CONSTANTINE CARAVASSILIS' BLOGSPOT

TWO THUMBS UP FOR CANADIAN PIANIST CHRISTINA PETROWSKA QUILICO - WHOLENOTE MAGAZINE

2011-10-05T02:36:00.000-07:00

Busily Weaving a Musical Life:

Christina Petrowska Quilico

(article courtesy of the WholeNote Magazine, Oct. 2011 issue)

When we contacted Christina Petrowska Quilico early this past summer, she was, no surprise, busy on more than one front. For one thing, she was busy writing program notes for her 26th CD. The CD features two piano concerti written for her, by Heather Schmidt (Piano Concerto No.2) and by George Fiala (Concerto Cantata for piano, opera chorus and chimes). “I gave the world premieres for both pieces” she explained. “And I am stuck on finding a good title so that was what I was working on right now.”

“For another thing,” she said, “I am looking forward to taking one of my daughters to see Alice in Wonderland with the National Ballet of Canada. My daughters and I love the ballet and we have all taken lessons.”

“So no slacking off during the summer?” we asked.

“I am looking forward to working with Christopher House of the Toronto Dance Theatre on a new major project for next April,” she replied. “Rehearsals begin in September but the works starts now. I’m also working with dancer Terrill Maguire from York University on a dance/piano concert for September.”

And that wasn’t all, “This July I’m recording new works by Constantine Caravassilis (the first CD of a 2 CD set). I am practising the Grieg piano concerto to perform with the Kindred Spirits Orchestra November 5 at the Markham Theatre. I will be learning more music by Constantine Caravassilis to record the second CD of his music. I am reviewing my Ann Southam repertoire for several tribute concerts and working on the rest of the Glass Houses and other pieces she wanted me to record.”

And then there is her teaching: “I am a Full Professor at York so my work begins there very soon. I’m Director of Classical Piano and there are a lot of piano students which is extremely encouraging. I have to plan my courses and course kits, audition and do quite a bit of paperwork so that everything runs smoothly.”

Well, the saying goes that if you want something done well, you should always give it to a busy person! So, fast forward three months, and, no surprise, everything on Petrowska Quilico’s list is three months further ahead. As she said, she prefers things to run smoothly.

The dance/concert with Terrill Maguire has been and gone (September 15 to 18). The 26th CD’s program notes are complete, it has a name — Tapestries — and Centrediscs will be launching it in early November. As for the first Constantine Caravassilis CD she was working on, it’s “in the can” and the second is under way.

Caravassilis is a young composer who won the 2009 Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music for his work Sappho de Mytilène for mezzo-soprano, flute and piano and subsequently was awarded the first Harry Freeman Prize for young composers, along with Petrowska Quilico, towards this recording project.

Fact is, that in terms of new commissions and performances of contemporary music, there is no greater champion than Petrowska Quilico. This is her fifth CD of Canadian piano concerti (and third concerto CD on Centrediscs) — for a total of eight recorded Canadian piano concerti, two of which had Juno nominations for best composition (Glenn Buhr and Larysa Kuzmenko) and two of which have been, quite literally, “out of this world” — astronaut Steve MacLean took her recording of David Mott’s Eclipse on the space shuttle Atlantis, and her recording of Alexina Louie’s Star-Filled Night on his first mission on the space shuttle Columbia in 1992.

For almost her entire performing career, Petrowska Quilico has championed the music of her time. So it was less of a surprise to find out there are more projects of this type in the wings, including a CD of piano music by Canadians Kati Agocs, Abigail Richardson, and Ana Sokolovic, than it was to hear of the upcoming performance of the Grieg piano concerto with Kindred Spirits in Markham.

It shouldn’t be so surprising, though, if one thinks back on her concert tours, as a soloist and as partner to her late husband, the legendary Metropolitan Opera baritone Louis Quilico. She has toured four continents — been to Taiwan, the Middle East, France, Germany, Greece, Ukraine, throughout the United States and Canada. On the recital stage, she has appeared at such prestigious New York venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, and Merkin Concert Hall.

She is at home with many other musical periods — particularly the romantics and early 20th century composers. Among her over two dozen recordings are Romantic Gems, which includes works by Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach, Granados, Janacek and Rachmaninoff; a Chopin and Liszt CD, and another of Debussy. And with Louis Quilico, she recorded four CDs — of French and Russian songs, and of recitals of arias, art songs and show tunes.

In a nice turn of phrase the Toronto Star’s William Littler called her an “astonishing pianist … particularly gifted as an interpreter of the language of the moderns like Stockhausen and Messiaen ... who can [also] control the Niagara of sound in a great Chopin Polonaise.”

When it comes to breadth of repertoire, technical facility and interpretive prowess, few pianists can match her. Trained from an early age in the demanding Russian tradition, she can wrap herself around repertoire from Bach to Boulez and beyond. Composer Gyorgy Ligeti called her “one of the absolutely best young pianists” when he first heard her, and in 2002, when Pierre Boulez was in Toronto to receive the Glenn Gould Prize, he coached Petrowska Quilico only hours before she was to perform his Première Sonate on a live national broadcast. As the story goes, even though she had meticulously followed his own metronome markings, he exhorted her to “Play faster, play faster” — so she did, to his great satisfaction. That energetic performance is preserved on her Ings CD.

Of all the performing and recording that she is doing, though, one still senses that her dedication to the work of composer Ann Southam, who died last year, remains central, and there is no doubt that the admiration was reciprocal.

“I didn’t think anyone would play this piece,” Southam once remarked of her work ‘Rivers’ “but when Christina performed it, I loved the sound and what was happening as the hands interacted. And I loved the little tunes and motifs that could be heard in the interaction between the hands. It takes a whiz-bang pianist to make those heard. I don’t know how she does it!”

And Petrowska Quilico wrote a piece for The WholeNote after Southam’s passing in which she quoted Schoenberg’s comment “that there was still great music to be written in C” and that Ann Southam proved him right, “cheerfully hunting for Middle C — and in doing so [having] a disconcerting way of reinterpreting familiar forms and techniques.” And of Southam’s “continuing to use a 12 tone row and spin it out, one note at a time for 20 years,” Petrowska Quilico observed: “Ann hoped she could bring some tonal sense to the serial technique. It may be called “minimal,” but her works embroider the layers of tonal fabric created through the serial row — weaving, in fact, in a manner that reflects traditional women’s work.”

Interestingly, Petrowska Quilico sees in Southam something of the tradition of Chopin and Liszt. “Her pieces are characterized by a flow and energy produced by rhythmic cycles that repeat within interchanging melodic motifs. Her slow music suspends our sense of time, while the fast pieces, with their undercurrent of recklessness, become hypnotic and surprisingly tranquil and reflective. Although maintaining an angular tone row, both extremes reveal a serene lyricism that is a common thread in her music.”

Petrowska Quilico’s performances of Ann Southam’s music continue. In October, she is performing Southam’s “Rivers” in three concerts — first in early October at the 2011 Contemporary Music Festival at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, followed by excerpts as part of an Arraymusic tribute to Southam on October 14 at Gallery 345, and, again excerpts, in a Celebration of Women Composers at the Heliconian Hall on October 28.

Not only a versatile performer, Petrowska Quilico is also a valued teacher. At 20 years old, she began teaching at the Paris American Academy, focusing on the music of the 20th century Viennese school of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg. Since that early start, she has been on the faculty of the Royal Conservatory in Toronto, and both Carleton and Ottawa Universities. While in Ottawa, she was director of the new music group Espace Musique for five years and music director of Opera Lyra for its first year.

If teachers are shaped by their own teachers, then Petrowska Quilico had a head start. One of her first teachers was the “revered but exacting” Russian-born pedagogue Boris Berlin at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Besides demanding equal technical facility with both hands, Berlin opened Petrowska Quilico’s ears to new music, refusing to let her study a Chopin concerto unless she learned a new Canadian work as well. Through hours of practice and her mother’s encouragement, she grew attached to the piece. When she received her ARCT at the Conservatory, Berlin recommended her for a scholarship to Juilliard. (She also managed to emerge from Juilliard with a degree in science as well as music, but that is a story for another day.)

In 1987, Petrowska Quilico joined the faculty in the Music Department at York University in Toronto, where she remains to this day, a tenured Full Professor of Piano and Musicology. She is also Director of Classical Piano and a member of the Graduate Faculty, in which she continues to teach and supervise Masters and PhD students. As her curriculum vitae puts it, “primarily an exponent of the Russian tradition — with training in baroque, classical, romantic and contemporary, and experience as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist — she adds her vast knowledge gleaned from working with diverse composers, and her personal insights from years of study and extra-musical pursuits.”

Another story goes that just as she was entering university, Petrowska Quilico had a poem printed in the New York Times, published an entire book of poetry, and seriously considered writing as a career. As she asserts, “I didn’t want to be just a pianist, or to give up the writing.” She has continued writing over the years, as well as painting. And if there is anything such a “just a pianist” Christina Petrowska Quilico is certainly not it.

2011-05-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

This is an open invitation to a free concert featuring my chamber music, presented by the University of Toronto 's Faculty of Music.

A number of Toronto 's brightest stars are getting together on May 28th, 2011 to perform my latest creations and some favorites. There are 3 world premieres and some award-winning pieces!

details:

THE CHAMBER MUSIC of CONSTANTINE CARAVASSILIS

SATURDAY, MAY 28TH at 7:30 pm

WALTER HALL - 80 QUEEN'S PARK CRES.,

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Featuring performances by:
Christina Petrowska Quilico - piano
Susan Hoeppner - flutes
Joseph Macerollo - accordion
Beverley Johston - mallets
Ariana Chris - mezzo soprano
Lynn Kuo - violin
Zhenya Yesmanovich - piano
Julian Knight - viola
Andras Weber - 'cello
Jennifer Burford - violin

Reception to follow at the foyer of Walter Hall.

REMEMBERING ANN SOUTHAM

2010-12-05T20:07:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that I announce to you the passing of Toronto composer Ann Southam, Thursday afternoon (Nov. 25th). Undoubtedly one of the most unique compositional voices in Canada, Ann was a graduate of the University of Toronto (Lic.Dip., 1963) where she studied with Professor emeritus Gustav Ciamaga. She was also a student of the late Samuel Dolin at the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto), a master teacher credited for nurturing the talents of a remarkable number of Canadian composers, many of which went on to having illustrious careers both as composers and educators.

Ann worked in a wide range of styles and enjoyed success early in her career as a composer of electronic music: she wrote countless pieces for tape (literally, cutting tape) in collaboration with a number of renowned modern dance companies and artists. Her early instrumental music was rooted in the tradition of the great romantics. She later adopted the 12-tone system, employed jazz elements to some of her work, experimented with form and eventually settled to writing in a minimalist style, progressively graduating from complex structures to music made of the simplest (albeit not simplistic) materials.

Her artistic merits aside, Ann was also a philanthropist, a solid supporter of Canadian New Music and a strong advocate of Canadian women artists at large. In recognition to all of the above, Ann was earlier this year appointed to the Order of Canada. She was appreciated and will be remembered by those who had the privilege of knowing her for her kindness, humbleness and the humorous and witty ways in which she approached all things in life.

For any and all of you interested, a large body of Ann's work (scores and recordings) is available for viewing and/or purchasing through the Canadian Music Center.

Click here to hear pianist Christina Petrowska-Quilico perfoming Southam's Glass Houses

- Constantine Caravassilis

2010 RBC EMERGING ARTIST AWARD | TORONTO ARTS FOUNDATION | MAYOR'S AWARDS LUNCH

2010-10-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

CONSTANTINE CARAVASSILIS NAMED FINALIST FOR THE 2010 RBC EMERGING ARTIST AWARD

(left-to-right) Jamie Travis, Michael Wheeler, Constantine Caravassilis

Sincere congratulations to all finalists for the Mayor 's (TAF) awards this year, and especially to the two counterparts in my category (2010 RBC Emerging Artist Award), Michael Wheeler and Jamie Travis. It was a great honor to be nominated alongside both these incredible young artists.

Many thanks go to the Canadian Music Center for the nomination.

Thumbs up to this year 's winner of this prestigious award, Toronto-based emerging filmmaker Jamie Travis.

Other finalists from Toronto's extraordinarily vibrant musical community this year included conductor Lydia Adams (Finalist for the 2010 Roy Thomson Hall Award of Recognition) and pianist Andrew Burashko and the Art of Time Ensemble (also a finalist for the 2010 Roy Thomson Hall Award of Recognition). Hats off to both!

ARTS NEWS - TUESDAY MAY 11, 2010 - UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO BULLETIN

2010-05-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

U of T music student wins first Harry Freedman Recording Award
BY JENNIFER LANTHIER

Growing up on the Greek island of Samos in a family of amateur musicians, Constantine Caravassilis learned to play the piano before he could talk.

Today, his contemporary classical music speaks to musicians and audiences all over the world.

“In recent years we have had quite a few of our doctoral students who are already making their mark in the professional world in a rather significant way,” said Professor Christos Hatzis of the Faculty of Music. “But I would say even by those standards Constantine is fairly exceptional.”

Caravassilis, 30, and pianist Christina Petrowska-Quilico received the inaugural Harry Freedman Recording Award April 27 for a planned recording of a double CD of Caravassilis’ music for solo piano, Book of Fantasias and Book of Rhapsodies.

Caravassilis, who is pursuing a doctor of musical arts in composition and conducting at the university, said the money from the award will be combined with an Ontario Arts Council award to fund the project.

“The award itself is a national award and brand new,” said Hatzis, Caravassilis’s adviser. “It’s amazing that a student still at university would win it but to be given the very first one is also quite significant as well.”

"Faculty of Music doctoral student Constantine Caravassilis can compose music for all kinds
of ensembles and soloists, a rare talent in a composition student."

The recipient of many awards — including the 2009 Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music — Caravassilis has, in a sense, been composing all his life. As a child he entertained guests at the small hotel his parents built by playing on the 110-year-old piano in the reception area.

Caravassilis remembers pianist Maria Garzón attempting to give him lessons while vacationing on the island. “She would make me play Mozart and then every 20 bars, Mozart would become Constantine and I just kept going in my own style,” said Caravassilis.

Constantine's hometown: Pythagorion, Samos Island, Greece

But major breakthroughs in composing came only after years of study and sacrifice. Realizing he needed to leave the island to pursue his studies, Caravassilis left home at 17 for Toronto, where he taught himself English by reading the paper, memorizing a pocket dictionary and making friends.

“Within two weeks I had a job playing the piano in a Greek restaurant and I had a piano and theory teacher at the conservatory — it became home for me right away,” he said.

After spending a year at York University, Caravassilis transferred to the University of Toronto. “My undergrad education was very difficult,” he said. “Although I could do amazing things by ear,this was just a total different universe and I needed a bit of a transition period to get used to the western system.”

While completing his master’s degree at the University of Manitoba —where he studied simultaneously with professors Gordon Fitzell, Michael Matthews and Örjan Sandred— Caravassilis worked intensively on composing.

A synesthete who senses colours and taste when he hears “low or mid to low strings,” Caravassilis has trained himself to compose while in a semi-dreaming state. First, he records himself playing “a musical idea” of between six and 30 seconds and listens to it over and over.

“Then I enter the alpha state by closing my eyes and relaxing, like meditating, and I start to have lucid dreams,” Caravassilis said, “but because I’m not asleep, I’m the director of my dreams so I can invite an entire symphony orchestra to play, I can invite Valery Gergiev to conduct and what I hear is the continuation of this piece.”

It’s an approach many would consider far-fetched, Caravassilis said. But the results are impressive. He has served as composer-inresidence for Denmark’s Open Strings Festival and the U.K.’s London Song Festival, as well as Toronto’s Cantabile Chamber Singers.

His combination of work ethic and talent is reflected in the number of awards he has won, said Hatzis. “He writes pieces for small numbers of instruments, orchestra, choral music and recently he has created some really beautiful pieces in electro acoustic music, which is music that is basically created by the computer alone,” Hatzis said. “It is rather unusual to have a student who does so well in all of these areas.”

For his part, Caravassilis relishes working with Hatzis. “When it comes to U of T it’s not just that it has this special program or that this is the most important place in the country to study composition,” Caravassilis said, “it’s also that the person I’m studying with is a perfect match for me.

COMPOSITION FELLOWSHIP @ the NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE IN OTTAWA

2010-04-30T15:46:00.000-07:00

Constantine is one of the five selected composers to participate at the NATIONAL ARTS CENTER YOUNG COMPOSERS' PROGRAM, June 22 – 28, 2010, working with Gary Kulesha, George Tsontakis, and l’Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne led by its Music Director and Conductor Jean Philippe Tremblay.

The wold premiere of Constantine's latest composition QUANTUM JUMPING (written especially for he occasion and scored for large chamber ensemble) will take place at the Southam Hall in Ottawa, June 28

CONFOUNDING EXPECTATIONS - INSPIRING MINDS CONFERENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

2010-04-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

Constantine's latest article titled "Ann of a Kind: The Fusion of Minimalism and Dodecaphony in Ann Southam's Figures" is the culmination of a year-long research project on the music of the renowned Canadian composer. A portion of the research will be presented at the CONFOUNDING EXPECTATIONS - INSPIRING MINDS CONFERENCE - UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY. The conference will take place Monday May 3rd to Wednesday May 5th, 2010, at the Rozsa Centre (University of Calgary).

About Figures:
Figures, a one-movement concerto-like work scored for piano and string orchestra is perhaps one of Southam's most important works of the past decade. It was given its world première at the Massey Hall New Music Festival (Toronto, Nov.2001) with Gary Kulesha conducting the string section of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Canadian pianist Eve Egoyan as soloist.

This particular work is one that fuses two trends, both of which are known as technical and stylistic developments of the twentieth century (albeit they occurred in different parts of the century). The first is the twelve-tone system, and the second is minimalism. For the purpose of assessing how such stylistic
fusion has emerged, examples of earlier piano works by the same composer are discussed while illustrating how Southam's style has continuously evolved through the years. To show the continuity of this evolution, there are also references and examples of work finished after Figures.

Further to the above correlation and contextualization, a thorough analysis of the composition brings to light all elements that make up the entire piece: The examination and commentary on the harmony and counterpoint resulting from the use of the 12-tone row as well as overall form, reflects the sonic character of the piece as an experimental work of art. A brief comparison to the traditional concerto outlines several
similarities and differences, one of them being the relation to the cadenza principle of the traditional concerto and how it is manifested in Figures.

Ann Southam

Additionally, an exposé of the work, one that particularly showcases the different ways in which Southam freely and fearlessly crosses the boundaries between the two genres -often escaping the limitations found within each- presents minimalistic elements as found in certain key sections, offsetting the peak of my argument as to how 12-tone technique and minimalism are fused together to create Figures.

This is supported by outlining the continuous merge of the above, and how this is sustained through the use of several technical (often problem-solving) devices, resulting in the creation of a stylistically unique musical language. Finally, the summary of all elements found within the piece is discussed so to portray how style itself is challenged in Figures, culminating in the categorization of the work within a genre of its very own.
Constantine Caravassilis, Jan 2010

Faculty of Fine Arts | News

2010-04-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

Music Professor Celebrates a Steady Stream of Recordings
April 28, 2010

York music professor, pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico has much to celebrate this spring. Just as her latest CD was being released, she received word that she had won the inaugural Harry Freedman Recording Award and an Ontario Arts Council grant to support her next recording project.

3 Concerti, Petrowska Quilico’s 23rd CD and her seventh on the Canadian Music Centre’s (CMC) Centrediscs label, features works for piano and orchestra by Canadian composers Alexina Louie, Larysa Kuzmenko and Violet Archer, all recorded live for broadcast by CBC Radio over the past two decades.

Known internationally as a leading interpreter of contemporary and Canadian music, Petrowska Quilico is also a longtime champion of the works of women composers. She devised her 3 Concerti project for a graduate course in Gender and Performance that she teaches at York.

“I wanted the students to hear the brilliance of Canadian women composers, especially in live performance,” she said. “Thanks to CBC producer David Jaeger, I had recordings of a number of performances where I had premiered concerti written by women. From these, we chose works that all feature a virtuoso piano part, but are very different in compositional style.”

The CD presents Petrowka Quilico as piano soloist in Louie’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the National Arts Centre Orchestra conducted by Alex Pauk; Archer’s Concerto No.1 for Piano and Orchestra with the CBC Vancouver Orchestra led by John Eliot Gardiner; and Kuzmenko’s Piano Concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jukka-Pekka Saraste.

The recording can be purchased online through the Canadian Music Centre musiccentre.ca or via Petrowska Quilico’s website, petrowskaquilico.com.

While 3 Concerti looks back to previously recorded live performances, Petrowska Quilico’s next release, a collaboration with Canadian composer Constantine Caravassilis, will be a two-CD set of all-new studio recordings of Caravassilis’ composition cycles for solo piano, The Book of Fantasias and The Book of Rhapsodies.

Technically demanding and hugely expressive, the works will put Petrowska Quilico’s virtuosic skill and experience to good use. “Christina’s intent to record these works is a real honour for me,” said Caravassilis. “I have no doubt in my mind that this recording will be a stepping stone in my career.”

Caravassilis was the 2009 winner of the Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music and a triple gold medallist at the 4th Volvo International Composition Competition. He has served as composer-in-residence for Winnipeg’s Contemporary Opera Lab, Toronto’s Cantabile Chamber Singers, Denmark’s Open Strings Festival and the London Song Festival (UK).

Petrowska Quilico and Caravassilis were selected as co-recipients of the first Harry Freedman Recording Award by a national jury assembled from leaders in the Canadian music community. The jury said: “We were very impressed by the quality of the music of this outstanding young composer and by the fact that one of Canada’s finest pianists and interpreters of new music had pledged herself to the proposed project.”

Named in memory of the pioneering Canadian composer, the Harry Freedman Recording Award contributes towards the creative costs associated with making audio recordings of the music of Canadian composers. Currently valued at $1500, it will be given every two years through the CMC.

Christina Petrowska Quilico (left), Mary Morrison Freedman and Constantine Caravassilis
Photo: Frank Delling

Petrowska Quilico and Caravassilis received the award at a public presentation on April 27 at the Soundstreams Virtuoso Vibrations concert at Hugh’s Room in Toronto. Freedman’s widow, Mary Morrison Freedman, a distinguished singer, teacher and Member of the Order of Canada, presented the award and congratulated both artists on stage.

This is not the first time Petrowska Quilico has been honoured by the CMC. She was among a select group of Canadian artists featured at the CMC’s 50th anniversary celebration last fall at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, where she performed Glass Houses by Ann Southam. In 2008 she was presented with the CMC’s Friends of Canadian Music Award “for her dedication to Canadian contemporary classical music as well as her unwavering support of this country’s composing community.”

CMC - HARRY FREEDMAN RECORDING AWARD

2010-04-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

March 23, 2010 - Toronto
Canadian Music Centre Announces Winners 2010 Harry Freedman Recording Award

The Canadian Music Centre (CMC) and the Freedman family are extremely pleased to announce that composer Constantine Caravassilis and pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico have won the inaugural Harry Freedman Recording Award. The Award will be publicly presented on April 27th during Soundstreams “Virtuoso Vibrations” concert in Toronto, at which Harry Freedman’s Bones will be performed.

The Harry Freedman Recording Award, named in memory of the pioneering Canadian composer, has been established to contribute towards the creative costs associated with making audio recordings of Canadian composers’ music.

The Award money will be used to support the recording of two complete cycles of Caravassilis’ music for solo piano, the Book of Fantasias and the Book of Rhapsodies, for a future commercial CD release. Both cycles aim to use the full capacity and potential of the piano without sacrificing expressive content. As such, they require a performer that can meet their significant technical and artistic demands.

Christina Petrowksa Quilico is certainly such a performer. She is one of Canada’s foremost pianists, demonstrating a rare combination of virtuosity, adventurousness and dedication to contemporary music that make her very much in demand as a champion of Canadian composers. Her remarkable skill is met by a broad experience as a recording artist (she holds over 25 CDs to her credit) and an extensive history of collaborating with living composers, all matched by the highest level of musicianship.

Constantine and Christina were selected to receive the Harry Freedman Recording Award by a national jury assembled from leaders in the Canadian music community. In selecting the winners, the jury said “We were very impressed by the quality of the music of this outstanding young composer and by the fact that one of Canada's finest pianists and interpreters of new music had pledged herself to the proposed project.”

The announcement of the Harry Freedman Recording Award arrives at an interesting and important time for the recording and distribution of Canadian composers’ music. Recent changes made by the Department of Canadian Heritage to the Canadian Musical Diversity component of the Canada Music Fund have removed $1.3 million in funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. This funding was allocated to two key programs – Grants for Specialized Music Sound Recording and Grants for Specialized Music Distribution – that were essential to supporting the position of new, creative music in the Canadian recording industry. These funds have since been reallocated to different federal agencies – the Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR) and its Francophone equivalent MUSICACTION – to support different initiatives. As a result, the introduction of the Harry Freedman Recording Award is extremely timely and significant.

KAREN KIESER PRIZE IN CANADIAN MUSIC

2010-04-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

November 19, 2009
The University of Toronto Faculty of Music is pleased to announce the 2009 Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music was awarded to Constantine Caravassilis for his work, Sappho de Mytilène for mezzo-soprano, flute and piano. The performance of the winning composition took place as part of the gamUT ensemble concert on March 19, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. in Walter Hall.

KAREN KIESER PRIZE IN CANADIAN MUSIC
The Karen Kieser Prize is awarded each year to a graduate student in composition whose work is judged by a blue-ribbon jury as especially promising. Karen Kieser was a distinguished triple-graduate of the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto and a former Head of Music at CBC Radio. Friends and colleagues endowed The Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music upon her death in 2002 as a tribute to her life, her work and her passionate devotion to the cause of Canadian music and musicians.

(left to right) Lary Lake, Constantine Caravassilis

FACULTY OF MUSIC, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
The Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto is regarded as a top destination for the professional and scholarly study of music in North America. As part of Canada's largest university, the Faculty of Music is home to a diverse and dynamic community of scholars, performers, composers and educators. With superb educators in every area of music study and dozens of areas of specialization in our degree and diploma programs, we offer an education that is both broad and deep. Our alumni are the crème de la crème in their disciplines, garnering such awards as Grand Prix of the George Enescu International Composition Competition, Prix Italia, Peabody Award, Juno Awards, National Jazz Awards, and occupying prominent positions with such ensembles as the Toronto Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic. The Faculty of Music's annual concert season features students, faculty and guests in over 100 public concerts, lectures and master classes. This year's featured guests include composers Krzysztof Penderecki and Osvaldo Golijov, pianist Angela Hewitt, soprano Dawn Upshaw, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and the American Brass Quintet, among others

REVUE DE PRESSE GRECQUE...

2009-04-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

SAPPHO, ELYTIS, CHRIS AND CARAVASSILIS MEET IN TORONTO

by James Karas (Hellenic Press)

A number of fascinating Greeks got together last week (Jan 21) to produce a wonderful recital at the University of Toronto’s New Music Festival 2009. There were two poets, a composer and a mezzo soprano, to be exact. The poets were Sappho whose verses have been translated into Modern Greek by Nobel laureate Odysseas Elytis. The Modern Greek text was in turn translated unto French by Veronique Perl and set to music by Greek-Canadian composer Constantine Caravassilis. The five-song cycle was sung splendidly by mezzo soprano Ariana Chris.

The songs vary from a “melodious caress for the ear” to anger for unrequited love and passion, from attempted rape to subliminal eroticism. They are scored for mezzo soprano, piano and flute.

The first piece entitled “My Song” is a paean to the poet who knows that although she will die her poem/song will survive and “there will be someone to remember me” and the ethereal words that the Muses inspired her to compose. Caravassilis starts the piece with a few staccato chords on the piano and then the flute enters softening the piece. Then Ariana Chris’s gorgeous voice picks up the poetry and, one cannot do any better than repeat Sappho’s words, melodiously caresses our ears.

The second song, “Always Eros,” is about unrequited passion that turns to hatred. The lover is tormented by his/her love for the beautiful Atthis but she does not return the love. The rhythm becomes dramatic, almost frenetic, slows down and finishes on a crescendo as the tormented lover imagines Atthis flying towards the beautiful and tied-down Andromeda.

The third song, entitled “Virgin” lashes out at “him who wished to outrage me”. The miniscule victim of attempted rape is left without any hope and decides to remain a virgin for eternity.

“Adonis” is an elliptical song about the cold, beautiful youth of Greek myth. It has a plaintive, almost haunting quality as it laments the doves’ cold hearts.

The final song, “Harbinger of Spring” celebrates the nightingale and its voluptuous voice. The song paints a subtly erotic picture of virgins dancing around an altar with their delicate feet pressing the flowers of spring. It has a lilting rhythm that perfectly captures the dance of the virgins.

The lovely-voiced Ariana Chris (as Homer would have probably described her) is fast building a repertoire in opera houses around the world. Last season she made her debut with the New York City Opera as Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana. She has sung at Carnegie Hall and with the Santa Fe Opera. Her other appearances include Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte in Nantes and Opera Hong Kong.

Composer Constantine Caravassilis was born in Toronto but was raised in Samos. His compositions have been performed in numerous countries around the world. He was recently awarded three gold medals at the Volos International Composition Competition.

The accompanists were Susan Hoeppner (flute) and Zhenya Yesmanovich (piano).

Much of the fascination of the recital lay with the verbal and especially musical connection across languages and eons. Sappho’s poetry is largely fragmentary but Elytis was able to refashion these five gems. Caravassilis has created a musical language for the poetry that is apt and beautiful.

All Ancient Greek poetry was meant to be recited or sung to musical accompaniment. The Iliad and the Odyssey were sung by singers of tales for centuries before they were written down about 100 years before Sappho lived. Homer left almost thirty thousand verses compared to the handful that we have from Sappho. Now there is poetry that is waiting to find a musical language. Why not start with the captivating Song of the Sirens and marry the Homeric verses to music to die for.

review article from http://www.greekpress.ca/past/09_01_30/arts2.html

posted on January 30, 2009

Thinking Out Loud - Am I "Ethno" enouph?

2009-03-30T23:26:00.000-07:00

Underestanding Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology is the discipline that studies oral musical traditions from around the world. Often characterized and described as “music anthropologists”, ethnomusicologists emphasize the value of ethnic music to the ethnic group of its origin, within its cultural contexts.

Western music that we define as “classical” has a certain framework within which musicologists strive to theorize, interpret and analyze. As a result of the various methods by which cultures are examined, the contribution of ethnomusicologists to the history of human art is equally important. Numerous cultural characteristics that tend to fade away are preserved in archives through a variety of methods. These methods include audio and visual archives of performances, photography, preservation of instruments and archived taped and transcribed interviews, to name a few.

Moreover, the process and the contexts through and within which music is presented in cultures and societies around the world, is best studied with hands-on experience. There is great difficulty for someone who is trained in the Western “tonal” tradition to follow and comprehend or, more difficultly, to realize (through performing) music from other traditions. However, an ethnomusicologist does best in understanding a foreign culture by experiencing it up-close or even being part of it for an extended period of time.

One of the most vital facts which enhanced the nature of analysis and interpretation of Western music is the fact that Western classical music is a tradition that uses prescriptive notation. The use of notation since the 4th century (although more examples appear during the Carolingian Renaissance) was the most important factor that facilitated the formation of polyphony centuries later, and subsequently to the development of structures that are now based solely on notation. Naturally, if Western classical music did not use notation, not only would it have sounded a lot different, but it would have also been in some ways simpler for the fact that extremely complicated polyphonic musical settings are unlikely to be developed within an oral tradition. So it has been believed and taught until recently.

Ethnomusicologists however, have proven this point wrong. Music that is orally observed and orally transmitted has the capacity to develop in many interesting ways, including developments that are at times equally complicated as the most contrapuntally rich music of Palestrina and Bach. For example, there is plenty of evidence through comprehensive studies, research and analyses, that in the traditional music of India, the rhythmic and motific quality of their oral tradition is not only very complicated but also uses elements that Western classical music has not attained, because of the limitations of the Western notational system.

Traditional Indian music is based on musical colors (ragas) which are scales, modes or melodies. A raga is the platform on which the entire performance of a single piece of music is built. However, each performance of a raga is different, since improvisation allows the performer to give a personal character to the piece; to an Indian, performing a raga has a significant role in the overall experience of music.

One of the main differences with Western classical music is that the Indian ragas are not labeled with a composer’s signature. They have evolved through centuries of music making. Although they do not represent great musical minds of great masters of the art of composition, they do represent emotion and feeling, philosophies of the world and nature, varied moods, as well as many other things that Western classical music is set to capture.

However, though the sound of this music is not very similar to that of Western classical music, there are cultural elements with parallels in the Western tradition. As in Western church music, north Indian ragas called the Hindustani are assigned to specific times of the day or night. Also, the most popular melodic ragas (although they are among thousands of others), called the Bhairav, Malkauns, Hindol, Dipak, Megh and Shree Carnatic (Southern India), constitute one of the oldest systems of music in the world. They are based on seven rhythmic cycles (similar to the Western modal scales).

What is important for the different ways in which an oral musical tradition can develop is the improvisatory factor. Cultures in various parts of the world have evolved to use elements that in Western performance practice still do not exist or have been adapted only very recently. For example, a recent study of a Cree song by Richard Burleson, (conducted as part of the Native Music Project at the Marcel A. Desautels Facutly of Music in Winnipeg, Manitoba), shows that a recorded singer uses tones accurately that are not found in diatonic scales, by producing notes that Western theory defines as “quarter tones”. (Quarter tones were not invented or used in Western classical music until the 20th century).

Whether or not the native singer is aware that what he or she is singing includes quarter tones this still remains an important fact for an ethnomusicologist who is analyzing the structure of aboriginal musical culture by Western standards. Thus, it is important that the theoretical language of Western music is used by the researcher to analyze and document such facts, in order to reflect upon the effect that the performer has produced.

On the other hand, it is not always evident that the native performer—who sounds nothing but strange to an observer trained in the Western tradition—is performing something exactly as taught. It is very possible that he or she is incorporating a personal interpretation, or variation or something improvisatory that is not meant to be part of the orally transmitted song. In order to prove or disprove that, the observer has first to investigate whether the same element appears more than once within the piece (in the case of the Cree song, it does) and then ask for a performance of the same piece by another person in order to compare. Also, if possible, ask the performer to describe the part of the piece where the specific element appears, in hope of an answer that will justify the accuracy of the observation.

Another important element which ethnomusicologists come across is the meaning of a musical practice within the cultural tradition in which it appears. In another native song examined by the Richard Burleson's Native Music Project, it was found that certain aboriginal songs can be owned (similar to performance, reproduction and copyright as we know it) and given as a present or an honor to another person. Interestingly, the difference is that in Western classical music, a composer can reserve the rights to publication, recording and performance only through written documentation, since the music is transcribed on music paper, in contrast to the aboriginal oral tradition.

Lastly, the most effective way in which ethnomusicologists can explore foreign cultures is the study of musics that share elements that can be effectively transcribed to some standard form of notation. For example, the basic building block of Chaozhou Xianshi music (traditional South Chinese music) is a series of pentatonic scales that consist of five scalar degrees and can be assigned a name as if they were diatonic scales with missing steps. Theoretically, the scale can be built on any of the twelve absolute pitch classes that constitute the standard tonal gamut, thus, easy to be descriptively represented using the Western notational system.

Ethnic Elements in Western Concert Music: Now and Then

Ethnic elements are often integrated into Western concert music, as nationalism has emerged at several points of Western music history. This phenomenon appears often in response to a perceived intrusion of internationalism in classical music and at other times simply in lieu of the interest of the composer to pursue a style that incorporates elements of ethnic origin in order to give the composition a nationalistic flavor or character. At times, the use of ethnic elements serves a patriotic goal of uniting the community through the use of a common cultural language (for example, 19th century German folk song).

For similar reasons, composers in the twentieth century regularly implement ethnic elements in their music, although more vibrantly, and as a further means to give an individual character to their output. United States composers like Charles Ives and George Gershwin used ragtime, fusing the jazz tradition with classical music. Bartok, on the other hand, who was among the most important contributors in the early stages of ethnomusicology, used Balkan folk music widely in his compositions.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, a new wave of classical composers emerged: these composers wrote genuinely in the tradition of classical music, yet were informed by rock aesthetics, and used popular and ethnic music instruments and rhythms in a way that’s less organic and integrated than ever before. Yet, they were motivated by the slow integration of technology and its capacity to reproduce music at fast speeds using a single sound of a traditional folk instrument to create an entire orchestra.

The new millennium is bringing a new collapse of genres in the world of Western art music. There are new “trades” currently used in contemporary composition that incorporate elements of ethnic origin, while in many examples, it is natural that the popularization of ethnic elements and its mixture with other mediums has created a stir among critics and new music communities across North America. Some deem it as an approach to composition that is catastrophic to all participating mediums while others see it as the only, inevitable way to adapting to the new reality while acquiring membership to a new way of thinking, a new kind of art. Is the fusion of ethnic elements in (classical) contemporary music culturally appropriate or not? Is this a window to a new palette for a modern composer or is it a way of “bastardizing” one’s inheritance? I think these questions are fertile soil for rational debate from all interested parties.

Likely, parallel to this current trade, which is perhaps seeking a new spiritual age, musical colleges and higher educational institutions around the world have established folklore departments in an attempt to avoid the loss of their national musical tradition. On the other hand, there are composers who have employed various strategies to update their compositional languages in more organic ways. Most commonly, living composers have been prevailed upon to update their methods of composition in search of a new voice that could potentially mark the new millennium with its uniqueness.

Possibly a very interesting case to study would be the work of composers who integrate their own ethnic identities with Western classical composition, whether by nature or by educated choice. In the case of Canadian classical music, the flourishing environment allows many immigrants who bring along their ethnic backgrounds and incorporate them organically into works of concert music. A great example of that is award-winning composer Ka Nin Chan.

Chan was born in Hong Kong, and, immigrating to Canada, he brought along his mastery for writing for Chinese traditional instruments such as the erhu and zither and subsequently, was taught the Western tradition attending universities in Canada and the United States. In his most representative work, the opera Iron Road, the successful marriage of the Chinese traditional orchestra with a Western symphony orchestra, as well as singing traditions of traditional Western opera and traditional Chinese opera, shows the potential for alternative approaches in incorporating ethnic elements in contemporary classical composition.