Not all of Toronto’s musical birds have flown south for the winter. While many of the city’s music presenters tend to be slow to start up programming in the new year, there are a number whose pre- and post-holiday concert schedules continue without a hitch—and who, from the beginning of January, hit the ground running. Many of these are smaller organizations, hosting more intimate, small-scale shows—and providing valuable performance opportunities to younger or emerging artists at what would otherwise be a slow time for music-hungry audiences.
Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation is one example. Currently in its 23rd season and hosted at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, Nine Sparrows—alongside its evening concert programming—hosts a noontime recital series every Tuesday. The shows are free and continue weekly in the new year from January 10 onwards.
Nine Sparrows is known for supporting early-career artists—and their programming shows it. Their 2017 recital season presents a number of the city’s music students and recent graduates—supporting artists who otherwise don’t always have the time and resources to self-present recitals year-round. January 31 and February 21 feature students from the RCM’s Glenn Gould School, February 28 features students from the U of T Faculty of Music, and February 7’s “Bassoons!” presents students from Nadina Mackie Jackson’s U of T bassoon studio).
The timing couldn’t be better. For many of Nine Sparrows’ early-career recitalists, these winter gigs break the usual school rhythm of a springtime, end-of-semester ‘recital season.’ And in the case of students and recent grads who are working towards professional musical careers, the idea of a January recital can be a refreshing opportunity to transition towards the mentality of performing year-round, and to rethink the types of music-making that solo concerts can represent.
For pianist Gina Lee, who will perform in Nine Sparrows’ recital series on Tuesday, January 17, working with Nine Sparrows has served as a welcome chance to think critically about concert programming, and to build upon her recent university training. “I wanted to create a program where listeners can experience an array of sounds, and where I can introduce different aesthetics found within the vast piano repertoire,” she says. “To start, I had Beethoven and Schoenberg in mind—First and Second Viennese composers whose works I am used to and have studied [in school]. I wanted to pair each of those composers with other pieces that were influenced and or inspired by them, in later periods of musical history.” For the recital, Lee ended up deciding on works by Chopin and Boulez—supplementing Beethoven’s Op.81a "Les Adieux" and selections from Schoenberg Piano Suite Op. 25 with Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasie Op.61 and Boulez’s Piano Sonata No.2.
A recent graduate from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, Lee believes that organizations like Nine Sparrows, and the professional development they offer, serve a crucial role in the city’s musical community—especially for emerging artists. “[For] early-career professional musicians...opportunities like these are vital,” she says. “Not only do they give us a performance venue with an outstanding instrument, [they give us] a place to experiment, and to express what I believe in—and what I want to advocate for as an artist.”
Pianist Gina Lee presents a program of solo piano works by Beethoven, Schoenberg, Chopin and Boulez on Tuesday, January 17 at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, as part of Nine Sparrows’ weekly free recital series. For more information on this and other recital programming in the city this January, search our listings at http://www.thewholenote.com/index.php/listings/ask-ludwig.
*UPDATE, January 10, 3pm: Gina Lee's January 17 recital program with Nine Sparrows has been postponed. Pianist David Potvin will perform a lunchtime piano recital on January 17 instead.
Sara Constant is a Toronto-based flutist and musicologist, and is digital media editor at The WholeNote. She can be contacted at editorial@thewholenote.com.
