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Kira Braun: "So much music, so little time..."

Kira Braun: "So much music, so little time..."

Toronto-based soprano Kira Braun is one of those singers whose unselfish love of her craft is crystal clear. Following its official launch at Gallery 345, Braun has released The Echoing Air, an album of music by Purcell, Poulenc, Bellini, and Schumann with pianist Peter Krochak.

Jenna Simeonov
Don't miss: Soundstreams presents Odditorium

Don't miss: Soundstreams presents Odditorium

Amente-Nufe, Crown of Ariadne, Tantrika, and La testa d'Adriana are the four selections from R. Murray Schafer's 12-piece musical/theatrical cycle, Patria, which will be presented in a newly-realized performance directed by Chris Abraham, with music direction by the contemporary musical guru himself, Dr. John Hess.

Jenna Simeonov
Don't miss: Lieder, Leaders, and Lovers

Don't miss: Lieder, Leaders, and Lovers

Sunday’s program will feature a broad range of music from from Tchaikovsky to Madeleine Dring, and it's not often one is treated to traditional Maori hunting music in the same setting as songs by Kurt Weill. Leo Doulton, who organizes the event, recognizes that unconventional nature of this program. "Absolutely, Kurt Weill almost certainly never heard Maori music, but that doesn't matter - they’re both dead."

Collin Shay
Don't miss: The Man Who Married Himself

Don't miss: The Man Who Married Himself

The Man Who Married Himself is based in an Indian folk tale, about a man who is unwilling to marry a woman, and who instead creates a lover for himself out of his own left side. "He finds himself enraptured by his creation's perfect beauty – a mirror of his own – until he discovers that this new woman longs for another."

Jenna Simeonov
Don't miss: the Amici Ensemble reimagines Don Giovanni

Don't miss: the Amici Ensemble reimagines Don Giovanni

Insiring the concert's title, Don Giovanni Reimagined, the Amici ensemble presents Josef Triebensee's arrangement; the Bohemian oboist and composer reduced Mozar'ts opera, scoring it for a chamber ensemble of wind instruments, and enough singers to cover the short selection of numbers from the opera.

Jenna Simeonov
Don't miss: Radvanovsky in recital at Cadogan Hall

Don't miss: Radvanovsky in recital at Cadogan Hall

"There's an intensity and dramatic commitment with Sondra that's made her connect with audiences in a way few singers are able to do," says Rosenblatt, founder of the series, of Radvanovsky's place as a leading soprano in opera today. "The actual instrument itself is nothing short of a marvel – it's a huge voice but one that she's able to use with complete control so that she's also able to sing the most delicate of phrasing that touches whoever she's singing with."

Jenna Simeonov
Don't miss: rough for opera #15

Don't miss: rough for opera #15

Jonathan Higgins' Schutzwall is set in 1961 Berlin, one month after the wall was put up, overnight, with no warning. Catherine Kontz's A Certain Sense of Order draws on the life and work of Anne Sexton, the fascinating American poet who struggled with mental illness all her life, and whose shocking poems were considered "confessional". Benjamin Tassie's Hurricane Zoo is an operatic adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's First Visit with Mescalito, the Gonzo-journalism-style account of his first mescaline trip.

Jenna Simeonov
Don't miss: Women Who Write

Don't miss: Women Who Write

Sara Constant, flutist and writer for Wholenote leads a round-table dicussion with three Canadian women: Norma Beecroft, pioneer of electronic music composition, Juliet Palmer, composer and Artistic Director of Urbavessel, and Tara Kannangara, Juno-nominated jazz artist and composer. The conversation will "reveal the joys and triumphs of each composer as they find their voices in the Canadian music scene".

Jenna Simeonov
Don't miss: Haus Musik

Don't miss: Haus Musik

"Adventure ensues as we experience the world around us for the first time through the eyes of the recently awoken Leeka, a curious and vivacious young woman from a galaxy far away."

Jenna Simeonov
2017/18: Canadians in Paris

2017/18: Canadians in Paris

Paris accueille les chanteurs canadiens à bras ouverts. Comme on peut en témoigner depuis le début de la saison 2016-2017, le public parisien semble beaucoup apprécier les talents de chez nous. C'est au Théâtre des Champs-Élysées que Julie Boulianne a chanté, en décembre dernier, sa première Donna Elvira dans Don Giovanni. Étienne Dupuis terminait, il y a quelques semaines, une série de représentations d'Iphigénie en Tauride à l'Opéra Garnier et Karina Gauvin triomphait cette semaine, aux côtés de Marie-Nicole Lemieux, dans la Rodelinda de Handel.

Olivier Bergeron

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