Featured topics
A masterful rendition of Beethoven's grandest concerto
Toronto Symphony
Heppner offers free recital to make up for no-show
Tenor Ben Heppner will give a free concert for fans disappointed by his cancellation of a Saturday concert with the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra. The singer, who is recovering from a viral infection, will return to the Four Seasons Centre for a recital with piano later this season.
Free pop concerts in B.C. during Olympics
Some big-name musical acts will perform in Surrey, B.C., in a series of free concerts during the 2010 Winter Olympics.
All Frankie, all the time
Interest in Frankie Valli is peaking: Uptown, there's a hit musical based on the life and songs of the sixties vocal quartet the Four Seasons. Downtown, there's a concert this weekend by the head Jersey boy himself. The helium-high crooner, famous as the lead voice on Four Seasons' hits Sherry , Big Girls Don't Cry , Walk Like a Man and others, plays Massey Hall on Friday (8 p.m.). It's possible that before he leaves town he'll pop up to the Toronto Centre for the Arts to check out a Saturday matinee of Jersey Boys with Jeff Madden, the actor who portrays the iconic Valli. We're hoping for an impromptu duet to break out, the two of them gazing longingly at each other during a medley of Valli's solo hits Can't Take My Eyes Off You and My Eyes Adored You . Why, there won't be a dry eye in the house. B.W.
Yes, the voice is huge. Now for some fine-tuning
Florence + the Machine
NEW RELEASES
POP Raditude
Gluck with great care and taste
Iphigénie en Tauride
Opera: a stronger Iphigénie en Tauride
Toronto's Opera Atelier remounts its 2003 production of Gluck's opera with care and taste
Disc of the week
Friendly Rich reinterprets Mussorgsky, loosely
A Looney Tunes approach to the famous Pictures at an Exhibition piano suite
More music:
Music
Rod Stewart's saved his soul for now
First inspired by singers like Sam Cooke, Rod Stewart releases an album of soul classics
Gustavo Dudamel and his friends are in complete harmony
Venezuelan director brings the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra to showcase at the Glenn Gould Foundation gala
Bear fans, bare chest, barely believing his good luck
In the wake of his band's Polaris Prize win for The Chemistry of Common Life, Damian Abraham sits down to talk about the ample fruits of musical success – and how he pleases his biggest gay fans
Pop
Michael Jackson soundtrack
This Is It Beat it – to death. A pseudo-soundtrack to a concert-less concert film is the first posthumous album of previously unreleased Michael Jackson material to hit the market, and while it’s a worthwhile memento, you have to think there are better things to come. The first disc of the two-CD set uses original recording masters apparently sequenced in the same order that the hits appear in the film. Its succession is dynamic: The lovely I Just Can’t Stop Loving You Most and the peppy idealism of Black and White, for example, sandwich darker exhilarators Thriller and Beat It. Most of us have already heard the something-missing single This Is It (available here in two versions, one more orchestrated than the other), but the treats are on an abbreviated second disc comprised of one unsophisticated but poignant poem (Planet Earth) and three demos. Jackson’s falsetto flutters against an acoustic guitar on the touching She’s Out of My Life, and the brilliantly naked sketch of Beat It features the King of Pop’s vocal harmonies on the chorus and his beat-boxing rhythm on the verse. It’s a peek behind the weird curtains of a genius – let’s hope there’s more of that in the vaults. Brad Wheeler
Three guitar legends walk into a film studio
… and out comes an intriguing documentary about duelling instruments, simpatico vibes and each man's personal space
The heat's on Beatles mono sets
It might be an outmoded musical mode, but the moptops are rocking in mono
Disc of the week
Gettin' away from mule toots
A new blues album celebrates the Mississippi Sheiks, whose singer once revealed the reason he took up the musician's life
Via Salzburg soars, Toronto Suite flounders
Uneven program ranges from high note to flawed premiere
Into the heart of a magical child
Quebec director Robert Lepage returns to the Canadian Opera Company with an extraordinary new creation
Cleveland Orchestra wows Toronto hall with Shostakovich's Fifth
One of the world's sleekest symphonic ensembles makes a rare visit to Roy Thomson Hall