Toronto’s The Noise Academy will current the North American premiere of Quid sit Musicus (What’s music?) by Philippe Leroux. The work for seven voices, cello, guitar and dwell interactive electronics can be on stage on Could 10 and 11.
Quid sit Musicus is a piece that takes it inspiration from Early Music sources, including a recent sensibility and sonorities.
Quid sit Musicus
Xin Wang of The Noise Academy described discovering the work in an announcement.
“It was December in 2023 once I first heard parts of Quid sit Musicus on YouTube whereas in search of up to date rep for voice and guitar with Rob MacDonald. We each had been instantly drawn to its ever stunning sonic panorama. I train a twenty first century up to date vocal rep class in Glenn Gould Faculty of Music.
“I attempt to make up to date vocal music extra accessible for younger performers by introducing them to a large spectrum of notations, prolonged methods, unconventional intervals and complicated rhythmic patterns. So my first concept was to have my class of ADP college students be taught and carry out the work. The GGS administration ultimately didn’t approve the venture however by then, the singers, the instrumentalists, the digital musicians and the composer had been gathered and able to go. It appeared a waste of this momentum to cancel the venture. A beneficiant nameless donation got here in proper earlier than I used to be to desert the entire manufacturing. And right here we’re, per week away from the primary day of per week lengthy rehearsal with Philippe Leroux being there day by day! The singers and musicians have met quite a few occasions earlier than the primary official rehearsal and I’m so moved to see this unified dedication and dedication. Modern music wants it. The time it takes for us to be taught a chunk, no contract may ever pay sufficient. It has to come back from the necessity of our personal curiosity.
“Quid sit Musicus is thru composed with working size slightly below one hour. Philippe Leroux has at all times been certainly one of my favorite composers. I really feel like a toddler stepping right into a world of surprise once I hear his music. It’s extremely demanding of all of the musicians individually and collaboratively. However once more, the probabilities of self discovery is simply that a lot larger if you end up confronted with a problem 🙂
“I feel listening to the music of Philippe is coming into an area that’s always evolving, with such creativeness. I’m giddy with pleasure to share this with Toronto!”
Performers
There can be seven singers for the efficiency.
Katelyn Hen, 1st Soprano
Canadian soprano Katelyn Hen is a graduate of the Glenn Gould Faculty, and she or he was a 2025 Laffont Competitors Encouragement Award winner. Latest roles embody Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro (Pacific Opera Victoria), Adele in Die Fledermaus (Toronto Metropolis Opera), Giannetta and Adele (cowl) in L’elisir d’amore, Madame Herz in Der Schauspieldirektor, and Donna Anna (cowl) in Don Giovanni. As we speak, along with her performing profession, Katelyn is the Inventive Director and Co-Proprietor of Crashcat Studios.
Xin Wang, 2nd Soprano
Born in Yunnan in southwestern China, Xin got here to Canada on her personal on the age of 17 to finding out singing. Her research and profession have taken her from Winnipeg to Toronto, the place she is a trainer and mom in addition to a performer. Her curiosity in finding out the mechanisms of the singing physique, and complicated music, led her to exploration of latest repertoire.
Charlotte Anderson, Alto
Vancouver native Charlotte Anderson earned a Bachelor of Music (Honours) from The Glenn Gould Faculty, the place she is at present finishing her Artist Diploma. This season, Charlotte Anderson makes her debut as Zweite Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and as La Chauve-Souris in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. Along with her classical music research and performances, Charlotte can also be a educated jazz pianist, vocalist, and composer.
Chelsea Pringle-Duchemin, Counter Tenor
Mezzo-soprano Chelsea Pringle-Duchemin is an rising singer and composer from Montréal. In 2023, she obtained a Canada Council for the Arts grant for Unbound: Frauenliebe und -Leben, a recital venture which developed staging and authentic poetry for performances of Schumann’s music cycle. The work centered on themes of intimate associate violence and female liberation, a part of Chelsea’s curiosity in connection repertoire with feminism in each up to date and conventional repertoire. This season’s highlights contains performances with I Medici di McGill, and in Operatika: Arias of Seduction, a hybrid opera-pole dance recital venture, in addition to the opera pubs she curates at a neighborhood wine bar.
Nathan Gritter Tenor
Singer and conductor Nathan Gritter is predicated in Toronto, the place he’s a doctoral scholar in Historic Efficiency. He accomplished a Grasp of Music diploma, additionally on the College of Toronto. Nathan has labored with The Elora Singers, Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, Choir 21, Trinity Bach Venture, and the Theatre of Early Music, and is the Director of Music at Kingsway-Lambton United Church.
Alan MacDonald, 1st Baritone
Alan is a graduate of Vancouver Opera’s Yulanda M Faris Younger Artist Program. He has additionally carried out with Refrain Niagara and Toronto’s Opera 5. Different current roles contains Prince Yamadori and the Imperial Commissioner in Madama Butterfly with Vancouver Opera, Vox Christus with the Vancouver Bach Choir in Bach’s Matthäus-Ardour, and Beethoven’s Symphony no 9 with the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, amongst others.
Graham Robinson, 2nd Baritone
British Columbia born bass-baritone Graham Robinson earned a Bachelors of Music diploma in Voice from the College of Victoria, with additional research on the Toronto Metropolitan College. Now primarily based in Toronto, he has carried out with the Elmer Iseler Singers, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra & Chamber Choir, La Chapelle de Québec, Elora Competition Singers, and Nathaniel Dett Chorale, amongst others.
Musical parts embody strings and electronics.
David Hetherington, Cello/ Vielle
David Hetherington is the longstanding Assistant Principal Cellist on the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and a founding member of the Amici Chamber Ensemble. He’s a prolific recording artist, each on his personal and as a member of a number of ensembles, and a a number of JUNO Award winner. David’s live performance schedule contains common performances of chamber music with New Music Live shows and Soundstreams Canada. He at present teaches cello on the Glenn Gould Faculty and is the cello part coach of the Nationwide Youth Orchestra of Canada.
Rob MacDonald, Guitar / Lute
Rob MacDonald is on an incessant seek for lesser identified repertoire for what is unquestionably the world’s most ubiquitous instrument: the guitar. Rob earned an MMus from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins College, and at this time teaches guitar on the College of Toronto. He performs as half of the guitar ensemble ChromaDuo (with guitarist Tracy Anne Smith). The duo has launched a number of recordings on the Naxos label.
Justin Massey, digital
Canadian saxophonist, composer, and audio engineer Justin Massey is predicated in Toronto. He focuses his follow on up to date music, and the seek for new sonorities and textures through the saxophone. Justin performs music of his era, and commissions new repertoire whereas working with every composer to discover new sounds, together with through digital manipulation of the saxophone.
Fish Yu, digital
Tsz Lengthy (Fish) Yu started his music research at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the place he earned his Bachelor of Music in Composition & Digital Music. Since coming to Canada, he has earned a Grasp of Music diploma on the College of Toronto in Music Know-how & Digital Media, and is at present pursuing his Physician of Musical Arts. Fish is an energetic composer and digital media artist in Toronto, and premieres a chunk with New Music Live shows on Could 2, amongst different current residencies and performances of his work.
Teri Dunn, conductor
Singer, conductor, and educator Teri Dunn has been the Music Director of the Canadian Kids’s Opera Firm since 2015. She has led a number of operas with the CCOC together with world premieres of Alice Ho’s The Monkiest King, and Serouj Kradjian’s The Nightingale of a Thousand Songs. Teri is the Dean of Choral Research on the St. Michael’s Choir Faculty, the place she conducts three of their choirs.
Franco-Canadian Composer Philippe Leroux
French composer Philippe Leroux weaves collectively up to date and Early Music in his work Quid sit Musicus. The work is made up of items primarily based on music and texts by French composer and poet Guillaume de Machaut (1300 to 1377) and his up to date Jacob de Senlèches, the previous now appeared upon as a pacesetter of what we now name the French arts nova type of late medieval music. Simply as Quid sit Musicus is impressed by each new and previous music, it blends acoustic and digital parts via its actions.
Leroux is a local of Boulogne Billancourt in France, and he studied on the Paris Conservatory (Conservatoire Nationwide Supérieur de Musique), after which he accepted an artist’s residency on the Villa Medici in Rome for a two-year interval.
His music is broadly carried out Europe, and has been acknowledged with quite a few prizes and sears, together with a Prix Hervé Dugardin for Finest up to date musical creation Award, André Caplet and Nadia and Lili Boulanger Prizes from the Academy of Superb Arts (Institut de France), and the Arthur Honegger Prize (Fondation de France) for his life’s work, which consists of greater than 90 items for orchestra and chamber ensembles, in addition to vocal works. He has taught and given lectures at Berkeley College within the US, Royal Conservatory of Copenhagen, and College of Toronto, amongst many different outstanding establishments internationally.
As we speak, he’s primarily based Montreal, the place he’s an Affiliate Professor in composition on the Schulich Faculty of Music, McGill College.
His music is thought identified to incorporation seemingly disparate parts through a means of synthesis. Actions and gestures are notated within the manuscript with a view to linking the sounds, story, and poetry of the work.
Performances
The live shows happen on the The Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse.
- Discover tickets and different particulars concerning the performances on Could 10 and 11 [HERE].
Are you trying to promote an occasion? Have a information tip? Must know the perfect occasions taking place this weekend? Ship us a be aware.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the day by day arts information straight to your inbox.
Join the Ludwig Van Toronto e-Blast! — native classical music and opera information straight to your inbox HERE.
Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.