Evelyn Glennie – Luna Pearl Woolf

By CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM JULY 28, 2017

…If opera singers are expected to move about the stage and interact with other performers, Ms. Woolf argued, so could string players. “When we hear a musical phrase, we hear a statement of language,” she said. “We all are in the business of emotional storytelling — with everything we have.”…

A Victorian dictum, now out of fashion, states that children should be seen, not heard. The opposite might be said of the 19th-century concert setup: Players were to be heard, not seen — or at least not draw attention to themselves.

But that view is changing as well. Continue reading “New York Times: When Musicians Get Up and Move” →

By STEPHAN BONFIELD

May 31, 2017

…perhaps best summarized as an opera aria for cello, entangling a dramatic theatricality and an erotic intimacy between instrument and performer(s). — a striking image about music and our acoustical relationship to it through the innateness of deeply felt rhythmic vibration, elucidating our permanent entanglements with such deeply intimate musical experiences…

This past Friday night was a truly special one for Calgary’s new music community and a milestone for the city’s arts community as a whole. Land’s End Ensemble hosted internationally-renowned percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie its 20th Anniversary Celebration at the Bella Concert Hall, Mount Royal University, in a wrap-up recital of epic proportions capping off the new hall’s exciting début series.

The sold-out concert was the month’s hottest ticket in town, featuring percussion-themed premieres of no less than six new compositions specially written for Glennie by Allan Gordon Bell, Luna Pearl Woolf, Omar Daniel, Derek Charke and Vincent Ho, the ensemble’s artistic director and concert curator.

Continue reading “Calgary Herald: New Music review: Evelyn Glennie and Land’s End Ensemble provide spectacular evening of six premieres at the Bella” →