January, 1969, Volume 4 Wintertime — and the Nyo
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JANUARY, 1969, VOLUME 4 WINTERTIME — AND THE NYO Warm thought for a January night: For the National Youth Orchestra of Canada it is perpetually summer. This unique (on the continent) or chestra based on talent and youth only really exists in July and the first half of August, when its 14 to 24-year-old members come together to study, re hearse and perform. They come from the cities and towns and isolated reaches of the nation, and this musical happening is a summertime thing. But their short summer of music is the visible and audi ble result of long winter months of work and planning by executive officers and board members of the National Youth Orchestra Association. So it was that last month, the NYO office in Toronto sent out an adjudicator to hear some 300 young applicants in a series of auditions in major centres across the country. Violist Stephen Kondaks, a member of the NYO faculty, since 1963, A section of the Orchestra during a and of the McGill University faculty of performance at Chicoutimi, Quebec, in music, was this year’s adjudicator. Based August, 1968. on assessment of the applicants, the re sults of these auditions will shortly be to Quebec City for the four-week training announced, the 100-odd successful can session, a step that broadened the base didates named, and the 1969 season will of a National music organization which be that much closer to its summer reality. heretofore had confined its training ses Conductor of the NYO for its up sions to Ontario with the exception of coming season will be Victor Feldbrill, a Christmas session in Montreal. former music director and conductor of This summer of ’69, NYO will expand the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, its training session to give additional whose most recent Toronto engagement students an opportunity to benefit from was last fall conducting the Toronto the top-notch coaching and teaching Symphony for the Canadian Opera Com Faculty. pany performances of Riel at the O’Keefe The NYO moves into its 10th season Centre. Mr. Feldbrill’s very early associa with the applause of last summer’s suc tion with the National Youth Orchestra cessful tour still ringing in its ears. Under was in the year of its inception, 1960, the baton of Franz-Paul Decker, the 108 when he shared the podium with Wilfred members of the 1968 orchestra made Pelletier. their triumphal way from Quebec City The NYO, living up to its youthful to Chicoutimi, Montreal, Ottawa, Sud- image, is branching out again this sea son. Last year’s innovation was its move Continued on page 5 3 WINTERTIME — AND THE NYO bury, London and finally Toronto where, at the O’Keefe Centre last August 14, an audience of 3,200 stood and cheered. The reaction was fairly typical of the entire two-week tour. “The National Youth Orchestra is a finely-tooled instrument,” commented William Littler in the Toronto Star. The Orchestra “fully lived up to ex pectations despite a program which would have taxed many professional orchestras,” wrote John Kraglund in The Globe and Mail. The Telegram’s Ken Winters detected in the ’68 NYO “a new sori of National Youth Orchestra, painting the town less HAVE YOU PUT YOUR red, putting more skills in the bank for the rainy days of a professional future.” "DROP" IN OUR BUCKET? All of which may suggest that plans (contribution payable to for the NYO are on the right track, and "Toronto Symphony" to be sent that Canada’s symphony orchestras of to 215 Victoria St., Toronto 2) the future will be all the better for it. MANY THANKS! THIS MONTH’S COVER Anne Grotrian, who did the wonderful conducting Santa Claus for our December ion is issue, has once again contributed her talent to create the Rubinstein montage for the January cover. our business SECONDARY SCHOOL CONCERTS JAN. 11, FEB. 1, FEB. 28 — 7:30 p.m. CHILDREN’S SATURDAY SYMPHONY DEC. 14, JAN. 18, FEB. 15 — 2:30 p.m. ADMISSION: $1.00 MASSEY HALL BOX OFFICE “WHATEVER YOU DON’T NEED WE DO!!” Call:. 483-1757 — Miss Parnum for FREE PICK-UP 781 YONGE STREET and . TORONTO THANK YOU 921-8281 Signed: Toronto Symphony Rummage Sale Committee 5 IT’S HAPPENING WITH MARY MORRISON Have you ever wondered about avant cluded performances with the major Ca garde music? About how it could be so nadian Symphony Orchestras, the C.B.C. appealing to a performing artist that she and Canadian Opera Companies, Festival would take three months from a busy Singers of Toronto, the Lyric Arts Trio, schedule to tour Europe with the express in concerts, radio, T.V., films, and re purpose of listening to and studying it? cordings. In 1961 she was invited to tour Well — your Editor did wonder and with the Montreal Bach Choir in Japan. the result was an enlightening interview As her experience grew, so did her with Miss Mary Morrison, well known conviction that her main interest was Canadian Soprano who sings “Coral in contemporary works, especially those Island” by Toro Takemitsu with the To composed by Canadians. She began to ronto Symphony on January 14-15. immerse herself in that field as much as The idea of contemporary music is possible, and became even more involved an expression of our times — what is when she married a Canadian Composer, happening to-day — the chaos, the con Mr. Harry Freedman, the attractive Cor fusion, or, perchance, even (would you Anglais with the Toronto Symphony! believe?), as Miss Morrison believes, Three musical daughters are the result the beauty! In “Coral Island”, which is of this union. her first experience with a Japanese com Since then, there have been several position, she finds a most appealing tex Canadian compositions created especially ture. “Texture” includes sound, imagery, for Miss Morrison’s voice — sometimes feel and color. This is its beauty for her. even in combination with various types Mary Morrison grew up and studied of sound on tape or otherwise. piano and voice in Winnipeg until 1944 A keen, ever-expanding interest in when she won the two highest Manitoba modern works aroused in Miss Morri Music Festival vocal awards in the same son an eagerness to hear this type of year, a feat never achieved in the history music performed in other countries. To of the festival. She continued her studies hear and see live concerts is infinitely in Toronto on scholarships and graduated superior to merely listening to tapes. She cum laude with an Artist diploma from applied for and xyas awarded a Canada the Senior School of the Royal Conserv Council grant this fall to study and at- atory of Music. Her professional career since has in Continued on page 9 Fine Orientals and Broadlooms I qykDOURJANSRUG GALLERIES Draperies • Furnishings 89 KING EAST, TORONTO 1 Appraisals 3S2-6713 Renovations 7 IT’S HAPPENING . tend the International Festivals of Con temporary Music in France, Germany, Sweden, and Poland. From this trip Miss Morrison feels she acquired new ideas and insights into this complex art. “My exposure to so many new works, the diversity in the approach to them, and such variety in their effect acted as a stimulus to expand my own scope.” She thinks that Cana dian contemporary music compares most favourably with that from across the Atlantic. She was amazed at the almost non-existant knowledge people in Europe have of Canadian music. As a result of her visit, she hopes this situation will improve and that very soon there will be exchange of tapes and scores between Canadian and European organizations which sponsor avant garde music festivals. The honesty of European audiences impressed Miss Morrison. Uninhibited • HAIR STYLING boos and hisses but (more often!) cheers and bravos were a common response to • TINTS the performances she attended. Young • BLEACHES people, particularly, flock to these con certs in droves, and, naturally so — for • EYE LASH & BROW TINTS this is the music of their time. • BODY MASSAGE & EXERCISE “Can you explain to me what, espe cially, it is in avant garde music that • FACE TREATMENTS attracts you?”, was the next question • PEDICURES posed to Miss Morrison. “There is a clarity and honesty about • MANICURES it for me,” she thoughtfully replied. • FRENCH COSMETICS “Most of the works I have heard and BY N. G. PAYOT participated in are not cluttered up. I like the way modern composers are ex ploiting the voice and using it instru mentally. It is refreshing and challenging, both vocally and musically. The classics PETER one has performed many times before, but in the contemporary idiom you are EDELMAYER usually pioneering and sometimes even experimenting! A good first performance SALON can often make a work.” P.S. If there is any performing artist 836 YONGE STREET who has made and can make a contem TELEPHONE 924-1141 porary “work” work, she must most cer tainly by Mary Morrison! 9 MUSIC CALENDAR — JANUARY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY | SATURDAY 9 10 11 STUDENT CONCERT KAZUYOSHI AKIYAMA, Conductor ARTHUR OZOLINS, Pianist FREEDMAN — Tangents RACHMANINOFF — Piano Concerto No. 3 MENDELSSOHN — Symphony 4 No. 3 “Scotch" $1.00 on day of performance 14 15 17 18 SEIJI OZAWA, Conductor CHILDREN’S SATURDAY MARY MORRISON, Soprano YUJI TAKAHASHI, Pianist SYMPHONY GERARD KANTARJIAN, Violinist PETER SCHENKMAN, Cellist KAZUYOSHI AKIYAMA, Conductor TAKEMITSU — Coral Island for Soprano & Orchestra (North American LLOYD BRADSHAW, Narrator Première) TAKEMITSU — Asterism for Piano and Orchestra (World Première) $1.00 on day of performance BRAHMS — "Tragic” Overture BRAHMS — DouBle Concerto in a minor $2.50, $4, $5, $6 — Massey Hall Box Office Open ’a 10 23 25 20 21 22 SEIJI OZAWA, Conductor JAZZ AT THE SYMPHONY "CANNONBALL” ADDERLEY PETER SERKIN, Pianist QUINTET SCHULLER — Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959) $2.50, $4, $5, $6 — Massey Hall BEETHOVEN — Concerto No.