Sunday concerts at Glebe-St. James United Church

By Bruce Taylor

Another season of Sunday afternoon music is about to get underway at Glebe-St. James United Church.

The sanctuary of the church at 650 Lyon Street, with its intimate seating capacity of 350 and outstanding acoustics, provides a beautiful setting for concerts at 2:30 p.m. on selected Sundays from September through May. Started more than thirteen years ago as “Afternoon Concerts”, the season is now comprised of two series: Concerts-in-the-Glebe (CIG) and the Young Artist (YA). The YA series offers a performance opportunity for pre-professional musicians and ensembles (typically university age), while the CIG series presents local and international professional musicians. Concerts are typically an hour to an hour and a half. Assisted access and free on-street parking are available.

Programs for each concert are usually available a week ahead under “concerts series and events” on the church’s website, www.glebestjames.ca. You may also join our mailing list by contacting the church office (613-236-0617) to receive programs as soon as they are available, plus notice of any changes throughout the year.

Ticket prices at the door are:  CIG Series: $15 (Adult), $10 (Stu-Sr.); YA Series: $10 (Adult), $7 (Stu-Sr.). Admission by donation is always welcome. GSJ also has a “no barriers” policy – please contact the church office for complimentary tickets.

Bruce Taylor is a member of Glebe- St. James, the chair of the concert committee, and an amateur musician (viola).

Our 2019-2020 season:

October 20    [CIG]    “Dear Clara … “

Cathy Yang, piano
Sonatas, romances and ballads from female composers of the 19th and 20th centuries

November 17    (YA)    “Autumn Notes”

Bergeron Trio
Sonatas, trios and duets for violin, cello and piano from Mozart, Liszt, Glière, Vivaldi, Reinecke and Schubert

January 19, 2020    (CIG)    “Be Free!”

Coriolis Piano Trio
Music inspired by the myth of the Phoenix (Murphey), the freedom and melodies of Gypsy musicians (Haydn) and the explosive energy of Tchaikovsky (Arensky)

February 9    (CIG)    “Characters”

Christiane Wilke, oboe
Jenna Richards, piano
19th and 20th century music portraying characters and personalities from ghosts to monsters, covering the breadth of human emotions

March 8    (CIG)    “Pitchforks and Pladdies”

Celtic Harp Duo
Features airs, marches and reels from Ireland, Scotland and Cape Breton presented as creative arrangements of well-known traditional favourites

March 29    (CIG)    “Guitars in the Glebe”

Ottawa Guitar Trio
Blending classical repertoire with themes from popular favourites, the trio presents a program of Piazzolla, John Williams, Hindemith, Canadian Howard Shore, Ravel and others

April 5    (CIG)    “Baroque to the Future”

Luke Welch
A lively concert of pieces by Scarlatti, Mozart, and Chopin

May 3    (CIG)    “Homage”

Duo Sakura
A tribute to one-piano four-hands repertoire including selections from Mozart, Claude Debussy and Rachmaninoff

Musicians: please visit the concerts page at glebestjames.ca for information on remuneration, concert proposal guidelines and submittal date.

Meet Andrew Ager, composer of Frankenstein, the Opera

By Nadine Dawson

Andrew Ager has written four operas, all of which have been produced. Described in the Toronto Star as “one of Canada’s most intriguing classical musicians,” he lives in Ottawa and works as a full-time composer and accompanist. Frankenstein, The Opera stars Constantine Meglis and Lenard Whiting and features Bronwyn Thies-Thompson, Jeffrey Boyd, Gary Dahl, James Coole-Stevenson, Carmen Harris, and Elliott Mennier. I interviewed Ager backstage, where the set was being constructed.

Did you find composition, or did composition find you?

I was always thinking of music, back to my earliest memories – making up tunes, making up sound in music to go with pictures or stories that I heard or had in my head. Ever since I was very small. Ever since I started talking, probably.

What do you remember about the first time an audience heard your music?

I think that was when I was about 16. I played a piano piece that I wrote and people liked it and said that I should write more. I didn’t write it [so] that they would like it. I wrote out what I wanted to write and they liked it. So that was very nice to hear.

What is the most rewarding aspect of being a composer? The most challenging part?

Well I’d say they’re linked because what’s rewarding is getting [your music] produced, and what’s most frustrating are all the things that happen which are part of getting it produced. You can’t avoid it. I’ve [brought my own music to stage] a number of times here in Ottawa already. I did it in Toronto. I did it in other places that I lived in before that. I’ve generally created my own shows. And they aren’t as big as this Frankenstein project, but I got to know some of the ins and outs of [production]. The most rewarding thing is to have [your work] produced and have people see it.

As a Canadian musician, how do you see the role of artist in contemporary society?

I have no view about that at all. It means nothing to me. I actually feel that way. I feel that that’s one of those Arts Council questions. It’s a tick box on a Canada Council form: What’s your role in society? And I just want to go – not applicable. I don’t know. I just write music.

Take me through the process of creating a brand new opera, from inspiration to opening night.

I had nightmares about Frankenstein when I was a little boy. When I started writing a gothic opera on another theme, I decided that story wasn’t well enough known to use as an opera and I switched over to Frankenstein. I started about 15 years ago. It went through a lot of different versions because the novel is quite long and complicated and that doesn’t work well as an opera. So over the years I had to remove scenes, change other scenes, make the whole structure quite different.

Frankenstein, The Opera, will make its Ottawa debut this fall. What can audiences expect?

I think they can expect to be thrilled, chilled, touched. The creature is the centre of the opera and he is a fascinating complex character. He has a violent side, he has a tender side, he’s very emotional. I chose the cast. Lenard Whiting is singing Victor Frankenstein. He has superb acting abilities, as well as a great ringing tenor voice. He can really carry off high intensity roles, which of course [this] is. The role of the monster is being sung by [Constantine Meglis], who is very big physically. He’s a huge person. He’s also an accomplished actor. He does a lot of film and stage work. He has a very striking face. The rest of the cast is a supporting cast, and I’m using very high-end talent from Ottawa, including a 12-year-old boy who’s singing the role of William, Frankenstein’s younger brother. We’re doing it at Dominion-Chalmers because it’s such a haunting and spooky space.

How would you sell opera to someone who hasn’t yet discovered it?

It’s the story. It’s the story – told in music. And if it’s a great opera, it draws you right in. If it’s great music, then the music also tells the story. Come to the opera and see Frankenstein. You’ll be amazed by it.

Frankenstein The Opera 2019 makes its Ottawa debut October 31 and November 1 at the Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre, 355 Cooper Street. Tickets are available at Eventbrite.ca (Frankenstein – Ottawa) or at the door. VIP tickets include preferred seating and a chance to meet the cast after the performance. Students (and anyone wearing a Hallowe’en costume!) receive a discount.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Nadine Dawson is an artist and teacher who lives in Old Ottawa South.  Look for her on the stage of Frankenstein, fulfilling a latent, life-long ambition to be a non-speaking extra.

Faust

presented by Seventeen Voyces

Friday, October 25, 2019; 7:30 pm
Saturday, October 26, 2019; 7:30 p.m.
St. Matthew’s Anglican Church

Adults: $30.00; Students: $20.00

For tickets go to: seventeenvoyces.ca/concerts

By Karen Junke

For its opening concert this fall, Seventeen Voyces will perform Faust. A 1926 classic silent film by German director F.W. Murnau will be projected on a large screen and accompanied by live choral music performed by Ottawa’s premier chamber choir with improvisations by organ virtuoso Matthew Larkin.

In this film, Murnau – who directed Nosferatu, which Seventeen Voyces presented last year – draws on older traditions of the legendary German folktale of Faust as well as on the Goethe classic version. Will the demon Mephisto win his bet with an Archangel that he can corrupt a righteous man’s soul and destroy in him what is divine? If he does, the Devil will win dominion over earth. Discover the chaos he sows in trying.

Murnau had a successful film career in Germany before moving to California in the early 20th century. He revolutionized the art of cinematic expression by using the camera subjectively to interpret the emotional state of a character. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen. He was very much part of the expressionist sentiments of the period. Hence, the direction he took was not surprising.

For the movie Faust, choir director Kevin Reeves has chosen excerpts from various composers whose works are based on Goethe’s story, including Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, Charles Gounod’s Faust and Hector Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust.

There is also a very dramatic piece entitled Faust et Hélène, written by Lili Boulanger (sister of the famous pedagogue, Nadia Boulanger) who was born in 1893 in Paris and was the first woman composer to win the Prix de Rome. She died at the age of 24.

Boulanger came from a musically rich family that no doubt shaped her creative interests and ambitions. Although her career was short, it was also prolific. In 1939, American friends created the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund to perpetuate her memory and work and to support talented musicians. In April 1965, the Friends of Lili Boulanger Association was created in Paris. This organization became the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre (CNLB) in 2009. Her legacy lives on.

Organist Matthew Larkin will provide pyrotechnical improvisations when not accompanying Seventeen Voyces. It promises to be an entertaining evening with multiple musical talents. Not to be missed.

Karen Junke is a member of the board of Seventeen Voyces.