another Nonesuch icon and proponent of contemporary classical music with broad appeal. For these composers — and others like Terry Riley and Philip Glass (none of whom seem to embrace the label of “minimalism” when describing their own music) — pulse, repetition, and gradual change are the keys to innovation. Interestingly, so is melody. For Reich, without melodic interest, a piece is destined for a short shelf life. In early experiments like It’s Gonna Rain , the listener discovers melody seemingly accidentally through rearranged patterns in looped excerpts of human speech. In Drumming, Reich did the same with carefully tuned bongos and pitched percussion instruments . The melody arises out of a kind of messiness in these early works, yet begins immediately, exuberantly, in later works like Runner , or soars as in the Copland-like Pulse. When the building blocks of melody are measured, even small developments become magnified and can carry the drama of a piece. Reich’s artistry, like Bach’s, is in understanding how the vertical relationships between interlocking patterns can propel a horizontal melody forward. Reich reclaimed traditional music values for a modern listener, and the entire arc of this creative legacy is on crystalline display in his Collected Works. CANNOPY x Steve Reich

Fuji for the Future oSHAMO INTERVIEW ─ At just 22, oSHAMO turns tradition into propulsion—building a diasporic legacy rooted in rhythm and resistance Words by Chinonyelum Iwu | Illustration by Dane Thibeault ISSUE 16 | LONDON-LAGOS | ALT.ITUDE oSHAMO’s unveiling of “Superfuji (GOBE)” as a standalone single in June of 2025 was a statement piece about what could become of Fuji as a composite genre when explored by a mind that is eclectic in its cultural rootedness. In a viral video series recorded in the streets of Peckham and Birmingham we see spirits lifted through the percussion of “Superfuji” even though it is a rather unusual sound for an especially non-African crowd. We see white, brown, black and people of other ethnicities move their bodies to its cadence, and this Afro-fusion is just right. In many of his other songs, the London-based singer-songwriter fuses Arabic, Nigerian Pidgin English, and Yoruba over amapiano beats with acoustic choruses. It brings to mind the likes of Nigerian artists Burna Boy and Asake, but the imagination for Superfuji as a genre is something different, presented as a refreshing portal into 1970s Nigerian music scenery. The music video is vibrational in the way that Yoruba culture is layered: oSHAMO wears the traditional agbádá in an aṣọ-òkè fabric in a market in London and dances in a crowd with traditional “talking drums” playing in the background. In “Alaska” ─ the fifth track from oSHAMO’s debut EP, First of My Kind ─ he sings: “I might be from London town, but then I’ll do it my way”. His “way” is a dual religious background rooted in Lagos suburbs of Agege and Ayobo-Ipaja, where fuji and gospel music radicalized his sonic vocabulary and zeal for making good music. Fuji isn’t a new sound—it has existed since the 1970s Afro-beat era through pioneers Ayinde Barrister, Wasiu Ayinde Marshal (K1 De Ultimate), and Ayinla Kollington. Now oSHAMO is rekindling the same intensity that Barrister and K1 De Ultimate let out over 50 years ago. Before his development of Superfuji, his viral single “Why You Lying”, sparked a sensation in 2023, and, like every breakout sound by an emerging artist, there was the question of whether he could hold the spotlight long enough. With the 2024 single “Life of the party”, he answered this question swiftly, announcing that he’s in the scene for a long time and a good time. Superfuji does more than enough to prove his point. "I D R I S" cover art There is something evidently contagious about the crispness of oSHAMO’s tonality in this single that makes it difficult to reconcile with a twenty-two-year-old. He sounds almost ancient, like an embodiment of a spirit that, in a past life, has spoken through countless fuji beats. He does well to modernize the genre, but never flattens its textures—it’s easy to hear this immediately. Fuji is an inherently percussive sequence of talking drums, bàtá and shekere, followed by a call-and-response chant, and oSHAMO lets all the elements flourish. He then frames them with contemporary production, so that the bass hits like club music, and the midrange still carries language. The result sounds familiar and unexpected at once. oSHAMO Many Nigerian artists who have attempted to reinvent fuji in the past have faced the challenge of marketing its sound to a global audience, and for newer artists it is simply not a genre that lends itself easily to experimentation within popular culture. This is because the sound has long been branded as old-fashioned and tied to Nigeria’s distinct religious and social registers. oSHAMO approaches this differently. For him it is about the legacy he sets as a young artist in a foreign country experimenting with a sound that resists easy categorization. “We’re breaking that rule by every means possible,” he says in response to the stereotype of artists who seek foreign recognition without first establishing solid footing in their native countries. What this legacy proposes beyond Superfuji is a new model for diaspora artists. INTERVIEW CLIP

CANNOPY partners with IDAGIO! Plus an exclusive interview with John Adams on his latest compositions ILLUSTRATIONS BY DANE THIBEAULT Dear Reader, Some ideas require time to grow, and some make sense from the moment they arrive. When we first had the idea to partner with IDAGIO — the global leader for streaming classical music — it was immediately clear that something had clicked. Here at Cannopy , our mission is always to share art that inspires, and that includes great music. In IDAGIO, we’ve found the perfect partner to share high-quality recordings from our favourite composers, many of who we’ve presented in conversation. So we are sincerely delighted to launch this editorial partnership IDAGIO, bringing you exclusive access to everything that this platform offers. Subscribe to IDAGIO today and get your first 30 days on us! This special edition of TORPA reads like a grocery list of all the things we love about IDAGIO. It starts with an in-depth profile on how IDAGIO has innovated on streaming classical music — written by Toronto’s Gianmarco Segato. Next, join us in conversation with IDAGIO’s founder, Till Janczukowicz, as he talks about the current state of the recording industry. Till reminds us that the music business must always put the music first, so this partnership launch wouldn’t be complete without inviting one of our favourite musicians — and one of the most celebrated living composers today — John Adams. Also, for the uninitiated, we thought it’d be great to introduce you to IDAGIO through a list of albums we’re listening to this month. As always, thank you for tuning in to our big-tent-approach to independent arts journalism. We’re excited to have you along this journey as we begin this partnership in music. Thank you for giving us a read! — The Cannopy Team WORDS BY GIANMARCO SEGATO Back in the bad old days of the early noughties, a recording-obsessed classical music lover might have found cause for celebration with the advent of Apple iTunes. Finally, a digital space to access a potentially infinite supply of recordings both old and new, with the bonus of clearing one’s shelves of CD clutter. For anyone who tried, however, iTunes turned out to be terrible for classical. Uploading tracks from CDs took hours with even more time wasted putting them back in the album’s original order which iTunes somehow deemed as unimportant. Even more frustrating was the default “Artist/Album/Track” labeling ─ which works well enough for pop and rock ─ but is insufficient when it comes to accessing recordings of works that have been performed hundreds of times by a myriad of ensembles and soloists under different conductors. — Continue reading IN CONVERSATION WITH IDAGIO’s FOUNDER:Till Janczukowicz INTERVIEW BY MICHAEL ZARATHUS-COOK “One big mistake that startups make is solving problems that don't exist.” CANNOPY PRESENTS John Adams in Conversation WORDS BY STEPHANIA ROMANIUK The Canadian premiere of John Adams’s latest orchestral piece Frenzy will take place during election week in the US—coincidental, and perhaps fitting for a composer whose works regularly respond to inflection points in American politics. Operas like Nixon in China , the controversial The Death of Klinghoffer , and Doctor Atomic (about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning choral-orchestral work On the Transmigration of Souls (in response to 9/11) explore figures within the events themselves, but also serve as large-scale reactions to some of the most highly charged times in American history. Now one of the world’s most celebrated and regularly performed contemporary composers, Adams will also be conducting the performance. At the podium, not only can he explore the needs of the work more fully, but performing the piece also fulfills for him music’s ultimate aim: communication. — Continue reading OCTOBER HIGHLIGHTS ON IDAGIO Subscribe to IDAGIO

Greater Toronto Art 2021 Art by Pamila Matharu, Photography Courtesy of MoCA MoCA's take on contemporary art WORDS BY TASH COWLEY | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS NOV 11, 2022 | ISSUE 7 From September 29, 2021 to January 9, 2022, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Toronto exhibited a survey of diverse artists from around the Greater Toronto Area, working with a plenitude of contemporary or skewed traditional techniques. The exhibit reflected the intersecting identities of the diverse demographics and artists who call Toronto home, especially as the pandemic has put new and ongoing crises in starker relief. In the spirit of solidarity and common-purpose, GTA 2021 represented the city with embroidered (Raina) and projected (Chun) poems, a rusting installation (Siddique), hockey ready-mades (Oluseye), and an excellent documentary about a town’s chrome cow (Anoushahpour, Anoushahpour, & Ferko).

A MAMbo Restrospective "Ongoing action, duet version" by Alexandra Pirici - Photo by Ornella de Carlo How an innovative concept traded curatorial neutrality for a cohesive and socially responsible exhibit WORDS BY GLESNI WILLIAMS | BOLOGNA | VISUAL ARTS FEB 26, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Behind the walls of a former municipal bakery, inaugurated in 1917 as a means of increasing the waning bread supply during the First World War in the medieval city of Bologna, lies the Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo), the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bologna. The space was later expanded and, after several years of closure, was opened again in the 70s as a storage facility. After restoration work on the building began in the mid-90s – overseen by Italian architect Aldo Rossi – MAMbo officially opened its doors to the public in 2007. Today, its industrial history is still visible and plays a prominent role in the museum’s exhibition spaces. In the main hall for temporary exhibitions, Sala delle Ciminiere ( The Chimney Room ), the bakery’s two chimneys are still visible and are often part of the curatorial narrative. MAMbo has a long history of supporting the arts, especially offering space and a stage for performing arts. The most notable was Marina Abramovič’s Imponderabilia which, during its 1977 premiere in Bologna, was promptly shut down by local authorities. In the 21st century, MAMbo continues to offer its spaces as a means of creating dialogue. That dialogue is especially prevalent in the most...

Top 8 Albums That We're Listening To On IDAGIO this Month J.S. Bach by Dane Thibeault for CANNOPY Listen along with a free 30-day subscription to the world's largest catalogue of classical recordings PARTNERSHIP | ENSEMBLE 1) Bach: Keyboard Concertos, BWV 1052, 1053, 1054 & 1056 Amsterdam Sinfonietta, conducted by Candida Thompson | Beatrice Rana, piano | Warner Classics My favourite part in these Bach concertos is probably an incredibly intimate moment in the second movement of the F minor. When I see it in the score, which calls for so much of the legato and cantabile that typifies piano technique, I wonder what Bach had in mind when he wrote this kind of music for a harpsichord, an instrument that offers properties that are dramatically different from the piano. What I really adore in this movement is the way the incredibly moving piano line hovers so far above a layer of subtle pizzicatos. As soon as we start playing it feels like we are entering another dimension. It is hard to describe, but it takes you to another planet, especially after that rather dramatic first movement. Suddenly finding this heavenly sound in the middle of nowhere is like finding a gem in the dark. It is a moment of revelation. — Beatrice Rana, notes from the recording 2) Shostakovich: Symphonies; Concertos; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andris Nelsons | Yuja Wang, piano • Baiba Skride, violin • Yo-Yo Ma, cello | Deutsche Grammophon Shostakovich’s relationship to the Soviet regime continues to fascinate. Was he a loyal (and therefore reprehensible) servant of the evil Soviet regime, a cowardly cheerleader for the Communist motherland? Or was he an embittered and alienated closet-dissident, inserting into his scores secret anti-Soviet messages intended to be decoded as anguished cries of protest? These questions raise another: should the issue of Shostakovich’s political convictions (or lack thereof) change the way we listen to the music anyway? For Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons, who experienced the Soviet system firsthand growing up in Latvia, and who has spent much of his career studying and conducting Shostakovich’s music, the answer is clear, as he said in an interview at the start of this monumental recording project: “The greatness of his music lies beyond politics. It speaks to people whether they know the times he lived in or not.” — Harlow Robinson, notes from the recording 3) Ravel: Fragments Bertrand Chamayou, piano | Warner Classics All the pieces in this latter category contain Ravelian echoes, whether in the Hispanic strains of Joaquín Nin’s Mensaje, the enigmatic lyricism of the Elegía by Xavier Montsalvatge, the luminous neoclassicism of Arthur Honegger or the bewitching bell sounds of Alexandre Tansman. The other pieces employ more overt references: the gallows death knell in Frédéric Durieux’s disquieting piece (evoking Ravel’s “Le Gibet”) or the motifs from Gaspard de la nuit borrowed by Betsy Jolas. A homage to Gaspard is no doubt also the guiding force behind the album’s focus on fragments: De la nuit by Salvatore Sciarrino, albeit ironically dedicated to Chopin, is a sequenced collage of scraps from ”Ondine” and ”Scarbo”, playing with our memory and giving the impression of a hallucination. At the heart of the programme is a touching gesture from Ravel’s faithful pianist and friend Ricardo Viñes, in the guise of a short romantic evocation. — Bertrand Chamayou, notes from the recording 4) Bach: The Art of Fugue Albert Cano Smit, piano | Aparté The boundless imagination in Bach’s writing is multiplied by the fact that no the piece for the first time, and being captivated by the impression that an entire universe was slowly being revealed through the work. Without immediately understanding the degree of complexity, the underlying layers of meaning, the Pythagorean proportions and mind blowing achievement of certain movements, such as the mirror fugues (imagine a four-voice fugue that also works by inverting every voice), or certain counterfugues, I was deeply moved by the music, and I believe every listener can be. This album is my humble attempt at communicating this to every music lover. I’m grateful to them and to everyone joining me on this journey of discovery, as well as to all those who through their generous support have made this project possible. — Albert Cano Smit, notes from the recording 5) Organised Delirium Tamara Stefanovich, piano | PENTATONE This sonata came to me at a moment of complete chaos, in the years of the Balkan Wars, when I was left with no concerts, but only with the youth and intensity that it brings with it. The rage of the first movement and its almost unbearable passion, the way of being poetic in a million ways in the second movement, the capricious, dangerous Scherzo and its enigmatic trio; all this had to be the preparation for the fourth movement that encompasses all the world. The choice to integrate fugues — the old form of utter musical organization — and its symbolic meaning are a masterstroke. Boulez employs them in a way that they can’t be really followed -the pitch is too low and dark, auditory virtuosity too impossible to follow. — Tamara Stefanovich, notes from the recording 6) Mahler: Symphony No. 5 Tonhalleorchester Zürich, conducted by Paavo Järvi | Alpha Classics The song describes a singing competition between a nightingale and a cuckoo: the judge is a donkey who crowns the cuckoo the winner because, among other things, it sings a good chorale. Mahler thus breaks the seriousness of the movement, parodying the listener’s usual expectation that the last movement should include a chorale that concludes the symphony. A chorale does appear at the end of the finale of the Fifth, although it has an ironic connotation right from the start, as the introduction consists of elements of the chorale itself — and the cuckoo is chosen as the winner because it sings a good chorale. The actual chorale at the end of the movement thus loses any legitimacy and has no solemnity; this is further emphasised by its restatement in a playful burlesque style once it has been heard. The music thus completely evades any clear interpretation of the fate of the symphonic self and leaves the outcome open. Did Mahler write his symphony this way on purpose so that “no one would understand it”? — Franziska Gallusser, notes from the recording 7) Verdi: Simon Boccanegra (1857 Version) The Hallé, conducted by Sir Mark Elder | Chorus of Opera North (Anthony Kraus, chorus master) • RNCM Opera Chorus (Kevin Thraves, chorus master) | Opera Rara Most lovers of the composer would surely want to argue that such questions of value will at the least be heavily inflected by the quality of the performance; and, perhaps just as much, by the nature of the audience – by who they are, where they are, and the mood (political or more broadly cultural) that surrounds them. Particularly when it is performed with commitment and an awareness of its stylistic peculiarities, hearing the original Boccanegra can, in short, lead us to confront important questions, ones that might even extend to the whole issue of whether Verdi’s revisions are, as well as re-imaginings, invariably improvements. True, he thought of them as just that. But times change, and with them change the meanings that we can extract from works of art. The ‘old’ Boccanegra might, in this context, quite suddenly become fresh and ‘new’, adapted to our times just as urgently as was its successor. — Roger Parker, notes from the recording 8) Marsalis: Blues Symphony Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jader Bignamini | PENTATONE The Blues Symphony is a seven-movement work that gives a symphonic identity to the form and feeling of the blues. It utilizes regional and stylistic particulars of the idiom’s language and form to convey the basic point of view of the blues as music: “Life hands you hard times.” When you cry, holler, and shout to release those hard times; when you tease, cajole, and play to diminish them; and when you dance and find a common community through groove, better times will be found. The more profound the pain, the deeper the groove. — Wynton Marsalis , notes from the recording CANNOPY Partners with IDAGIO! Continue reading...