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Fran Lebowitz

Fran Lebowitz, Tony Bennett, Sgt. Pepper’s and more in The Buzz: Feb 5-11

Posted by Stefania Paterak in  The Buzz  on  February 5, 2013

PERFORMANCES
Fran Lebowitz in Conversation, With Jian Ghomeshi (Friday): We’ve been seriously looking forward to this presentation and are delighted it’s this week. The unrelenting Fran Lebowitz takes the stage at Massey Hall first in conversation with Jian Ghomeshi and then in conversation with the audience during the Question and Answer portion of the evening. Check out the November 1 edition of Q for her thoughts on the then imminent US Presidential Election or above on Public Speaking (taken from the Scorsese documentary of the same name).

Note: This date was rescheduled from November 2, 2012 due to the extreme weather conditions in the New York City area. All tickets for the original November 2 date will be honoured on this date.

Tony Bennett (Friday): Over at Roy Thomson Hall on Friday night, the dapper, charming, legendary entertainer Tony Bennett performs. Bennett is now in his seventh decade as a performing artist and shows no signs of stopping with evidence in the recent announcement of his upcoming collaboration with Lady Gaga (via L.A. Times). The Toronto Star had a feature interview with Mr. Bennett this weekend which you can read here.

Classic Albums Live, The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Saturday): Saturday brings Classic Albums Live to Roy Thomson Hall for their performance of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in its entirety. As the Classic Albums Live video reminds us, the Beatles’ pivotal album includes some of our fave tunes by the Fab Four including, “With a Little Help from my Friends” and “When I’m Sixty-Four CONTINUE READING >

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It’s Icon week at Massey Hall-Roy Thomson with Itzhak Perlman in recital and a Gilberto Gil dance party + more in The Buzz: Nov 13-19

Posted by Stefania Paterak in  The Buzz  on  November 13, 2012

JUST ANNOUNCED
We announced at the end of last week that the rescheduled date for Fran Lebowitz In Conversation, with Jian Ghomeshi, will be February 8, 2013. The original date was rescheduled due to the extreme weather conditions in the New York City area, where Ms. Lebowitz is based. If you’ve already purchased tickets to the originally scheduled November 2 presentation, those tickets will be honoured on the new date. For those who couldn’t make it to the originally scheduled date – here’s your chance! In addition, to aid and support those impacted by Hurricane Sandy, $1 from every ticket sold to this event will be donated to the Red Cross.

PERFORMANCES
National Geographic Live: Kenny Broad, Diver + Environmental Anthropologist (Tonight – Tuesday): Just another reminder that National Geographic Live is back at Roy Thomson Hall. Tonight is our second (fascinating) presentation of Kenny Broad’s Exploring the Blue Holes of the Bahamas. If you missed it last night – check it out tonight!

Jeremy Fisher (Wednesday): Canadian Songbook at the Rivoli continues this month with Jeremy Fisher and special guest Kalle Mattson. If you haven’t already, you can get a sneak peek of Fisher’s latest album, Mint Juleps, on his website and see some of Mattson’s videos on his site. Don’t forget, you can still purchase the Canadian Songbook Society series pass which gets you access to all six shows remaining in the series taking place at the Rivoli including Jeremy Fisher, Belle Starr, Mo Kenney, Tanika Charles, and two more shows still to be announced!

Itzhak Perlman (Sunday): Itzhak Perlman returns to Roy Thomson Hall for a recital this Sunday afternoon. Performing with piano accompanist Rohan De Silva, the performance promises a demonstration of Perlman’s “superstar status” as a classical violinist. The program is set to include pieces from Mozart, Fauré, and Stravinsky.

Gilberto Gil (Monday): Gilberto Gil returns to Massey Hall on Monday to wow us with his signature Brazilian sounds. For this very special engagement, entitled For All, Gil will showcase his take on baião, the “infectious celebratory dance music of Northeast Brazil.” For a flavour of what you’re in for, check out this New York Times review from his performance last Thursday where Jon Pareles declares Mr. Gil “an urban sophisticate and an intellectual” and noted that during the show “a musicology lesson turned into a dance party.” Enjoy!

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Blue Rodeo, Chilly Gonzales, Royal Wood, and our 17th Best Of TO nod, this week in The Buzz: Nov 6-12

Posted by Stefania Paterak in  The Buzz  on  November 6, 2012

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 Rodeo here. 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 >

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Bettye LaVette, Fran Lebowitz, Rose Cousins and more in The Spooktacular edition of
The Buzz: Oct 31-Nov 5

Posted by Stephen McGrath in  The Buzz  on  October 31, 2012

PERFORMANCES
Halloween Spooktacular, Christian Lane (Today at Noon, FREE): To kick off our 16th annual, free noon hour concert series at Roy Thomson Hall and to celebrate the eve of all Hallows, Christian Lane, the first Prize Winner of the 2011 Canadian International Organ Competition, performs a solo recital that will include such “spooky” pieces as J.S. Bach’s famous “Toccata in D Minor” and Léon Boëllmann’s “Toccata” from Suite Gothique. John Terauds of MusicalToronto picks this free organ recital as one of this week’s must see classical events!

Bettye LaVette (Thursday) In what just might end up on your year-end best of list, the great Bettye LaVette arrives to the Winter Garden Theatre in support of her (seriously amazing) new album Thankful n’ Thoughtful which was just released via ANTI and features her take on songs by The Black Keys, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young. You can read about her incredible story in a recent Q&A with Toronto Sun’s Jane Stevenson, here. And watch her (and I think, safe to say, blow the minds of Pete Townsend, Roger Daltry, and Barbara Streisand with her) heavy take on The Who classic “Love Reign O’re Me” at the Kennedy Center Honors (embedded above).

Fran Lebowitz In Conversation (Friday): The iconic New York City writer, Fran Lebowitz talks with CBC Q host Jian Ghomeshi and takes questions from the audience, live at Massey Hall this Friday. Her incredible insight and hilarious matter-of-fact observations/opinions have challenged and entertained since she burst onto the literary scene in the mid-70s after Andy Warhol hired her as a columnist for Interview magazine. CONTINUE READING >

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Jackie Evancho, TIFF, The People’s List, The xx, ‘Sun’ & Stars Audio-File in The Buzz: Sept 5-10

Posted by Stefania Paterak in  The Buzz  on  September 5, 2012

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 >

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Etheridge returns to Massey Hall and Lot’s of fun audio files this week in The Buzz: Aug 8-13

Posted by Stefania Paterak in  The Buzz  on  August 8, 2012

It’s that time of year again – as backpacks and pencil crayons take up store shelves, so too do we get super excited for our big Season Announcement. This year we’ll be announcing over sixty performances over a variety of genres in a number of different venues. The announcement takes place next Monday, August 13 – so stay tuned!

 

JUST ANNOUNCED
Yesterday, we announced that Melissa Etheridge will be hitting the Massey Hall stage on November 7 in support of her forthcoming album 4th Street Feeling. According to Ms. Etheridge’s website, a pre-sale for the new album started yesterday and the first single “Falling Up” is now available for sale – you can see a video of a live session and chat with the star embedded above. Tickets go on sale for FriendsFirst members today and to the general public on Friday.

MISSING LINKS
This is some pretty special stuff – Polaris Music Prize this past week introduced the Scion Split 7” Series. “Purchase any one of the ten 2012 Polaris Music Prize Short List artists’ albums (cd or vinyl) at any of the participating retailers… and you will be given a surprise split 7”. The instantly collectible unmarked limited edition 7” will feature one Short List artist on each side.” But wait, there’s more! Willy Wonka styles, there are 5 “golden tickets” to the September 24 Polaris Gala “randomly distributed inside the split 7” packages.” All the details (and the obligatory fine print) are over on the Polaris Music Prize site. Good luck!

And with each Polaris season comes the fun of the Shadow Polaris over at nxew.ca. Voting for the band that should be bestowed with this honour is open to the general public over at nxew.ca now – voting for the Long List stage closes August 31.

In this recent video, Fran Lebowitz (who we present In Conversation at Massey Hall on November 2) discusses city building in her beloved New York City and her very opinionated thoughts on NYU, Bloomberg, and neighbourhoods.

Feist and Mastodon have reunited forces again with this interactive video (following up from their Record Store Day collaborative release). Choose your own Feistodon adventure here.

AUDIO-FILE
Drake, who took Toronto by storm this weekend at his own OVO fest, recently put this track online: “Enough Said” by Aaliyah, featuring Drake – billing which provides an interesting, if subtle, commentary on sampling, homage, and crediting.

Jason Collett’s new tune, “I Wanna Rob a Bank,” makes its way to this video – and free download of the track is available here.

NPR has a live recording of Sigur Ros’ recent performance in Brooklyn – you can listen to the nearly two hour audio-stream and check out pics from the concert here.

Grizzly Bear, who perform at Massey Hall in September, have just released a new track, “Yet Again.” Spinner has the details (and the song) here.

Tom Waits premiered a new (and surreal) video for his track “Hell Broke Luce” yesterday and you can watch it here.

Just because I’m a superfan of Rumours and totally dug the Rave on Buddy Holly compilation from last year, I had to bring this one to your attention: Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac. NPR First Listen has the full 17 tracks from the likes of Best Coast, The New Pornographers, Marianne Faithfull, Lykke Li, and MGMT (among others) here.

 

Stefania Paterak is Programming Associate at Massey Hall & Roy Thomson Hall

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Conor Oberst leads this week’s Massey Hall blog in The Buzz: July 17-24

Posted by Stefania Paterak in  The Buzz  on  July 16, 2012

JUST ANNOUNCED
If you haven’t heard already, Conor Oberst is coming to Massey Hall this December for a feature performance. Oberst, best known for his work with Bright Eyes but was also a part of indie supergroup, Monsters of Folk (who performed at Massey Hall in recent years), has been called “rock’s boy genius” by Rolling Stone – not a bad compliment at all. Tickets are on sale now at the event link above and we’ve included the video for “Shell Games” the first single from Bright Eyes’ most recent album The People’s Key for your viewing pleasure.

MISSING LINKS
The Toronto Star has an article about getting your kids engaged in classical music including great tips like being earnest about being sincere, honest, concise, and of course diversifying by showcasing both recorded and live music.

Speaking of being concise, the CBC has an excellent article outlining the latest Copyright rulings and what it means for consumers, artists, and students. You can read up here.

Chrome Waves has Grizzly Bear CONTINUE READING >

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With links to this week’s music news, check out The Buzz: June 26-July 3

Posted by Stefania Paterak in  The Buzz  on  June 26, 2012

Happy Canada Day in advance loyal Buzz readers! The Buzz returns next week on Wednesday after celebrating the birth of our nation.

PERFORMANCES
Chris Botti (Thursday): Chris Botti returns to Massey Hall with his signature sound blending pop, jazz, and classical music that’s sure to please. In advance of the show, you can check out some of the videos on his site including a series of interviews with Roy Firestone and an EPK for his latest recording, Impressions, featuring serious praise from the likes of David Foster, Mark Knopfler, Vince Gill, Andrea Bocelli, and Herbie Hancock.

MISSING LINKS
Deceptive Cadence – at NPR Classical – currently has a great series called “The Young Person’s Guide To Making Music.” You can check out the whole series here  featuring articles on everything from finding the right instrument and music teacher to “tantrum-free practice” and the excitement and anxiety that comes from the audition.

The New York Times takes a quick look at web-based initiatives such as Kickstarter and PledgeMusic asking if this is “the New Busking.”

Can’t say we can recall the last time we pointed out an advertisement (*our own shows not included, wink, wink) here on Soundboard but this musical commercial for Old Navy had us thinking Don Draper would approve.

Hook Theory took what must have been a painstaking amount of time to study the chord progressions of over 1300 popular songs and dissect them for patterns and compatibility- read the results of their findings here.  CONTINUE READING >

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Loretta Lynn, Doobie Brothers, Fran Lebowitz, and The Lost Fingers head to Toronto in
The Buzz: May 23-28

Posted by Stefania Paterak in  The Buzz  on  May 23, 2012

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of the Buzz – hope you had a lovely long weekend. Here’s the scoop for this week:

JUST ANNOUNCED
Yesterday was a big day in the department of awesome show announcements. For starters, come October 12, the Doobie Brothers will be hitting the Massey Hall stage for a performance of their hits in celebration of their 40th anniversary.

But wait, there’s more! The very opinionated, hilarious, and insightful Fran Lebowitz will also be visiting Toronto for a performance at Massey Hall on Friday, November 2. This very special engagement will see Ms. Lebowitz in conversation with the audience and with host Jian Ghomeshi.

Still not satisfied? Well surely this will make your day – Loretta Lynn will be performing at Massey Hall this September 15 marking her 50th anniversary with her 1960 debut single, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” That’s not the only announcement this legendary songstress has made recently; earlier this month Ms. Lynn announced that she has chosen Zooey Deschanel to play her on stage in a musical adaptation, set for Broadway, of Coal Miner’s Daughter.

And if that’s not enough, be sure to check out the return of The Lost Fingers to Glenn Gould Studio on Friday, November 23. Back by popular demand, The Lost Fingers bring their unique take on Django Reinhardt style jazz reinterpretations of music of the 80s. For a taste on their virtuosity and sheer cleverness, check out the embedded video above of their take on “Pump up the Jam.”

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