Let’s face it; most classical musicians are a timid bunch, afraid to sound bad, of not having the right acoustic, of not performing in a venue that shows off what they do to best advantage. Conductor Simon Capet and Euphonia are saying balls to all that with the announcement that they are the new classical orchestra in residence at Lula Lounge, best known for its Latin performers.
Euphonia will have its public christening at its very first concert on Monday night at Lula Lounge. The plan is to have them back on the second Monday of each month.
The plan is also to make us forget about all the conventions of classical concerts.
There’s the venue itself, built like a cabaret space, with a central dancefloor and stage surrounded by tables. You can eat and drink while enjoying the music.
There’s the arrangement of musicians, too. Instead of using the stage, Capet is using the whole room. Patrons may have a double-bass player or a violist next to them instead of the polite distance of a traditional proscenium arch.
In a recent chat over lunch, I suggest to Capet that scattering an orchestra like that will make it hard for them to focus.
“That’s exactly what some of them said at the first rehearsal,” he countered. “I told them to get over it.”
The dispersal around the space of Capet’s band of 19 string players in this first concert is making them work all the harder. And harder work has the potential to pay off in a more engaging musical experience for everyone present.
Then there’s the programming itself.
Capet is a pedigreed classical musician, originally from England. But he is no snob. Great music is great music, no matter which genre it officially inhabits.
Monday’s inaugural Euphonia programme is a case in point. The concert begins and ends with symphonies — Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 3 and Dmitri Shostakovich’s powerful String Quartet No. 8, which was later turned into the Chamber Symphony. In between are highlights from Beck’s un-recorded new album — the one where he published 20 songs online for other people to interpret.
Euphonia bass player Jordan O’Connor has created arrangements for string orchestra, and the band will be joined by jazz singer Gillian Margot in a bold stroll along the fine line between art and art-pop music.
Monday’s concert is one more manifestation of how the foundations of Toronto’s classical music world are being rocked. In a sign of the times, this is similar to what has happened in Berlin and London and New York City, where the DIY generation has decided that there are plenty of great ways to make and consume art music outside of traditional formats.
Capet has already brought us the weekly Sunday-night Classical Social pub nights at Fionn MacCoull’s pub at University Ave. and Adelaide St. Violinist Edwin Huizinga coaxed professional musicians, conductor James Gaffigan and soprano Measha Brueggergosman to the Tranzac for music and drinks last Monday night in the latest installment of the Classical Revolution Toronto series.
And Bicycle Opera is going to be back for another summer, having announced that they are holding auditions for outwardly-mobile singers on the 19th (info here). And Opera Five is back at Gallery 345 at the end of the month for one of its opera-meets-nosh programmes (info here).
All of these efforts — and I haven’t even mentioned all of them — are acts of confidence, bravery even, as musicians go outside traditional comfort zones to declare to the world at large that there is something to be gained from spending a few minutes with a classical artist.
No apologies required — from either party.
For more information about Euphonia inaugural Lula Lounge concert on Monday night, click here.
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Capet and I chatted about a number of topics over lunch in Toronto’s downtown Chinatown. Here is one snippet in which Capet speaks about some of the people in Euphonia, and how this changed the way he approached Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony:
John Terauds
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