We didn’t know what to expect at the unique musical performance that our friend Isabel invited us to on a recent Saturday evening.
It was at the same beautiful music venue, Koerner Hall, that we’ve been lucky to go to three times in as many weeks. (The first two were this one, Jayme Stone’s Lomax Project, and this one, The Royal Gala).
The show was called Spin Cycle, featuring the unexpected coming together of a string quartet, Afiara Quartet, and a turntablist/scratch dj, Skratch Bastid.
It was part of the second annual 21C Music Festival, presented by The Royal Conservatory of Music — 21C standing for Twenty First Century, the period during which all the music presented was composed. To quote their press release, “In this festival of newly minted music, audiences have an opportunity to experience fresh new sounds and ideas from the greatest musical minds of today and experience works by Canadian as well as international composers and musicians who are mining new musical territories, breaking down barriers, and introducing us to new virtuosic music creations.”
We arrived early enough to have a drink outside on their balcony, which is high up off the ground. The massive chestnut trees surrounding it were in flower.
The concert featured new music written by four young composers, Dinuk Wijeratne, Laura Silberberg, Rob Teehan, and Kevin Lau.
Each piece, in turn, was first played as originally written by the string quartet. Then the dj took the stage, solo, to present his take on the same piece of music. Following that, the quartet joined the dj on stage and they all performed the piece of music together.
(Since we were sitting in a spot along the side, with no seats behind us so therefore nobody to disturb, and my camera is completely silent and easily darkened, I took a few quick pictures to show you. I’m telling you that because picture taking is not encouraged during performances in this venue — I can’t fault them for that, because even I, the taker of many pictures, gets annoyed when people hold lighted screens up for long periods of time at concerts. I pride myself on my stealthy picture taking at shows, flipping my camera up for mere seconds at a time and then pulling it down again quickly. That said, if anyone involved in the presentation of this show would prefer that I take the following photos down, let me know and I will.)
It was very interesting and enlightening to see and hear such an innovative project, especially in a venue with superb sound quality. We loved it!
As we do whenever we go to Koerner Hall, we took the streetcar and the subway.
Thank you for stopping by. I hope your week is off to a good start.
xo loulou
