Eleven years ago FAWN Chamber Creative produced a fully staged version of Adam Scime and Ian Kotter’s chamber opera L’homme et le ciel. My review of that show is here and photos are ,here. It’ s now been recorded with a different cast and released as a CD and digitally on Redshift Records. I’ve had a chance to listen to the recording and study the libretto as well as catch up with Adam and Ian, as well as Amanda Smith who was the director of the stage production, at the release party last night. There we got to hear some excerpts with creator commentary which is always an enlightening thing. My comprehensive review is slated for a a future issue of Opera Canada so the best I can do for now is point you to the album page on the Redshift web site which has lots of useful information. The TL:DR version is that it’s a fascinating libretto given a complex and apt setting and everything about the performance and recording is excellent.
Catalogue information: Redshift Records TK590
Monday was the 100th birthday of the great Canadian soprano, advocate of new music and voice teacher extraordinaire, Mary Morrison. It was also the first day of a week of events celebrating that milestone organised by the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. I’m not going to write a tribute to Mary because others have done so, and done so better than I likely would. Larry Beckwith and the Confluence crew have a 
Cicada Woods is a fairly recently formed Toronto based group consisting of Suhashini Arulanandam – violin, Esme Allen-Creighton – viola, Sybil Shanahan – cello and Shannon Wojewoda – double bass. Their first recording titled Seasons is of two works based on the four seasons. The first is an arrangement of Astor Piazolla’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires). This was originally scored for bandonéon, violin, electric guitar, piano, and double bass and the arrangement aims to match Piazolla’s sound world as much as possible through the use of extended technique etc. Of course this four movement piece is tango based and that comes over clearly in the arrangement and I think the four acoustic instruments manage to sound like a tango ensemble. There are some particularly effective percussive effects for example in the third movement “Primavera”.
