2013 2014 Welcome to ArtSpring’s 2013-14 season of great music, theatre, dance and spoken word programming. What’s new this year? • For the first time in several years we are offering a Theatre series, with the ArtsClub’s production of Driving Miss Daisy as a centrepiece, bracketed by two excellent one-actor plays. • After two successful years, we will take a break from our Gallery Cabaret series in 2013-14. “From the moment she sat down at the piano, Rana sent chills through What hasn’t changed? the room. Throughout the recital, • Ticket pricing for all our events remains unchanged she demonstrated her power, from comparable shows last season. However, with the consistency, subtlety and remarkable reintroduction of GST, the effective price of our tickets has range of musical textures.” decreased by 7%, so you will see lower total amounts when - LA SCENA MUSICALE you buy either subscriptions or single tickets. • We continue to offer $5 admission for all youth because we believe it important for young people to become exposed to fine and varied live performances. • The basic subscription packages you have become accustomed to (Great Performers, On Stage, ArtSwings and Dance) continue as before. This brochure is colour coded to Photo: Julien Faugere make it easier for you to identify which performances are part of these series. • We again offer the opportunity to create your own subscription package (Make Your Own Meal) since this has Beatrice Rana, piano proved very popular. • The Metropolitan Opera broadcasts will continue, though there wasn’t enough room in this brochure to list next season’s operas. Please ask at the Box Office or check our Thursday, September 26 – 7:30pm website for a separate schedule. Tickets will go on sale Adults: $28, Youth $5 August 21. • We have kept the organization of this brochure identical to At barely 20 years old, Beatrice Rana has shaken the last year, especially keeping the chronological organization st international classical music world first by winning 1 Prize that many of you have said you found both clear and useful. and all special prizes at the Montréal International Piano competition in 2011, and then by winning Silver (2nd Prize) and SERIES LEGEND the Audience Award a few months ago at the highly prestigious Van Cliburn competition. She brings us an exciting recital of Great Performers Schumann and Ravel, including Gaspard de la nuit which La On Stage Scena Musciale called “devastatingly hard” and which Rana played ArtSwings in Montréal “with remarkable fluidity – breathing, fluttering, never falling into rhythmic imprecision.” Dance Theatre The cover image is a detail from a painting created for ArtSpring by students Uma McIninch, Sophie Gold, Calla Wilkie, Zama Szakacs, Casey Gillis, Layla GREAT PERFORMERS Anderson, Sebastian Niedziela & Sam Holmes Proudly supported by Joan Farlinger, Mouats Clothing Co. 3 “Mabern’s piano style is aggressive, very positive, crashing out chords that drop like pile drivers, and warming up and down the keyboard with huge, whooping bursts of action.” JOHN WILSON, NEW YORK TIMES Harold Mabern Adi Braun Quartet with Cory Weeds Trio Monday, September 30 – 7:30pm Saturday, October 12 – 7:30pm Adults: $23 Youth: $5 Adults: $23 Youth: $5 Harold Mabern is one of jazz’s most enduring and Trained classically at the Royal Conservatory and the University dazzlingly skilled pianists. Born in Memphis, he was of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, Adi Braun began her singing an unsung hero of the 1960s hardbop scene, but only in career in operas and operettas alongside her brother, baritone recent years has he begun to garner appreciation for his Russell Braun. In the late ‘90’s she returned to the music she long-running legacy in jazz and the understated power loved, which she calls “cabarazz”, drawing on aspects from of his talent. During his over half-century on the scene both cabaret and jazz. She was soon recognized internationally as sideman and leader, he has played and recorded with as one of Canada’s leading jazz vocalists, nominated in 2007 such greats as Lee Morgan, Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley, as “Best Major Jazz Vocalist of the Year” by the Manhattan Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis, just to name a few. Association of Cabarets and Clubs. Mabern joins up with Vancouver’s Cory Weeds Trio for what promises to be one of the finest evenings of jazz “Her performance was terrific, her stage presence ArtSpring has heard in years. commanding, her singing sheer delight.” – GEOFF CHAPMAN, TORONTO STAR 4 ARTSWINGS ARTSWINGS 5 “As she celebrates a 40-year career, Gillis’ timing, her gestures, and her focus are fine-tuned to a perfect pitch. She performs as if the stage were her home, and there is no place she’d rather be.” DEBORAH JOWITT, VILLAGE VOICE Till Death Do We Part Friday, October 25 – 7:30pm Bulletins from Immortality Adults: $20 Youth: $5 Margie Gillis with actress Elizabeth Parrish Tara Travis (The Shakespeare Show) returns to ArtSpring Post-concert reception hosted by Country Grocer with a hilarious solo play in which Henry VIII’s six wives Saturday, October 19 – 7:30pm meet in heaven to compare notes about their ill-fated Adults: $28 Youth: $5 marriages. Travis plays all six wives (simultaneously) in a feat of theatrical dexterity that defies belief till you see it done on stage to rip-roaring effect. The play is nothing short of stunning. For forty years, Margie Gillis has been one of Canada’s best known and most original dancers and choreographers. This new creation was born from a collaboration with the Stella “Wildly funny, wonderfully crafted and brilliantly acted. Adler Studio in New York City with Gillis combining forces Flawless!” with American acting icon Elizabeth Parrish to reveal the – CBC revolutionary, innovative, and modern in the work of poet Emily Dickinson. A prisoner of the straight jacket imposed on women of her era, Dickinson broke free of her bindings with atypical verses, unbridled punctuation, and approximate rhymes. Parrish narrates, bringing life to the interior world of the poetess, while Gillis reveals her psyche through movement. DANCE THEATRE 6 Proudly supported by Joan Farlinger Proudly supported by Victoria Olchowecki 7 Italy Invades Poland ¡Sacabuche! Sunday, November 3 – 2:30pm Pre-concert chat – 1:30pm Adults: $28 Youth: $5 ¡Sacabuche! is North America’s premiere sackbut ensemble (no kidding). Based at Indiana University’s Early Music Institute, Linden String Quartet they perform the beautiful and lesser-known repertoire of baroque trombones, organ and voice. At ArtSpring they bring us a programme of 17th Century court music from Poland, highlighting the early-Baroque influences of Italian music Sunday, November 10 – 2:30pm throughout Europe. This is early music at its best. Adults: $28 Youth: $5 “¡Sacabuche!’s opening night performance set the One of the most exciting young quartets in the US (though standard for all that followed. The program was beautifully two of the musicians are Canadian), the Linden String arranged, the playing inspired, and the sound glorious. Quartet was the Graduate Quartet at Yale from 2010 to This gifted young ensemble will go far.” 2012 working under the tutelage of the Tokyo Quartet. BERKELEY EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL At ArtSpring they will play quartets by Schubert (D 57), Bartok (Quartet #3) and Beethoven (Op. 132). In the crowded world of string quartets, the Linden stands out as fresh, exciting and hugely talented. “…polished, radiant and incisive…” THE STRAD ON STAGE GREAT PERFORMERS 8 Proudly supported by Mouats The Housewares Store Proudly supported by Joan Farlinger, Mouats Clothing Co. 9 Linda Tillery Raphael Wallfisch, cello & the Cultural Heritage Choir Rena Sharon, piano Thursday, November 14 – 7:30pm Tuesday, December 3 – 7:30pm Adults: $23 Youth: $5 Adults: $28 Youth: $5 Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir is a One of the leading cellists of our times, Raphael Wallfisch Grammy nominated, percussion driven vocal ensemble is celebrated for his vast repertoire and peerless, expressive whose mission is to preserve and share the rich musical performance technique. He is much in demand around the traditions of African-American roots music. Through stick, world as an orchestral and recital soloist. We are fortunate song, dance and story, they transport us to a place in time that he will be performing with the Vancouver Symphony when the foundations of American popular music were just on November 30 and were thus able to invite him to being laid by the “involuntary immigrants” from Africa’s ArtSpring a few days later. western regions. Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir have become world renowned for their breathtaking Rena Sharon, professor of Collaborative Piano Studies at performances and commitment to the authenticity of UBC, ranks among Canada’s foremost chamber musicians African-American roots music. and soloists. She has collaborated in recital with many renowned artists including Ben Heppner, Steven Isserlis, “Consisting primarily of a bunch of amazing voices and James Somerville and James Ehnes, and is a favourite slew of eclectic African and South American percussion, performer with CBC Radio audiences. it’d be easiest to lump them in with Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Zap Mama, but that would be selling “… glorious tone, finely gelled musicianship and a them short.” beautiful combination of sparkiness, sensuality and JOHN BUTLAND, EARTHBEAT! intelligence.” JESSICA DUCHEN BLOGSPOT ARTSWINGS ON STAGE 10 Proudly supported by Kate Merry Proudly supported by Mouats