Picture this: the world’s smallest violin workshop

This photo comes via The Violin Channel on Facebook:

On July 10, Toronto becomes latest city to join ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ street piano phenomenon

Artist Karen Miranda Augustine’s painted piano, representing Dominica, will join 40 other instruments on the streets of Toronto on July 10 (John Terauds photo).

On July 10, Toronto gets a taste of street piano culture in honour of the Pan Am Games, which the city will host in 2015.

The day includes a big flag-raising and celebration at noon, featuring the cultures of all 41 participant countries at Nathan Phillips Square. That evening, at David Pecaut Square, outside the former Metro Hall on King St W., CBC Radio’s Andrew Craig hosts a big concert that will, in its wake, unleash 41 pianos onto Toronto streets, parks, squares and, if things go according to plan, the ferry to Centre Island.

There are times when music and visual art mix as well as oil and water

Niagara, 1857, by Frederick Church.

Behold the first definitively masterful painting of Niagara Falls, created in 1857 by American Frederick Church (1826-1900) from the same spot on the Canadian side that every visitor still aspires to stand on, camera in hand.

What sort of musical soundtrack would you imagine for this painting?

Preview: Poor Liza mixes Russian ballet and theatre in modern, multidisciplinary show

Dancer Andrei Merkuriev and actor Chulpan Khamatova star in multidisciplinary show Poor Liza, at the John Bassett Theatre on June 13.

Toronto’s two-dozen largest ethnic communities enjoy vibrant cultural scenes that don’t often spill over to reach a broader audience. Show One Productions, anchored on the GTA’s roughly 100,000-strong population of ethnic Russians, is different.

Photographer Nikolaj Lund gooses image of classical musicians

Imaginative, over the top and clever, Danish photographer Nikolaj Lund is doing some wild things with classical musicans.

You can find a slideshow of his musical eye candy here.

Rest of the world finally gets in on fellowship of the Met’s controversial Ring

Stunt doubles ascend to Valhalla in the final moments of Das Rhinegold in Robert Lepage’s Met Ring Cycle — a scene where The Machine failed on opening night in 2010.

On Monday evening, the Metropolitan Opera’s HD broadcasts to movie theatres will allow anyone who can wangle a ticket an introduction to the strange and overpowering spectacle that is Robert Lepage’s conception of Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung cycle.

The $16 million production, in gestation, development and gradual deployment for nearly eight years, has become a fulcrum for every major issue surrounding the world of opera, in particular the debate over what it means to keep the artform relevant and alive in a world of awash in distractions.

It is also about the meaning of stagecraft as people push the limits of what can be physically achieved with live theatre.

In short, it’s safe to say that no opera production in modern times has created as much buzz and controversy.

Filmmaker Susan Froemke has captured all of these issues and wrapped them in real, human drama in her 112-minute documentary, Wagner’s Dream, which serves as Monday’s prelude to the four-opera Ring Cycle itself.

Stratford Summer Music announces spectacular, piano and Glenn Gould-centric July and August

17-year-old piano sensation Jan Lisiecki will present three solo recitals at Stratford Summer Music this year.

Using the 80th anniversary of Glenn Gould’s birth as his excuse, Stratford Summer Music artistic producer John Miller today unveiled a spectactular summer season, featuring several notable pianists, as well as a long list of other classical and more popular concert guests — including Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra — for its 12th season, which kicks off on July 16, and runs almost to the end of August.

“This year we take a major leap to present the most renowned names and series we have ever offered,” said Miller, the music festival’s founder, in a press release.  “We’re adding a week and offering several special programs in tribute to Glenn Gould who would have celebrated his 80^th birthday this year and who, in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, was a strong proponent of the place of music among the arts in our city.”

April 16: Toronto classical concert highlights for the next seven days

Opera Atelier's Armide is on at the Elgin Theatre to Saturday (Bruce Zinger photo).

We’re at the height of the late-spring concert and opera calendar, so clone yourselves, Toronto music lovers, and gird yourselves for a banquet.

OPERA

The Canadian Opera Company and Opera Atelier both have five-act operas with Parisian roots on their stages this week. The uniting theme behind both: Nothing exceeds like excess.

• The COC’s production of Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann is on at the Four Seasons Centre on Wednesday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Don’t expect to leave the theatre much before 11. You can read my review here. For tickets and other details, click here.

• Opera Atelier’s production of Armide, by Jean-Baptiste Lully is on at the Elgin Theatre Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and closes on Saturday. If you love Baroque opera and lots of ballet with your singing, this is a colourful treat. You can read my review here. For tickets and other details, click here.

CONCERTS

MONDAY

• Musicians from Marlboro at Mazzoleni Hall, 7:30 p.m.

Marlboro, Vermont is the bucolic setting for a long-running and highly respected summer music festival (running July 14 to Aug. 12, this year) run by pianists’ pianists Mitsuko Uchida and Richard Goode. The focus is always on exquisitely prepared, thoughtfully interpreted chamber music. For those unable to enjoy the Green Mountain setting, the festival every year sends out a group of evangelists to give the rest of the continent a taste of these pleasures.

Visual art and piano become one in music videos commissioned by Inon Barnatan

Portland’s go-to piano man, Harold Gray, turned me on to Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan, who has a new solo album out on the Avie label.

Trying to do something a little different to get attention for Darknesse Visible, Barnatan commissioned a series of music videos to go with excerpts of individual pieces. (For more videos and album details, click here.)

The results are striking, especially two videos. The first, featuring “Scarbo” from Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, is one of the best classical music videos I’ve ever seen:

Tonight & tomorrow: John Southworth and Andrew Downing take cabaret into some deep, dark woods with Easterween

Andrew Downing and John Southworth present a live show based on their new album, Easterween, tonight and tomorrow at the Lower Ossington Theatre (Emma Lee photo).

Pop people call it a concept album, where a common thread runs through a series of songs. The classical world calls it a song cycle. But I think the most appropriate description for Easterween, a collaboration between singer-singwriter John Southworth and string player Andrew Downing, is Gothic Musical Monologues.

Or maybe it’s best to forget any sort of label altogether in trying to appreciate Southworth’s rough-hewn vocals underpinned by knobby-textured sounds from a seven-piece band of violin, cello (wielded by Downing), double bass, clarinet, guitar, trumpet and trombone.

The result is a dark, almost sinister sound that’s part klezmer, part Weimer-era cabaret, part acid trip in the basement of a Transylvanian pub sometime between witching hour and a sunny spring morning.