Tuesday, June 17, 2025
HomeClassical MusicToronto’s The Happenstancers Current: The Two Deaths Of Ophelia

Toronto’s The Happenstancers Current: The Two Deaths Of Ophelia


L-R: The Happenstancers’ Creative Director & clarinetist Brad Cherwin; conductor Simon Rivard; soprano Danika Lorèn; cellist Peter Eom (Images courtesy of the artists)

The Water speaks. Let love pull you below.

The Happenstancers, Toronto’s progressive chamber music ensemble, will current their subsequent live performance below the title The Two Deaths of Ophelia. The live performance takes place June 19, and can characteristic the music of composers Linda Catlin Smith, Ann Southam, and Thomas Adès, and the world premieres of recent works by Ryan Chase and Toronto composer Luis Ramirez.

Ophelia is certainly one of Shakespeare’s iconic tragic heroines, and sometimes used as a form of metaphor for what is taken into account female. The Two Deaths Of Ophelia reimagines her character in a sonic portrait that works via the themes of affection and want, insanity and loss of life.

The sound world created by the music of the 5 composers mimics the character of water — sturdy but erratic, sensuous and compelling.

Incorporating two world premieres, the live performance unfolds in a form of double-bill.

L: Soprano Reilly Nelson; R: Composer Luis Ramirez (Photos courtesy of the artists)
L: Soprano Reilly Nelson; R: Composer Luis Ramirez (Images courtesy of the artists)

The Two Deaths Of Ophelia

“We’re enjoying with ideas this June,” says conductor Simon Rivard in an announcement. “String quartet, tragedy, tune cycle, melodrama — each classical music and theatre make use of standardized varieties, utilizing acquainted archetypes to hold audiences to unfamiliar and sudden locations. Can the identical story be advised twice? Can it stay the identical? What if the narrator is modified?”

The world premieres body the twin strategy.

  • Torontonian Luis Ramirez has created a brand new work for 3 strings and three winds. It’s based mostly on imagining the very second when Ophelia is suspended in time simply as she’s plunging into the water of the stream.
  • Ryan Chase‘s Now Marvel Nyce and Straunge begins with three texts by Geoffrey Chaucer, and units them to surrealistic music to be sung by soprano Reilly Nelson.

“With these tasks we discover layers of concepts inside the chamber music live performance — one other acquainted construction! — however on the floor this live performance can also be simply a possibility for our ensemble to interact with highly effective and iconic music,” says Happenstancer inventive director Brad Cherwin, “works that we would not have the chance to carry out in any other case.”

Additionally on the invoice is Claude Vivier’s monumental Bouchara, carried out by soprano Danika Lorèn. Vivier wrote the work, which he subtitled “chanson d’amour”, in 1981 for a blended chamber ensemble of woodwinds, percussion, strings, and voice.

“Vivier’s otherworldly musical language has grow to be a logo of greatness within the Canadian classical canon, and has influenced numerous composers since,” says Lorèn. “Bouchara is certainly one of Vivier’s most non secular and transferring chamber works; a real gem in our nation’s wealthy historical past of classical innovators.”

Program in full:

  • Linda Catlin Smith: Stare on the River
  • Linda Catlin Smith: The River (Canadian premiere)
  • Shawn Jaeger: Love Is (Canadian premiere)
  • Ann Southam: Rivers (choices)
  • Wolfgang Rihm: Ophelia Sings
  • Oliver Knussen: Ophelia Dances
  • Charles Wuorinen: Bearbeitungen über das Glogauer Liederbuch
  • Thomas Adès: Arcadiana (choices)
  • Luis Ramirez: new work, title TBD (world premiere)
  • Ryan Chase: Now Marvel Nyce and Straunge (world premiere)
  • Krzysztof Penderecki: Abschied
  • Claude Vivier: Bouchara
  • Virginia Woolf: Recitations, from chosen letters

Personnel

  • Simon Rivard, conductor
  • Reilly Nelson, Ophelia One
  • Danika Lorèn, First Ophelia
  • Jesse Blumberg, Hamlet One
  • Dion Mazerolle, First Hamlet

Musicians:

  • Strings: Luri Lee, violin; Sienna Cho, violin; Hee-Soo Yoon, violin and viola; Hezekiah Leung, viola; Peter Eom, cello; Travis Harrison, double bass; Lenny Ranallo, guitar
  • Keyboards: Joonghun Cho; Wesley Shen
  • Winds: Chris James, flutes; Aleh Remezau, oboes; Brad Cherwin, clarinets and inventive director; Nicolas Richard, bassoon; Ryan Garbett, horn; Declan Scott, trumpet
  • Percussion: Nikki Huang; Thomas Li
  • Billy Wong, lighting
  • Fish Yu, electronics/sound
  • Hoi Tong Keung, manufacturing supervisor

Discover extra particulars concerning the June 19 live performance, and tickets, [HERE].

Are you trying to promote an occasion? Have a information tip? Must know one of the best occasions taking place this weekend? Ship us a word.

#LUDWIGVAN

Get the every 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.

Newest posts by Anya Wassenberg (see all)

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular

Recent Comments