Canzona concert a tribute to how the other half loves

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This article was published 26/02/2020 (2038 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Love will be in the air when Canzona presents Canzoni d’Amore, an evening of Italian art songs inspired by the emotion that makes the world go around, penned by female composers of the 18th and 21st centuries.

The one-night-only concert, led by Canzona artistic director Kathleen Allan, takes place Sunday at 7:30 p.m. in the glorious Concert Ballroom on the seventh floor of the Fort Garry Hotel. It’s the first time the 31-year old choir has performed in the opulent, swoon-worthy space that’s a popular venue for weddings in Winnipeg.

The concert also falls exactly one week before International Women’s Day, March 8.

“We had a couple overlapping goals with this concert,” Allan says from her home in Ontario, where she also helms the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto. “We wanted to feature music by women and create more gender parity with our programming this year. But we also wanted to challenge the notion that there weren’t that many women composers writing music during this time. And it is a challenge, because historically women have not been given the same platforms to express their music, but it doesn’t mean that they weren’t writing music.

“Our secondary goal was to perform a concert of secular music, because so much of the great music from the baroque period is rooted in a Christian context. Of course, we want to uphold those works and perform them at the highest level, but it’s a nice challenge to try to get outside of the music that was written strictly for the church. We’ve discovered all kinds of different musical colours and ways of writing for the voice that has given us greater diversity.”

The program features music by Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Antonia Bembo and Maddalena Casulana, as well as three world premières by the Canadian composers Carmen Braden, Laura Hawley and Marie-Claire Saindon.

It’s structured as three sections chronicling the “phases” of love that have inspired artists of all stripes for countless generations.

“The first section is about infatuation, passion and love at first sight, like those really visceral feelings of love,” Allan says of the program, which also features five string players of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, harpsichordist Cary Denby and — oh, yes — chocolate, wine and “treats.”

“The second is about unrequited love, and lost love or betrayal, with the very dramatic emotions that come with that. And the third section is about finding true and lasting love.”

One might be surprised to hear that a program championing the female voice features two works highlighting male singers culled from Canzona’s 16-member ensemble: tenor Aaron Hutton, who performs Bembo’s Anima perfida; and baritone John Anderson who will sing the solo part during Caccini’s Non sò se quel sorriso.

“It’s important to remember that not all music by women is about the feminine perspective, and that it can be just as universal as a work by J.S. Bach or Handel in terms of speaking to the human condition,” Allan says. “Women sing music by men all the time, and I wanted to highlight that this program isn’t necessarily ‘about’ women, but is about love and the humanities.

“We’re not trying to be exclusive in any way, but are simply trying to narrow the gap between these two perspectives that are often portrayed in classical music.”

The elephant in the room, of course, is whether it should be necessary to create programs comprising all-female composers in the 21st century, which raises the profile of works perhaps not otherwise heard, but also risks “ghettoizing” female artists in a quasi-quota system.

Many pundits will argue it’s simply not necessary, or even desirable, to program along gender lines, often spouting the line of defence: “Music is music.”

“It’s a first step, and once these works are better known, maybe it won’t be such a big deal to have women composers of the baroque featured on the same program as other more well-known baroque male composers,” says Allan, who is uniquely equipped to speak to these issues as an acclaimed composer in her own right. Her own latest choral work will receive its world première during Prairie Voices’s March 14 concert In the Family — 20th Anniversary Celebration! at Knox United Church.

“When concerts don’t include female composers, they’re not including a full picture of a human expression of living. Women have very different experiences based on their backgrounds in all the senses of the word, and particular life experiences that are inherently female,” Allan says. “There are different perspectives that women bring to the table; however, saying that they’re strictly feminine takes away something that is innately human about these equally deserving artists.

“When we take only a male perspective and call that the whole picture as a program, just because they’re the most established or most famous or most well-trained composers, then we are missing out on half the population’s experience. There’s a good chance that the other half also has a lot to say, and it’s critical that those voices be heard as well.”

holly.harris@shaw.ca