Virée classique de l’OSM | A Vibrant Harmony

by Alexandre Villemaire

After their colleagues from the OSJM, it was the turn of the members of the Harmonie des jeunes de la Virée to fill the space at Complexe Desjardins. A regular at the event, this large wind ensemble, made up of students from several Montreal high schools, filled the mall’s atrium with a homogeneous, balanced, clear and biting sound to deliver a most dazzling performance. Solid and energetically directed by Éric Levasseur, the ensemble played a succession of oriental and Mediterranean tunes, perfectly in tune with the Virée’s theme. Rachmaninov’s Italian Polka and Emmanuel Chabrier’s famous España made it impossible not to tap your toes or dance a little. A father and his two young daughters, for example, enjoyed swaying to the various rhythms and melodies!

After the festive character of his pieces, the young musicians also demonstrated the breadth of their playing and color palette with the piece Duat by composer Alex Poelman. The piece evokes the journey that a human soul – in Egyptian mythology – had to take through the underworld of Duat in order to gain eternal life. At the end of its journey, the soul was weighed on a scale and, in order to rise, had to weigh no more than a feather. The music perfectly evokes this tale, with darkly dramatic rumbles in the lower registers and Arabian melismas. The work concludes with a luminous finale held together by the high flutes. The audience, spread across the different floors of the complex, was certainly won over.

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classique / Moyen-Orient / Levant / Maghreb

Virée classique 2024 | OSM and Constantinople: Colourful Dialogues, a Conversation To Be Continued

by Alexandre Villemaire

The PAN M 360 team is very present at the Virée classique, presented by the OSM. In the field, at free activities and indoor concerts, Alain Brunet, Alexis Desrosiers-Michaud and Alexandre Villemaire report on what they’ve seen and heard at events presented in Montreal until August 18.

On paper, it was a premiere like no other. For the first time in its history, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal welcomed a traditional music ensemble to the Maison symphonique for a joint concert. And not just any ensemble: Constantinople, a well-known and well-established presence on the Montreal and Quebec musical scene. The choice of Constantinople was an obvious one, since the ensemble’s identity and practice are, as its artistic director Kiya Tabassian reminds us, dialogue and cross-fertilization between musical universes. A vision also shared by Rafael Payare.

If we can say that there was indeed a dialogue, the concert we were treated to showed that the conversation, for its part, deserved to gain in depth. While we expected to hear and see interaction between the orchestra and Constantinople’s musicians, we were treated to a question-and-answer exchange in which Constantinople’s virtuoso interventions of Dimitrie Cantemir’s pieces were interspersed with excerpts from Grieg’s Peer Gynt suite, played with fervor and mastery by the OSM. Peer Gynt makes sense thematically, the eponymous character of Ibsen’s fairy tale embodying the figure of the traveler who, in the course of his tale, settles for a time in North Africa. Unfortunately, the interplay with the music, particularly in the “Anitra Dance” and the “Arabian Dance”, seemed more like a pastiche than an organic element.

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Virée classique 2024 – The Symphony of the Virée: Not So Amateurs After All

by Alexis Desrosiers-Michaud

Now a tradition, the Symphonie de la Virée is a concert bringing together amateur musicians of all ages who have been selected in advance. Rafael Payare leads the ensemble for the last work on the program.

This event is living proof that professionals do not have a monopoly on good musical product and that with a lot of passion and a little work, we can achieve a frankly convincing result. Let’s look beyond individual errors and small imbalances to look at the whole thing as a whole. It’s not because they are amateurs that they can’t make great music.

There is a cohesion that holds in this ensemble. Conductor Adam Johnson breathes a contagious energy. We feel the work of listening done in rehearsal; the violin and oboe solos have enough space for lyricism and expression. The sound is homogeneous and the dynamics are respected to the letter, as much in terms of nuances, phrasing and articulation.

As Payare takes the reins for the opening of the opera Nabucco, he proves what a great conductor he is and raises the bar. Like Johnson before him, he makes no compromises on anything. He pushes the audacity to take the coda at breakneck speed and the musicians respond.

In the future, don’t hesitate to go to the concert of the neighbor who plays in the Monday night band. There is a good chance that, for a handful of dollars, you will have a good time.

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Virée classique 2024 – OSM and Miloš: Between Classics and Rarities

by Alexis Desrosiers-Michaud

On Saturday evening, the concert with the OSM of guitarist Miloš took place in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, preceded by excerpts from Bizet’s Carmen and works by Rossini, Ravel and Mel Bonis.

Let’s ignore the opening L’italiana in Algeri, which didn’t bring anything masterful and was too much in this concert. Ravel’s Cinq mélodies populaires grecques is a short, brilliantly orchestrated collection. Mezzo-soprano Emily Sierra unfortunately performs it almost without any difference in nuances, only exaggerating the consonants in the fast melodies. Conversely, in Carmen, she plays the part. With a suave, mischievous and resonant voice, adding a few vocal inflections, the rendering of this classic is successful, despite poorly coordinated accelerations with the orchestra in the Chanson Bohème.

Before the Aranjuez, we were treated to a short four-minute work by Mel Bonis, Salomé. We would have taken more because this composer, a student of Franck, knows how to orchestrate. We will remember the central portion of the work in five beats.

Then came Miloš. He plays with great precision and a sensitivity to nuances that takes us into another world. His dialogue with the English horn remains memorable and the orchestra adjusts in its accompaniment, too present in the first movement.

Alas!, this moment of grace was spoiled by (another) cell phone ringing. As such, through the coughs and the multiple escaped programs, we heard three last night, including one between the end of the warning message and the entrance of the solo violin, which did not fail to raise general laughter.

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Arabic / Maghrebi

Virée classique de l’OSM | An Arabo-Andalusian orchestra from MTL

by Alain Brunet

The PAN M 360 team is very present at the Virée classique, presented by the OSM. Alain Brunet, Alexis Desrosiers-Michaud and Alexandre Villemaire report on what they saw and heard at the concerts presented in Montreal until August 18.

Montreal’s Mezghena Orchestra features over fifty instrumentalists, the majority of whom are female soloists.

Astonishing? For the mother of one of the instrumentalists, it seems to be a widespread practice. Wow! One thing’s for sure: the Montreal version of the idea of an Algerian-style Arabo-Andalusian music orchestra, a sub-genre of a genre developed at a time when North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula were linked politically and culturally, involves more than equal participation by women in the orchestra – oudists, bouzoukists, violinists, percussionists, singers, etc. – and the fact that the musicians are not all professionals, the level of training is very low. Friday at Complexe Desjardins, we could tell that the performers were not all professionals, but the level of execution was nonetheless acceptable, if not surprisingly good. Singers took turns expressing themselves with this large-scale orchestra, no less. Under the direction of Sid Ali Mohand Arab, musically educated in Algiers and thus a specialist in classical Arab and Arab-Andalusian music, the Mezghena Orchestra of Montreal is a jewel of North African immigration to Quebec. At first glance, it attracts the local Maghrebi population, but also all music lovers who come to explore the OSM 2024 Classical Tour free of charge. This is how an inclusive city is enriched by its local culture from elsewhere. What a discovery!

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT MEZGHENA

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classique

Virée classique de l’OSM | A Requiem of Contrasts

by Alexis Desrosiers-Michaud

The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and its choir were in top form for the first concert of the Virée classique weekend, in Guiseppe Verdi’s Requiem.

What’s striking from the outset is the respect and accuracy of the nuances, as indicated in the score; the “very soft” indications are almost imperceptible, and the “very loud” ones shatter the ceiling, to the point of literally vibrating the plexiglass on stage. On the other hand, when singing piano, consonants must be exaggerated, and both soloists and chorus lose the first consonants of words. Conversely, the consonants at the end of words are more sonorous.

The four soloists, including the tenor, Oreste Cosimo (forgotten in the program), sing not with the score in hand, but placed on a lectern. In this way, they can “play” their text. Mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb stands out in this respect, detaching herself from the score to interact with her counterparts, or staring at the audience to convey emotion.

The chorus is solid, fair and balanced. It sings loud enough to take its place in the din of the Dies Irae and the Tuba Mirum. In the Sanctus, however, the orchestra and choir are on two different levels. The orchestra is loud and festive, while the choir is restrained and angelic. This part, with 8 voices, should stand out more to perceive the various entries and avoid being swallowed up.

Photo credit: Antoine Saito

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Classical / classique / période romantique

Virée classique de l’OSM | A Successful Trip on Mediterranean Soil for The OSJM

by Alexandre Villemaire

The PAN M 360 team is very present at the Virée classique, presented by the OSM. On the ground, in the free activities and the indoor concerts, Alain Brunet, Alexis Desrosiers-Michaud and Alexandre Villemaire report on what they saw and heard at the events presented in Montreal until August 18.

The Complexe Desjardins vibrated to the sounds of the Mediterranean with a solid and lively Montreal Youth Symphony Orchestra in a sunny program that hit the mark. The orchestra founded in 1976 and conducted by Louis Lavigueur was participating in its fourth time at the OSM Classical Spree, a beautiful symbolism and a participation that we hope to see continue between the Montreal ensemble and the young members of the orchestra, young people who, as Maestro Lavigueur rightly pointed out, will surely be among the new members of the OSM or the OM in the near future.

The program he had concocted allowed us to witness the quality of the musicians’ playing. Beginning the concert with the sparkling “Overture” from Rossini’s opera L’Italienne à Alger, the orchestra then welcomed violinist Justin Saulnier, winner of the 2nd prize at the OSM Competition in 2023, to perform the fifth movement of Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole. Saulnier demonstrated great technical agility with a clear and biting sound, despite a few minor communication challenges with the conductor, particularly for a few slowdowns. However, nothing major to spoil the performance. Certainly the most complex piece on the program, Darius Milhaud’s Suite Provençale offered a most exciting play of texture and color. The orchestra concluded its one-hour performance with a most invigorating interpretation of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol, in which several instrumental sections of the orchestra were able to shine with their mastery of their instrument.

Photo credit: Gabriel Fournier

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classique

Virée classique de l’OSM | Telling the Story of Madame de Staël in Music

by Alexandre Villemaire

Entitled Sur les traces de Madame de Staël, Esther Laforce, a librarian at the BAnQ, offered a musical journey through part of the work of the French and Genevan woman of letters accompanied by the harpist Antoine Malette-Chénier. The novel Corinne ou l’Italie served as the backdrop to the story. The audience was led to discover the eponymous character of the author, an Italian poet, and her love story with Lord Oswald Nelvil, an English nobleman. The sustained research and the story painted once again very aptly constructed by Esther Laforce are presented as a form of ambulatory where we follow the evolution of the relationship between the two protagonists, in particular through their state of mind and through different mythical places in Italy, from Rome to the Kingdom of Naples. Commenting musically on the action with pieces taken mainly from the 18th century harp repertoire (Krumpholtz, Petrini, Naderman), Antoine Malette-Chénier played his role to perfection, embodying in his own way the character of Corinne whose lyre was the instrument of choice. His interventions were in turn marked by lightness, melancholy and torment.

Despite a good musical performance, we found it more difficult to connect with the story and its characters, compared to last year when the epistolary relationship between George Sand and Frédéric Chopin offered lighter and even humorous moments. Here, the style of the language and the content of the subject require a little more sustained and internal concentration, which the open and semi-crowded location of the Espace GEL makes more difficult to fully appreciate.

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classique

Virée classique de l’OSM | Kick-off to a Mediterranean weekend

by Alain Brunet

Soberly and aptly hosted by André Robitaille on the Esplanade du Parc Olympique in front of a mass audience, the kick-off to the OSM’s 11th Virée classique was another opportunity to open up to a planetary conception of classical music, at the very least a Mediterranean one. Bringing together in the same program Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Hector Berlioz, Ottorini Respighi and Joseph Tawadros, the great oud soloist and contemporary composer of Arab classical music, was another sign of the times and a further illustration of the inclusive globalization of classical music according to the OSM and Rafael Payare.

First, the tragic loves of Francesca da Rimini, a 13th-century Italian woman immortalized in Dante’s The Divine Comedy, and who inspired the Russian composer in a work written in 1876. Does this symphonic fantasy include elements of Mediterranean culture? In the novelistic inspiration, certainly, but it’s not really out of keeping with the Tchaikovskian style, whose genius we appreciate once again. This vigorous work, with its rockets of strings and woodwinds, its fireworks of brass and virtuoso circonvolutions of strings, was served up with brilliance, passion and high virtuosity.

At the center of the program was the Ouverture du Carnaval romain (1844), a vigorous work based on themes from his opera Benvenuto Cellini. The impression of compositional genius is less strong here, but the execution is more than adequate.

Second and fourth on the program, oud player Joseph Tawadros, born in Cairo but raised in Australia, gave us a few hints of his hybridization of Arab classical music in a Western symphonic version. Originally dressed in a pink shirt, oriental bonnet and stylized moustache and beard, the virtuoso instrumentalist took to the stage in two compositions for oud and orchestra. The oud is a string instrument very similar to the lute, and a forerunner of plucked string instruments such as the guitar, and has become increasingly popular in recent decades. Tawadros’ symphonic works on this program are not of profound harmonic singularity and complexity, but rather an extrapolation of their melodies and specific oud parts. Permission to Evapore evokes the death of the composer’s parents.

As its title suggests, Constantinople takes us to the frontiers of East and West, where orchestral constructions are relatively limited harmonically, as they are primarily at the service of melody and rhythm, as is the case with classical Arabic music, which until recently has eschewed polyphony. For these reasons, one may have the impression of instrumental pop rather than great music, but this is an illusion, for the qualities of these works lie elsewhere, notably in that virtuoso line exquisitely executed in unison by Tawadros and Andrew Wan, OSM concertmaster.

Last but not least, we were treated to music composed in 1924, the second symphonic poem in a trilogy dedicated to Rome. Exactly a century ago, Ottorino Respighi was expressing the grandeur of Rome in music, and Pini di Roma is a fine example of this. The modernity of some of the orchestral harmonies developed at the turn of the 20th century is evident. A blend of post-romanticism and modernity, this symphonic poem includes various elements of popular music, including a march that we would describe as legionary in the conclusion, preceded by the superimposition of pre-recorded birdsong, as Respighi had intended. A visionary of his time, you say? A fitting conclusion to this Voyage méditerranéen, which precedes several other sound experiments inspired in one way or another by Mediterranean musical culture.

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Opéra-rock

Starmania: The Temptation to Exist

by Claude André

In its latest incarnation, the hybrid postmodern rock opera created by Michel Berger and Luc Plamondon in 1978 is given a new lease of life thanks to a new reading of the libretto and a breathtaking staging.

At a time when bombs are raining down and terrorist attacks are multiplying around the world, when a character shaped by TV could once again become “president of the universe” with the help of a social networking tycoon, Starman’s dystopia is truer than ever.

Add to this a group of idle, violent zealots, a populace enslaved by fake news and nihilistic outsiders asking existential questions about the meaning of life and unconventional love, and you have all the ingredients that crystallize today’s society, represented by the intersecting destinies of eight characters, seven of whom will die in a metropolis of skyscrapers where people are obsessed with celebrity and radicalism.

“To propose a readable narrative, beyond the autonomous life that the songs have acquired in 40 years of success (…). To update this booklet, which is certainly visionary, but still very meaningful today, by working on the order of the songs, the transitions, and by bringing back a character who has disappeared since the first version (the guru)…”.

This was the aim of director Thomas Joly, the man behind the grandiose and provocative opening of the Paris Olympics, using a multimedia approach sometimes inspired by direct cinema.

In order to capture the emotional essence of the work, before the dazzling success of the various versions diluted it, whether by a note here or a tempo there, this new version was inspired by the handwritten score of the late Michel Bernholc, arranger of the original version.

From a visual point of view, thanks to ambitious machinery, flamboyant costumes and sophisticated, captivating light architecture, most of the songs that have accompanied our lives for decades are sublimated.

Most of them? It has to be said, some of the pieces seem duller than others, given the bouquet of immortals in the work, which can slow down the rhythm.

So, if the old-school author of these lines was sometimes looking with a certain nostalgia for Balavoine’s ardor in Quand on arrive en ville, or Dubois’ charismatic, mocking posture in the famous Blues du businessman, or Fabienne Thibault’s infectious despair in Le monde est stone, we have to face facts: today’s performers have more than held their own, and will no doubt leave their mark on younger generations just as their predecessors did, although we might have hoped for a greater tonal variety in the choice of female voices.

Despite this drawback and the acoustics that caused some of the rhymes to shatter in the arena that was originally Place Bell, this generous show, which lasts a good three hours (including a twenty-minute intermission) and features some thirty singers, dancers and musicians, proves in our eyes to be the ultimate version of this now cult rock opera.

Photo Credit: Anthony Dorfmann

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Indigenous peoples

International First People Festival – IA, Maori Soul Pop in The Rain

by Alain Brunet

From New Zealand, traditional Maori instruments are integrated into an embodied soul pop. The band’s leaders have clearly thought through their hybridization, as laymen are likely to feel the pop spirit before they discover the Maori flavors.

Māori music collective IA blends taonga pūoro and electronic pop to generate a singular sound. The singer expresses himself mainly in the indigenous language and also in English, reflecting real life in the homeland.

We’re looking at true pros of soul/R&B-tinged pop, with the warm, righteous voice of the soloist (Reti Hedley), the harmonies of the keyboards and the groove of the bass (Moetu Smith) telling no lies. Traditional instruments, especially flutes and percussion, become the Maori ornaments of a global pop whose basic referents are familiar to anyone even remotely connected on this planet. The key to IA’s success lies in this question: should we really be seeking a balance between local and global culture? At IA, this seems to be a sincere and legitimate preoccupation to achieve that artistic identity called indigenous soul music. Based in Waikato, the group is dedicated to highlighting taonga pūoro and Te Reo Māori in its music.

Once again, it’s a shame that the generous remnants of Storm Debby have begun to fall on Montreal, as IA could have generated a lot more interest among music lovers curious to see where Aboriginal pop is at in Oceania.

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Indigenous peoples

International First People Festival | Manawan Hip-Hop Nation

by Alain Brunet

Yann Ottawa aka The RZMN, from the Atikamekw Nation of Manawan, demands our full attention, as he teaches us about the life of his nation, both private and public. With his brother, he raps and sings in Atikamekw, using dramatic chords to coat his flow and melodic lines, sometimes filtered through autotune, and inclined to melancholy. Music runs in the Ottawa family: his father plays guitar and his brother enjoys percussion.

Obviously, he’s more inclined to hip-hop, reggaeton and rap keb, since he expresses himself a lot in French – and also in his mother tongue. In 2022, Yann Ottawa and his brothers released their first mixtape, Bigman Recordz, Vol. 1.

Unfortunately, it was raining on this Thursday evening, and RZMN and his colleagues performed on the main stage of the Place des Festivals in front of a plantation of umbrellas. Under the umbrellas, however, the humans remained captivated. In front of the umbrellas, certainly, there was mastered rap, there were hooks, there were choruses, there were real stories about real life on Atikamekw land, there was real beatmaking, there was a real good aboriginal rap show that we’ll have to see again and again.

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