golden triangle

B.A. Johnston and the Endless Highway of Canadian Music

Written
by
Katie
on Friday, January 13, 2012
.

Photo courtesy of B.A. Johnston.

By Alessandro Marcon

Both the best and worst that can be said of troubadour B.A. Johnston is that he sweats hard for his fans. Few entertainers are so overtly abrasive, disgusting and belligerently shirtless and yet, paradoxically, so charismatic, hardworking and flat out entertaining. Think modern day performance humour: wow this is awkward, mixed with well delivered one-timers, and unabashedly, literally right-in-your-face engagement.

B.A. Johnston works in a similar strain to Ottawa’s own Remi Royale but writes and sings his own songs, which he plays on acoustic guitar or sings over pre-programmed Casio keyboard compositions. The topics are wide ranging: reflections on personal failure, stealing from work, chasing down ever-elusive love, and dreams of having a deep fryer in his bedroom. He also sings about his love for Hamilton and is willing to take shots at just about anything from “Double-Coupon Day” at McDonalds to Cornwall, Ontario. In comparison to some horribly serious and pretentious performers today, Johnston’s verbal and physical self-deprecation, though bilious and saline, is unbelievably refreshing.

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Ottawa Burlesque Collective at Maxwell’s Bistro

Written
by
Francois
on Tuesday, January 3, 2012
.

You have been cordially invited to history in the making.

Bella Barecatt proudly presents Ottawa’s first ever Burlesque Collective.

A Maxwell’s Bistro 613 Live Event on Thursday, February 2, 2012, 8pm.

What does this mean exactly? Sounds more like a cult than a show? It’s going to be a night of magic and mayhem! Come on down to see what happens when we throw 5 Burlesque troupes together on one stage for one show! Add some Mansfield Brothers Shenanigans and you have the formula for an unforgettable evening!

Come early and stay late, you don’t want to miss the best burlesque Ottawa has to offer!

There will be tassel-twirling, seductive teasing, hilarious interludes, and most of all Sexy Dancing! (and so much more but I don’t want to spoil what surprises our ladies and gents have in store!)
This show is guaranteed to knock your socks off!
Hosted by the lovely Lila Livewire and the notorious Nigel Mansfield
The night will consist of all your favourite performers from:
• Bourbon & Spice Burlesque
• Browncoats Burlesque
• Capital Tease
• Rockilily
• Sin Sisters
• With special guests the Mansfield Brothers Vaudeville Troupe and so much more!!

Doors open at 8pm show starts at 9pm sharp!
19+ event
$12.00 at the door
See you beautiful people there! And bring your friends! They will love you for it!
Love Bella!

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The National Arts Centre Institute of Orchestral Studies presents a concert on January 15

Written
by
Francois
on Tuesday, January 3, 2012
.

Five Institute of Orchestral Studies (IOS) apprentices perform in a special chamber concert at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday January 15, 2012 in the Fourth Stage of National Arts Centre. Performing music by Mozart, Ravel, and Dvořák are apprentices Emily Nenninger, violin (24, Calgary), Teodora Dimova, violin (21, Vancouver), Chensi Tang, viola (21, China), Jungin “Sunny” Yang, cello (26, South Africa), and Travis Harrison, bass (23, Toronto). The IOS members have been prepared by NAC Orchestra coaches Yosuke Kawasaki (Concertmaster) and Joel Quarrington (Principal Bass). Tickets for the concert are $5 and all proceeds go to the Institute of Orchestral Studies.

Astral Media is proud to support the young artists performing in these concerts.

The program is as follows:
MOZART Divertimento in D major, K 136
RAVEL Duo
DVORAK Quintet in G major, Op. 77

The NAC Institute for Orchestral Studies is now in its fifth year. Established under the guidance of NAC Orchestra Music Director Pinchas Zukerman, the IOS is an apprenticeship program designed to prepare highly talented young musicians for successful orchestral careers, and is funded by the National Arts Centre Foundation through the National Youth and Education Trust. During selected main series weeks of the 2011-2012 season, the five apprentices rehearse and perform with the NAC Orchestra.

APPRENTICES OF THE 2011-2012 INSTITUTE FOR ORCHESTRAL STUDIES

Emily Nenniger
Violinist Emily Nenniger graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory in 2011 with a Masters of Music (Chamber Music) where she received a Bachelor of Music (Performance) in 2009. A winner of numerous competitions and scholarships, Emily has studied with Ian Swenson, Mark Sokol, William van der Sloot, and during the National Arts Centre’s Young Artists Program with Pinchas Zukerman. Festivals and summer programs have included the Fontainebleau Festival (France) Banff Festival, Meadowmount School of Music, Mozarteum in Salzburg, the New York String Orchestra Seminar, and the NAC’s Young Artists Program (2004-2006).

Teodora Dimova
Violinist Teodora Dimova is currently studying at the Schulich School of Music, McGill University where she is completing her third year of a Baccalaureate Degree in Performance as a student of Denise Lupien. In 2007 and 2008, she was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and in 2009-2011, she performed in the Orchestre de la francophonie. Teodora was Concertmaster of the Vancouver Youth Orchestra in 2008, and has performed in masterclasses for Jonathan Crow, Yaela Hearts and Minchho Minchev.

Chensi Tang
Violist Chensi Tang is currently a student of Patty Kopec at the Manhattan School of Music. She is a graduate of the Middle School of the Central Conservatory in Beijing where she was a student of Mr. Changhai Wang. Chensi has performed in masterclasses for Kim Kashkasian, Roberto Diaz and the Takacs String Quartet. As one of the winners of the Manhattan School of Music Concerto Competition, she will have the chance to perform the Bartok Viola Concerto with Orchestra in the coming year. This summer, Chensi will return to the Young Artists Program at the National Arts Centre and will also attend the Kneisal Hall Chamber Music School and Festival in Maine.

Jungin “Sunny” Yang
Sunny Yang is currently pursuing a Graduate Certificate at the University of Southern California with Ralph Kirshbaum. A keen chamber musician, she has performed at various festivals around the world, including the opening recital of the Manchester International Cello Festival, Open Chamber Music at IMS Prussia Cove, and the Music@Menlo International Program.  She is a two times winner of Eastman concerto competition and has performed as Principal Cello in the orchestras at USC, Royal Northern College of Music, Eastman School, and Interlochen.  She was an apprentice in the 2008 BBC Halle Orchestra’s Professional Access Scheme, and was on the teaching faculty at Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival for their 2010 Young Artist Program.

Travis Harrison
Travis Harrison is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree (performance) at the University of Ottawa, where he is a student of NAC Orchestra principal bass Joel Quarrington. In 2010, Travis graduated in the top 10% of his class with a Bachelor of Music degree at the Schulich School of Music, McGill University. He has performed as principal and co-principal bass with the Crested Butte Music Festival Orchestra, McGill Symphony Orchestra, the Banff Festival Orchestra, and the Interregional Youth Symphony Orchestra in Baden Württemberg, Germany. Travis was a member of the Young Artists Program at the National Arts Centre in 2009 and 2011.

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Opera Lyra making the art form available to all

Written
by
Samantha
on Wednesday, September 14, 2011
.

If your only exposure to opera has been limited to The Bugs Bunny & Tweety show’s take on a Robert Wagner’s ring classic in “Kill the Wabbit” , we won’t hold it against you because hey, opera’s not for everyone!  Especially since the grandiose tales of heroic adventures and kings and queens aren’t all relatable to the general public.  However, the double bill being staged by Opera Lyra until September 17 at the NAC with Pagliacci and Calleveria Rusticana are rooted in reality, albeit 1870’s Italy.

Cavalleria Rusticana composed by Pietro Mascagni, inspired by a play by Verga, takes place in Calabria, Southern Italy on Easter Morning and is considered the first of the verismo opera movement (“true to life”).  Filled with misery, betrayal, revenge, adultery and Catholic guilt, the opera began surprisingly slow with choral hymns and even a church procession that interrupted the flow of the action (with lyrics of course all in Latin).

Santuzza (Lisa Daltrius) is a woman in-love wronged by Turrido (Richard Crawley), her lover who has run off with another man’s wife, Lola.  Santuzza has been excommunicated by the church for this infidelity and watches as others cheerfully enter while begging Mamma Lucia (Emilia Boteva).  Santuzza is pregnant but before she can tell Turrido, she is publicly humiliated and shunned by those she seeks help from including tavern owners and church representatives.  Her beautiful yet emotional pained sung-soliloquy immediately wins the audience’s sympathy and almost creates a voyeuristic quality in that her actions (of cutting her hair and pinning it to the church door) are so primal and fueled by anger.

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Dear Interweb: Where should I go to catch Game 7?

Written
by
trevor
on Tuesday, June 14, 2011
.

Photo courtesy iwona_kellie on Flickr

The interweb is a series of magical strings invented by Al Gore in the 1990s. Through our ‘Dear Interweb’ column, Apt613 will use its awesome powers to poll its readers on questions of import. If you have a query to make to the interwebs, screw Google – ask Apt613 readers by emailing apartment613 [at] gmail [dot] com or tweeting @apartment613.

We got this tweet from hockey fan @nskbelanger earlier today:

@apartment613 what’s the word on good places to watch game 7 in otown?

As a Canucks supporter still reeling from yesterday’s debacle, I know where I’ll be watching Game 7: from behind my own tightly-clenched fists, which will be pressed worryingly to my forehead every time the puck comes within 10 metres of Roberto Luongo, assuming he gets the start in the first place. But perhaps that wasn’t the answer you were looking for, @nskbelanger? Fear not: we’ve got a few other suggestions – complete with our patented bro rating scale, the Bromidex – after the jump.

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Ottawa Story Tellers: Under the Gun: Stories Shot from the Barrels of History

Written
by
Francois
on Thursday, June 2, 2011
.

Alan Shain, Marta Singh
7:30 pm, NAC 4th Stage, tickets at the NAC box office: $20/$12 students and seniors

The Bolshevik Revolution drove Alan Shain’s grandfather out of the Ukraine and delivered him to New York City. The Argentinean military junta delivered Marta Singh’s family from evil. These events remained shrouded in secrets and silence for many years, until two storytellers decided it was time to break the silence and show the world where their family stories and world history crossed paths.

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JazzWorks Originals concert

Written
by
Francois
on Tuesday, May 3, 2011
.

Jazzworks Presents “Originals: a JazzWorks Showcase” at the NAC Fourth Stage” May 17th

Local jazz lovers and supporters are in for an evening of fine music at “Originals: A JazzWorks Showcase.” Each summer, as part of its intensive Summer Jazz Workshop, Ottawa JazzWorks holds a Composers Symposium to help participating singers and instrumentalists develop their musical compositions in collaboration with a faculty of professional jazz musicians from Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and New York. Some of these innovative tunes will be presented in concert on May 17th at the NAC’s Fourth Stage.

“Originals: A JazzWorks Showcase” features some of the most exceptional compositions from the workshops, performed by the composers and other local musicians in collaboration with four highly accomplished members of the JazzWorks faculty: pianist Dave Restivo, trumpet player Jim Lewis and vocalist Christine Duncan, all from Toronto; and saxophonist Frank Lozano, from Montreal.

A special guest will be 23-year-old saxophonist Nathan Cepelinski, a rising star in North American jazz circles. Nathan attended JazzWorks Summer Workshop as a 15-year-old scholarship winner and impressed everyone with a technical ability and jazz savvy far beyond his years. He immediately attracted the attention of local musicians and performed frequently in his own and other combos, before leaving Ottawa to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston. There, Nathan has played and studied with many of the greats of modern music. He graduates this year.

For many of the Ottawa jazz musicians, this will be an opportunity to renew the close collaboration with JazzWorks faculty members established at the Symposium and a first major public performance of their work for a hometown audience. For pianist and long-time JazzWorks participant Gretchen Schwarz, the JazzWorks Composers Symposium ignited her “composing chops.” “I felt free to let my ideas flow,” she said in an interview with Downbeat magazine, “and it was magical … especially hearing other people play what I had written.”

Featured local jazz musicians and composers include: vocalists Roberta Huebener, Shannon Eddy Smith, and Renée Yoxon; trumpeters Charley Gordon and Emily Denison; pianists Gretchen Swartz and David Miller; guitarist, Rob Martin; bassists, Adrian Steeves and Alrick Huebener; and drummers Lucas Denison and Greg Klowak. With catchy vocal arrangements and instrumentals ranging from bebop to bossa nova, the JazzWorks faculty and participants promise an evening of pure listener’s pleasure. With its excellent sound and intimate atmosphere, the NAC’s Fourth Stage is the perfect venue for the first-ever JazzWorks Showcase of original compositions.

Tuesday: May 17
Location: National Arts Centre, Fourth Stage, Elgin Street entrance
Time: 7:30 pm
Tickets: $20
Purchase: online at www.jazzworkscanada.com or call 613-523-0316 or by email to jazz@jazzworkscanada.com

For information: JHumenick@jazzworkscanada.com 613-721-6157

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Hub and Spoke at the Fox & Feather

Written
by
Francois
on Monday, April 11, 2011
.

Register at http://hubandspoke.eventbrite.com/!

Hub & What?

Hub & spoke, that’s what. Hosted by Hub Ottawa, this is a new series of events that aims to accelerate positive social change.

Hub & Spoke has two main objectives:

1. Showcase innovation in Ottawa

2. Bust silos by building the networks and relationships that can accelerate new ideas.

Why now? Why this?

Ottawa is home to numerous innovative initiatives, enterprises and communities of practice, all striving to create a better city and a better world. Unfortunately, all these creative, driven people rarely meet. And their great work never gets properly showcasd. Innovation suffers because people can’t share ideas. As Canada’s capital and a G8 capital, Ottawa must do better to create opportunities for innovation.

Know who’d love this?

If you’re open to exploring new ideas to make the city and the world a better place, then these events are for you. Anyone with the desire, drive and ingenuity to experiment, innovate and find new ways to address our pressing challenges is welcome.

The Event

Five invited speakers will each take a few minutes to share how their initatives (both established and emerging) are building a better world and creatively addressing a specific challenge.

Using “purposeful” networking techniques, the Hub team will connect people with great ideas to other people with other great ideas. We’ll also introduce collaborators, innovators and entrepreneurs who can help make it happen.

Speakers

George Brown, Ottawa Community Loan Fund on:
the potential of community impact bonds.

Amen Jafri, Health Canada on:
exploring conservatism in Ottawa through film.

Jessica Lax, The Otesha Project on:
youth, theatre and sustainability.

François & Katie from Apt613

and more!

To register: http://hubandspoke-estw.eventbrite.com/

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Lauchie, Liza and Rory: Things are funnier in Cape Breton

Written
by
Andrew Snowdon
on Sunday, April 10, 2011
.

Photo by Emily Jewer.

Lauchie, Liza and Rory is an always funny, sometimes touching play that leans on its entertaining aspects to overcome the shortcomings of an imperfect story.

Set in a coal-mining town in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the play chronicles the lives of twin brothers Lauchie (pronounced Lock-ee) and Rory MacDonald, their mother Lizzie, sister Annie, and Liza Marinelli, the Italian girl who falls for Lauchie—at least at first.
There are some great things about this production. The script is full of lines that exemplify the characteristically dry Cape Breton sense of humour, the variety of the characterizations (some involving puppetry) establish conventions and then subtly mock them, and the visuals (costume, set, and lighting) add punch to the comic effect throughout. There is no shortage of laughs.

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Love Stories at the NAC’s Fourth Stage

Written
by
Francois
on Saturday, April 9, 2011
.

Love sweeps over us in tidal waves; it creeps up on us, catching us unawares. It breaks us, binds us, stirs us more deeply than anything else in all our living, in all our heights or all our depths.

Join two of Ottawa’s best-known tellers in their particular version of love’s possibilities – tumultuous and sweet.  The stories may begin in the steamy lusciousness of youth, but they will carry you onwards: to an Irish lover’s epic journey; a promise that may destroy all caring; a marriage where everything that can go wrong does; a slightly unusual way of dealing with separation; a finding of each other in old age.

JAN ANDREWS and JENNIFER CAYLEY

OK, let’s admit it.  These two are a couple.  They are “in love.”  They know about the heart pounding triumphs and the difficulties.  They have even told of them in their show The Book of Spells, recently returned from Midsumma: Celebrating Queer Culture, a major festival in Melbourne, Australia.

In love or not, work is a big part of Jan and Jennifer’s life.  In 2009, they founded 2 women productions to expand storytelling performance opportunities.  2011 sees its opening season with pieces by Marta Singh and Dan Yashinky each being presented in five locations in Eastern Ontario and West Quebec.

Together and apart, Jan and Jennifer have told stories of all genres to listeners of all ages.  They are especially attached to tonight’s show because it calls upon the old traditional material of “once upon a time.”  They believe there are no stories better, no stories more important to our world.

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