06:41 AM
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Event Details
The first program of the 2023-24 season at North Wind Concerts celebrates a variety of musical ‘firsts’ and creative imagination, in a program of 17th- and 18th-century chamber music: keyboard music by Byrd, Gibbons and Bull, two-part fantasias by Morley, and trio sonatas by Telemann, Boismortier and Rameau. Come and give your spirit a boost with some colourful and cheerful music in an intimate setting, beautiful acoustic, and friendly atmosphere!
Louise Hung, harpsichord and virginals; Matthew Antal, viola; Alison Melville, traverso and recorder; Colin Savage, recorder; Margaret Jordan-Gay, ‘cello.
Friday November 24, 2023 @ 7:30 pm
Heliconian Hall (35 Hazelton Avenue, Toronto)
Louise Hung’s first introduction to western classical music was hearing a rendition of Für Elise playing through the speakers of garbage trucks in Taiwan as a baby. She completed her undergraduate degree in Piano Performance at the University of Victoria and her MMus in Piano Performance and Pedagogy program at the University of Toronto. She has an ACP in Harpsichord Performance from UofT and is currently completing her DMA degree at UofT under the tutelage of Charlotte Nediger. Past engagements include Musicians in Ordinary, Stratford Summer Music Festival, Kingston Road Village concert series, Cor Unum ensemble, Opera Q, Corde del Coure, Theatre of Early Music, and Tafelmusik Winter Institute.
Matthew Antal was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and a master’s degree from the University of Victoria, both in viola performance. He also holds an ACP in historical performance from UofT where he studied with members of Tafelmusik. He is a regular performer with several music ensembles around town such as Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Opera Atelier, and Odin Quartet.
Cellist Margaret Gay leads an active freelance career performing on both modern and period instruments. Margaret performs regularly with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, Opera Atelier, the Eybler Quartet (www.eyblerquartet.com), and Ensemble Polaris (www.ensemblepolaris.com), a group exploring the traditional music of Nordic countries. She is Artistic and Managing Director of The Gallery Players of Niagara (www.galleryplayers.ca), an organization based in St. Catharines presenting chamber music. She performs on a cello made by Andrea Castagnieri (1730). Margaret received a graduate degree in performance from the University of Toronto. She can be heard on numerous CD recordings with Ensemble Polaris, the Eybler Quartet & the Gallery Players of Niagara.
Colin Savage has been principal clarinetist with the Mississauga Symphony for over 30 years, and regularly performs on recorder and historical clarinets with a wide variety of chamber and orchestral ensembles in Southern Ontario. He has toured Japan and performed several times in the Royal Opera House at Versailles with Opera Atelier, and worked with New York Collegium, Tafelmusik, Canadian Opera Company, Apollo’s Fire, les Boréades, Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Consort.Colin particularly enjoys playing recorder and bass clarinet with the Arctic fusion band Ensemble Polaris, whose recordings of Nordic/Canadian/Mediterranean genre-bending music have received international critical acclaim and delighted audiences across Canada.Colin’s interest in analog photographic processes finds him in well-lit and very dark places; his images of abandoned spaces, shot with a vintage twin lens reflex camera, drew high praise in a solo exhibition of his work at Toronto’s Alliance Française in April 2018, and at Gerrard Art Space in 2019. He continues to hone his limited hockey skills on rinks around the city, and has recently play-tested most of the outdoor ping-pong tables in Toronto parks.
Toronto-born Alison Melville began her musical life in a school classroom in London (UK). Her subsequent career as a player of recorders and historical flutes has taken her across North America and to New Zealand, Iceland, Japan and Europe. Besides making regular appearances with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra as orchestral player and/or soloist, Alison is a member of Toronto Consort and Ensemble Polaris, Artistic Co-Director of North Wind Concerts, and collaborates in many varied artistic endeavours in Canada and beyond.A few favourite memories include live-to-film performances of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; with the Toronto Symphony and London Symphonia; solo school shows in inner-city London (UK); an improvised duet for Baroque flute and acrobat in northern Finland; and, oh yes, a summer of concerts in Ontario prisons. Her extensive international television, film and radio credits include soundtracks for The Tudors, CBC-TV’s beloved The Friendly Giant, films by Malcolm Sutherland, Atom Egoyan, Ang Lee and others, and she can be heard on over 65 CDs including several critically acclaimed solo recordings. Alison taught at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1999-2010 and is currently on faculty at the University of Toronto.
Featured Program
William Byrd: The Earle of Salisbury Pavana a- / William Byrde: The Earle of Salisbury Pavana Galiardo secundo a- / Orlando Gibbons: Fantasia of 4 parts a- / Joseph Bodin de Boismortier: Sonata in G, op. 91 no. 1, for flute and harpsichord Georg Phlipp Telemann: Trio in B-flat for recorder, harpsichord and b.c. from Essercizii Musici / John Bull: Pavana G+ / Orlando Gibbons: Galiardo C+ / Thomas Morley: Fantasias in two parts / Telemann: Trio in F for recorder, viola and b.c. from Essercizii musici / Jean-Philippe Rameau: Pièces de clavecin en concerts, no. 3