Industry News

Version française...

Flash version here.

This year’s Michael Measures Prize, a collaboration between the Canada Council for the Arts and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, has gone to harpistAntoine Malette-Chénier. The $25,000 prize will help send the 23-year-old from Gatineau, Quebec, to Lyon to study baroque harp at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique. Already recognized as an innovative harpist with an extensive repertoire, Malette-Chénier was a first-prize winner at the 2013 Montréal Symphony Orchestra Competition and has performed with several major orchestras.

Caroline Cole is another young harpist taking home a Canada Council Prize. The $25,000 Virginia Parker prize is awarded to a Canadian classical musician under the age of 32 who demonstrates outstanding talent and musicianship. Originally from Peterborough, Ontario, Cole studied at the University of Toronto and at Juilliard.

New Appointments

Jocelyn Morlock is the new Composer-in-Residence with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The Juno-nominated composer will compose new works for the VSO as well as contribute to programming for the orchestra’s annual new-music festival. The orchestra also announced the appointment of Gordon Gerrard as Associate Conductor.

Maxim Antoshin is the new Executive Director of the Ottawa Chamber Music Society. Antoshin formerly held the position of Executive Director with the Regina Symphony Orchestra.

Accolades

Newly installed members of the Order of Canada include conductor Jacques Lacombe, Music Director of both the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières, and conductor and composer Alex Pauk, founder of Toronto’s Esprit Orchestra. Boris Brott, conductor of the McGill Chamber Orchestra, was honored as a member of the Ordre National du Québec.

Summer Roundup

The Toronto Symphony has signed a new recording contract with Chandos Records. Available this month, the first of the TSO recordings to be released by the UK-based label is Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade, recorded live at Roy Thomson Hall in June 2013, conducted by TSO Music Director Peter Oundjian and featuring concertmaster Jonathan Crow. In recent seasons, the TSO released eight recordings on its self-produced label, TSO Live.

This summer Tapestry Opera brought together writers Morris Panych, Nicolas Billon, David Yee and Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, with composers Nicole Lizée, Dean Burry, Christopher Thornborrow, and Ivan Barbotin for the company’s Composer-Librettist Laboratory. Joining the creators were mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabo, baritone Alex Dobson, tenor Keith Klassen, and soprano Cat Affleck, along with music directors Christopher Foley and Jennifer Tung. The Toronto company’s summer program, which originated in 1995, is a formal way for composers and writers to explore the collaborative process. The lab, which attracts applicants from all around the world, has become a model for other opera companies, such as the English National Opera Studio’s All-in Opera and Pacific Opera Victoria’s Composer-Librettist Workshop.

As of this month, Toronto’s commercial classical music station, Classical 96.3FM, expands its reach to cottage country and beyond. The New Classical 102.9FM will be heard in towns including Collingwood, Owen Sound, Midland, Barrie and Orillia.

Requiems

Lorin Maazel (1930-2014)
A former child prodigy, Maazel, born in France and raised in the US, went on to become the music director of the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and several other ensembles and companies around the world. Known for his incisive and sometimes extreme interpretations, Maazel died from complications from pneumonia on July 13 at his home in Castleton, Virginia. He was 84.

Carlo Bergonzi (1924–2014)
Considered one of the 20th century’s most distinguished operatic tenors, Carlo Bergonzi died on July 25 in Milan, at the age of 90. The foremost Verdi tenor of his age, Mr. Bergonzi sang more than 300 performances with New York's Metropolitan Opera from the 1950s to the ’80s, appearing opposite celebrated divas including Maria Callas and Leontyne Price. In an obituary, The New York Times praised the tenor's "instrument of velvety beauty and nearly unrivaled subtlety.”

Licia Albanese (1909-2014)
Italian-born American soprano Licia Albanese, known for her portrayals of Verdi and Puccini heroines, died in New York on Aug. 15 at the age of 105. Albanese was a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera, appearing hundreds of times from 1940 to 1966. She made her unofficial debut in Milan in 1934, when she replaced another soprano in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, the opera with which she would be celebrated. She sang more than 300 performances of Cio-Cio-San over a 40 year span. WKC

Cristina Deutekom (1931-2014). Dutch coloratura soprano. Died Aug. 7. WKC

*LSM Subscribers will receive Discovery CD recordings of Licia Albanese, Carlo Bergonzi and Lorin Maazel in the month of September.