Issue 37 | JULY EVENTS NEAR YOU
Toronto Summer Music, Canadian Opera Company, Revue Cinema, Cannopicks and more!
We can’t believe it’s already July either!
This month at CANNOPY will be an especially colourful one, mostly because we’re still rolling out our latest print issue, a special broadsheet edition! Issue 13, our first under a new name, is an ode to art and the city─especially this city, Toronto. You’ll also find in these pages artists that hail from elsewhere: Tokyo, London, Montreal, Nashville, Kitchener, Glasgow, Banff, and beyond. It’s likewise an ode to our shared time together, in concert halls and galleries, on lonely street corners and busy intersections:
How do I get a copy? Great question! Keep an eye out this month for the Issue 13 broadsheet at newsstands in select TTC subway locations across Toronto and at various retail locations. Skip the search and get a copy delivered straight to you by subscribing to CANNOPY.
For $5/month, your CANNOPY subscription includes complimentary copies of our quarterly print editions, beginning with Issue 13. You’ll also be subscribed to our four newsletter platforms, with access to exclusive interviews, insights on the arts industry, artist profiles, and our entire catalogue. Subscribe at the bottom of this page today!
In this issue of Torpa, you’ll also find excerpts of our coverage of Toronto Summer Music, thought pieces on Banff Centre’s Interplay program, and why we think the Canadian Opera Company should finally hire a Canadian as its next leader—we invite you to join in on this conversation by selecting your ideal candidate in this month’s poll. As usual, our CANNOPICKS returns with a list of 7 must-see productions in July, and we tip our hats to another Toronto organization in our Torpa Kudos segment.
Thank you for giving us a read!
—The Cannopy Team
Refer your friends to read TORPA, and you can win up to 6 months of free subscription to our Performing Arts Package, or even a free print issue!
Toronto Summer Music (July 11-August 3)
“Voice” is a slippery word: it captures communication, identity, feeling, and agency; it’s something we take for granted in the music world and yet can lull us into almost endless metaphorical possibilities. Voices Within, Toronto Summer Music’s theme for its 2024 edition, adds more layers, suggesting an elusive interiority. Attending multiple events over the course of three weeks—as many hope to do—invites a repeated engagement with this thread of the voice, running through concerts underscored with themes of dreams, memories, and nights transfigured, dark, and enchanted. As we appreciate the presence of a roster of increasingly international classical music talent, looking (or hearing) within also suggests attention to who TSM represents, a looking inward to what Toronto and Canada can offer. ─ Continue reading
LATEST ON CANNOPY:
Is it time for a Canadian to run the Canadian Opera Company?
On June 12, one of Canada’s largest performing arts institutions, the Canadian Opera Company, sent an email to its donors announcing “Perryn Leech will be moving on from his role as General Director of the COC by mutual agreement.” The British administrator and former Managing Director of Houston Grand Opera had only joined the COC in 2021 so understandably, the news of his abrupt departure sent shock waves through the small, tight Canadian opera community. Leech’s predecessor, Alexander Neef, led the COC for 11 years before leaving in 2020 to become the new head of Opéra national de Paris. The process of searching for an arts leader of the calibre required to run a large opera company is long and expensive and now, the COC is faced with that ordeal once again. — Continue Reading
Opera and chamber music intersect at Banff’s Interplay program
When the Banff Centre’s chamber music and opera program, Interplay, welcomes over 50 singers, composers, stage directors, librettists, writers, and musicians this June, they’ll be the latest in a long line of artists who have flocked to the fabled Rocky Mountain arts hub with a musical theatre tradition stretching back to 1949. That year, Italian conductor Ernesto Vinci was hired from Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music to create Banff’s first opera program, attracting 28 students. In 1952, Banff presented the Canadian premiere of what was then an operatic novelty in Canada, Henry Purcell’s now ubiquitous Baroque gem, Dido and Aeneas. During those early years, the repertoire was mainly taken from the standard Western European canon: Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (1954), Rossini’s Barber of Seville (1958), and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (1968). It wasn’t until 1972 that a Canadian work appeared, Healey Willan’s Deirdre which had seen its CBC premiere in 1947. — Continue Reading
THIS MONTH’S POLL:
7 EVENTS WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO IN JULY:
Jeremy Dutcher and Forest Bathing | July 6 | CAMPBELLFORD ─ Explore pain and beauty in a fusion of experimental pop, art rock, jazz, and neoclassical music. Jeremy Dutcher and band. West Ben | The Barn
Beginnings | July 13 | PICTON ─ Works by Enescu, Mozart, Coleridge-Taylor, Perkinson, Suk, and Kevin Lau. Chloé Chabanole, violin; Taylor Mitz, violin; Amadi Azikiwe, viola; Thomas Beard, cello; Angela Park, piano. Music at Port Milford | St. Mary Magdalene Anglican Church
Tales for the Young and the Young at Heart | July 15 | TORONTO ─ This anthology performance is an ode to love in all its complexities and contradictions. Presented through choreography, original music, and captivating acting. Ismailova Theatre of Dance | York Woods Library Theatre
Porch View Dances 2024 | July 17–21 | TORONTO ─ Founded by Karen Kaeja and developed by Allen Kaeja, PVD is a community dance event that brings together creators and everyday folk from around Tkaronto, some of whom have never danced before, to create unique performances in Seaton Village, Toronto. Seaton Village
Three Men on a Bike | Jul 18–Aug 4 | TORONTO ─ In this sequel to last summer’s hit Three Men in a Boat, Jay, George & Harris embark on an ill-fated cycling holiday in this comedic adventure about three mismatched friends navigating the open road and the absurdities of life. Guild Festival Theatre
Breathings | July 22 | TORONTO ─ Breathings celebrates our intimate relationship with nature in a concert that places the breath at the centre of the musical act, in which Constantinople’s musicians and their guests from Indigenous communities are guided by the pulsing of a heartbeat and the human voice in all its forms. Toronto Summer Music | Walter Hall
Something Rotten! | Apr 16–Oct 27 | STRATFORD — The Bottom brothers, two struggling playwrights in Renaissance London, need a hit. That’s easier said than done when your chief competition is local rock star William Shakespeare. The Bottom brothers’ plan: write the world’s first musical. Stratford Festival Theatre | Festival Theatre
TORPA KUDOS!
Introducing the TORPA KUDOS — our monthly shout-out for praiseworthy artists, organizations, and patrons whose good work is contributing to making Ontario’s arts ecosystem a healthier and more inclusive place to be.
HOLDING THE EVICTION LINE: This month’s kudo goes to Revue Cinema, Canada's oldest operating cinema with a mandate to connect “community through film, arts and culture”. Throughout the month of June, Revue Cinema had been fighting a battle for its continued existence via the renewal of its lease at their long-time residence on Roncesvalles Street. On June 27th, they took to social media to confess these struggles and signal the very real possibility that this Toronto silver screen staple was at risk of closing down. This short missive also doubled as a rallying call to the community that Revue Cinema has been cultivating since 1912. That community responded ─ in ways yet to be determined ─ the result of which was a court injunction that halted their eviction. With news of the sudden closing down of Ontario Science Centre still whirring in the air, and flashbacks to Revue Cinema’s pandemic-era antics of auctioning rights to their seats in order to stay afloat, the expectation was that an eviction was inevitable. Yet, their administrative team held the line, stood up against those pesky landlords, and flexed the soft power of community organization. To continue holding this line, Cinema Revue will have to redirect the community support towards filling seats─luckily, their July programming is teeming with screenings of the type of independent and inclusive films that have kept them afloat for the last century. Kudos to you, Revue Cinema.
HIGHLIGHTS ACROSS CANNOPY”
Why Did Our Arts Organizations Say Nothing While a Reported Genocide Unfolded?
If you’ve worked in the arts, you know that asking the “why” behind the actions of an arts organization seldom leads to productive conversation. Instead, such questions tend to spark a cycle of shrugging and responsibility-hot-potato until we are ready to throw it toward the ultimate and empty villain: “the arts ecosystem.” The wiles of this elusive and ethereal villain allow everyone to seemingly stand on the same side and demand accountability from this non-responsive structure. — Continue Reading
Lang Lang in France — The superstar Chinese pianist uncovers a garden of Gallic delights
Chinese pianist Lang Lang is an anomaly in the Classical music world. His ability to connect with a wide audience has garnered him the sort of fame that far outstrips even the biggest stars within a very niche industry. Having burst on the international scene by winning the 1995 International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Japan, the 42-year-old pianist has since gone on to collaborate with the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors. He has played at legendary venues like Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, and Wigmore Hall and with conducting legends such as Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, and Sir Simon Rattle. — Continue Reading
Manami Kakudo’s "Contact" — “How would my younger self feel listening to this?”
Manami Kakudo’s musicality is an intractable melange of tenderness and mischievous experimentation, wrapped in a cinematic appeal. The contours of her style are elusive, not because of a carefully calibrated aesthetic that aims to escape every attempt at categorization, but as a coincidental byproduct of an expressive sense of creative freedom unperturbed by the listener’s expectations. Born in Nagasaki, Kakudo graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts in the Department of Instrumental Music, with percussions as her instrumental family of choice. A prolific artist with various outlets of creation that are interlaced by her penchant for multimedia collaborations, Kakudo has released three studio albums over the last six years, the latest being 2024’s Contact. — Continue Reading
EDITOR’S POETRY PICK FOR JULY:
“Answer July” by Emily Dickinson
Answer July— Where is the Bee— Where is the Blush— Where is the Hay? Ah, said July— Where is the Seed— Where is the Bud— Where is the May— Answer Thee—Me— Nay—said the May— Show me the Snow— Show me the Bells— Show me the Jay! Quibbled the Jay— Where be the Maize— Where be the Haze— Where be the Bur? Here—said the Year─ Adapted from poets.org
Failed to render LaTeX expression — no expression found