Our friend Izzy works at The Royal Conservatory of Music and invited us to attend a nice event they hosted on Wednesday night, called The Royal Occasion.
Dating back to 1887 the mission of the conservatory is ‘to develop human potential through music and the arts’. This particular event was to honour three Canadian artists, the soprano opera singer Adrianne Pieczonka, music producer Bob Ezrin who has worked with Lou Reed, Jane’s Addiction, Kiss, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, and the list goes on, and rock song-writer and performer Randy Bachman. If you grew up in Canada you inevitably can sing along to at least one of Bachman’s songs. (In fact, as I type Nick is singing ‘Let it Ride’ to himself.)
The event, held at a place to which neither of us had previously been, called Koerner Hall, began with some music performed by the honorees, plus some extra guests including a terrific 13 year old classical piano player who blew my mind playing a Mendelssohn piece, and two cello players visiting Toronto from Croatia. The music was excellent, in spite of my envy of anyone who had attended the event last year when Feist performed.
These first pictures were taken in the corridor going in. I love how they connected the old building with the new one, with this glass roofed structure.
The display cases contained some very old music related relics, including this set of carved musicians dating back to the Sui Dynasty, 581 to 618. I laughed at the part in the description that stated that one of the instruments one of them had been holding, which would have been about an inch long, had been lost along the way, some time in the past 1400 years.
We weren’t allowed to take pictures during the performance but I got these of the hall …
After the show we headed into the beautifully decorated foyer for a lovely party, including wine and a buffet of some of the prettiest (and very tasty) cookies going. They also had waitstaff passing around tiny ice-cream sandwiches which were a bit challenging to eat with one hand but were so delicious. The one I tried had lime ice-cream between gingersnap cookies. Yum. Wish I had one right now.
Thanks for visiting.
xo loulou
