JUST ANNOUNCED Last week, we announced the Jazz at Massey Hall series for our 2013-2014 season. We’re excited for what promises to be a really engaging season of music at storied Massey Hall, home of the “Greatest Jazz Concert Ever” and some other seriously impressive collaborations. This year’s season is decidedly one of collaboration and dynamic teamwork within the genre. The series kicks off with Wayne Shorter 80th Birthday Celebrationfeaturing the Wayne Shorter Quartet with Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade as well as ACS, a trio made up of Geri Allen, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Esperanza Spalding (whom we were just wowed by at Massey Hall last month). ACS will perform works from Shorter’s mid-career days with Weather Report. The second of four concert events in the series is a return engagement by Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis performing a very special Big Band Holidays concert in December. February brings The Spring Quartet featuring the impressive talents of Jack DeJohnette, Joe Lovano, Esperanza Spalding and Leo Genovese. Finally, the series concludes with a performance by Brad Mehldau Trio in April. Details on all four concerts and CONTINUE READING >
PERFORMANCES Paco Peña (Friday): The legendary master of Flamenco guitar brings his Flamenco Dance Company to Roy Thomson Hall this Friday evening as they present Flamenco Vivo. Complex guitar virtuosity, tribal and soul-stirring percussion, and all the passion and emotion the art forms dancing is known for. You can watch a clip embedded above as well, check in Friday morning at 10am to CBC Radio One (99.1FM in GTA) to hear Paco Peña perform and speak with Jian Ghomeshi on Q.
WEBWATCH Classical? Leads to erratic. Metal? Hip Hop? Aggressive. While Norah Jones inspires a relaxed ride, Coldplay was found to be the CONTINUE READING >
JUST ANNOUNCED We recently announced two performances featuring Blue Rodeo celebrating their 25th anniversary – this February 1 and 2. You can buy tickets and learn more about An Evening with Blue Rodeohere. On a related note, watch video of Cuff The Duke (who play Nov 24 at Winter Garden with Jenn Grant) performing “Five Days in May” as part of Blue Rodeo’s Silver Anniversary Concert recorded at Glenn Gould Studio this past week, embedded above.
Fran Lebowitz In Conversation, with Jian Ghomeshi, originally scheduled for November 2, has been postponed due to the extreme weather conditions in New York City. We’ll be announcing the rescheduled date very soon – in the meantime, here is an article from the Globe and Mail with her thoughts on the US Election and another from The Grid on all sorts of good stuff.
PERFORMANCES Chilly Gonzales, Solo Piano II presented in Pianovision (Thursday): This very special presentation sees us bringing one Chilly Gonzales from Glenn Gould Studio (where he performed last spring) over to the Winter Garden Theatre for what promises to be a very engaging night of music and entertainment. This particular performance includes Pianovision, “an experience which captures the full effect of Chilly Gonzales’ creative genius” by projecting his handwork on a screen above the stage. We can’t wait to see it all happen this Thursday; until then you can check out these two Soundboard videos of Chilly Gonzales himself (here and here).
Royal Wood with special guest Elisapie (Saturday): Royal Wood performs at the Winter Garden Theatre on Saturday on the heels of his summer release of We Were Born To Glory. CONTINUE READING >
In anticipation of Chilly Gonzales, Solo Piano II presented in Pianovision on November 8 at Winter Garden Theatre, we thought it would be nice for you to hear straight from The Musical Genius, what you can expect from the show:
I’ll be honest. There isn’t anything that I don’t find entertaining about Chilly Gonzales. And sure, I say that in this instance as a drummer who is also a fan of this video we’re about to present to you below.
We were able to meet up with The Musical Genius recently in Toronto’s Revolution Recording studio where Gonzales explained how a drummer might approach playing the piano. The results are here, for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.
Massey Hall presents Chilly Gonzales on November 8, 2012 at the Winter Garden Theatre
JUST ANNOUNCED With Thanksgiving this weekend, here are some pretty sweet reasons to be thankful this week: we’ve just announced four big shows will be hitting Massey Hall in the next little while. Tuesday, October 23 will bring the return of The xx to Toronto and Massey Hall and Wednesday, December 5 will bring Band of Horses (with Jason Lytle aka Grandaddy) to the Grand Ol’ Lady of Shuter Street’s stage. Tickets for both these shows are now available. And the lovely Diana Krallwill be returning after a near four-year absence for two shows this February. Tickets for members of the FriendsFirst program are available for purchase starting today and are available to all starting on Friday.
And as promised, last week we announced a super cool thing – the Canadian Songbook Society. To become a member of the Society, all you have to do is purchase a transferable laminate, which grants you access to all seven of our Canadian Songbook at the Rivoli shows including CONTINUE READING >
JUST ANNOUNCED
In case you haven’t heard, the iconic family entertainer, Raffi, has announced he’ll be hitting the Roy Thomson Hall stage not once, but twice! Concerts will take place on Sunday, December 2 at 2pm and 4:30pm. Tickets are currently available for the 2pm concert; tickets for the 4:30pm concert will be available to FriendsFirst tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10am and to the general public this Friday at 10am.
Happy back-to-school everyone! I feel like every year I write a teensy love poem in the buzz to school supplies like coloured sharpies and Note Totes (do they make those anymore?) and here we are again! Lots and lots of good stuff in this week’s Buzz friends, so read on!
JUST ANNOUNCED Just yesterday we announced that the talented Jackie Evancho will be performing at Roy Thomson Hall on March 14, 2013. You may recall that Ms. Evancho took the world by storm after competing on America’s Got Talent. Her new album, Songs from the Silver Screen, becomes available October 2. Tickets for the concert at Roy Thomson Hall are available for purchase to FriendsFirst tomorrow (Thursday) and to the general public on Friday.
PERFORMANCES Back-to-school means one thing in particular around these parts – TIFF! The Toronto International Film Festival newly has a permanent home in our neighbourhood, but Roy Thomson Hall has long been a part of the epic celebration of cinema. Check out our event listings to learn what Gala screenings will be taking place here and, while I’m sure you won’t have trouble finding media coverage of the next two weeks here’s a good start: CBC has an interactive map on the geographical origins of this year’s films; The Toronto Star summarizes their 12th annual “Chasing the Buzz” poll; and BlogTO has an interview with the CONTINUE READING >
Our 2012|13 Season is officially off and running with all tickets now on sale! For a sample of some of what our Season has to offer, check out this YouTube playlist and hopefully listen to an old favourite or discover something new. Let us know what you think.
MISSING LINKS Feist premiered her new “Anti-Pioneer” (embedded above) video as well, you can watch her and band perform in 3D here.
It was announced that one of our favourites, Whitehorse, will not only have their Massey Hall debut this March but their new album The Fate of the World Depends on This Kiss will release on Aug 28. Whitehorse have posted the lead off track “Achilles’ Desire,” have a listen here.
We’re all pretty excited about Ira Glass, host of This American Life, coming to Massey Hall on Oct 27. This event, titled Reinventing Radio, should prove to be a unique and insightful look into one of the most unique programs in the fields of journalism and storytelling by one of the most engaging personalities in said fields. Sadly, the program recently lost a key contributor, Canadian-born David Rakoff. TAL paid tribute to David this past week by airing some of his most memorable contributions. Have a listen This American Life – David Rakoff (1964-2012) - particularly to the “Who’s Canadian?” segment.
If you hadn’t already heard about this, Beck has new music coming and it’s not what you expect!
New (great!) snippet of a Bob Dylan tune from his forthcoming album The Tempest
Grizzly Bear (who perform at Massey Hall on September 26) have been sharing some new tracks from their forthcoming album. Check out “Yet Again” and “Sleeping Ute” for a flavor of the new record.
Lastly, we’ll leave you with this sneak peek of the highly anticipated new album from Chilly Gonzales (who performs at Winter Garden Theatre on November 8) Solo Piano II. Have a listen:
This week’s edition of The Buzz was compiled by Wes Doerksen and Stephen McGrath
SEASON LAUNCH
There’s a lot of excitement here at the Halls as we are gearing up for our 12|13 Season (Sept ’12 – Aug ’13). We’ve got over 60 new shows that we can’t wait to tell you about! On Monday, August 13, we’ll be announcing the season lineup (and of course we’ll relay all to you here in The Buzz on the Tuesday, as always). Tickets will go on sale to the public on the following Monday August 20. FriendsFirst members will have the opportunity for advanced ticket purchasing for all 60 + events beginning Wednesday, August 15. So mark your calendars and please check back with us to see what’s in store for the upcoming season!
JUST ANNOUNCED
If there’s a genre Massey is synonymous with it’s Jazz. The Jazz @ Massey Hallseries returns for the 12|13 Season with 4 shows next year. There’s a great mix of CONTINUE READING >
Soundboard is the official community of musicians, music fans, and friends of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Canada. It’s your behind-the-scenes source for related music news, recommendations, and rewards.
