Toronto Area Performances

Hi everyone,

I'm just back from a week in the Toronto area. My first performance was at the University of Guelph. After giving a guest lecture for the Music of the Near and Far East class, Parmela Attariwala and I gave an afternoon performance of a traditional tabla solo and LA, a contemporary piece by Canadian composer Robert Rosen.

Parmela Attariwala and Shawn Mativetsky performing at the University of Guelph. (Photo by Phil Musgrave)

That evening, I accompanied the extremely talented soprano, Zorana Sadiq in her Music-Toronto vocal recital at the Jane Mallet Theatre in Toronto (St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts). We premiered a new arrangement of Shirish Korde's Songs of Ecstacy, which was a big hit with the audience. (No photos, unfortunately.)

The next evening, Parmela and I performed in the Canadian Music Centre's New Music in New Places series, which took place at the Hamilton GO Station. This is the main public transportation hub for Hamilton, serving both bus and train commuters. Many people were quite surprised to see a performance of new music during their evening commute home! Many people sat down for the entire performance, while others stood around for a few minutes, waiting for their bus or train to arrive. It was certainly different to perform in such a milieu, but it was quite a successful event. Many audience members had never seen tabla, or heard contemporary/new music before, and Parmela and I both received many comments from audience members after the performance.

Performing at the Hamilton GO Station

The concert began with Christien Ledroit's Trade Winds, a concerto for tabla with electronics (some of you may remember that I performed the orchestral version of this piece just a couple of weeks ago), followed by Vintal Bolia, an improv-based piece by Parmela and myself. Next, was Parmela's solo violin composition, Piercing Embrace and Payton MacDonald's Alap, for solo tabla. We concluded the programme with two duo pieces - the premiere of Christien Ledroit's Never the Twain Shall Meet, followed by Robert Rosen's LA.

Christien Ledroit, who composed two of the pieces on the program, and who also organised the concert for the CMC, put in an exceptional effort in putting this concert together. He designed the programs, newspaper advertisements, and even built the stage! On the evening of the concert, we rushed to put together the stage, run the wiring for the speakers and mixer, and do the sound-check. In the end, it all came together, and the concert ran very smoothly. Congratulations to Chris for a very successful event!

This week, I'll be premiering Payton MacDonald's Samsara, a new concerto for tabla and wind ensemble with the McGill Chamber Wind Orchestra. More news to come...


Regards,
Shawn

Summer Tabla Workshop with Pandit Sharda Sahai

Dear friends,

I am happy to announce that the 26th Annual Summer Tabla Workshop with Pandit Sharda Sahai will take place in Montreal from June 22 to July 5, 2008 at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University.

Pt. Sharda Sahai will also perform a solo recital on June 22.

More details to come soon. If you are interested in participating, please contact me so that I can add you to the list of attendees. Tuition will be $600 (Canadian funds), with a $100 discount for early registration (before May 1). Dorm rooms are available at $40 per night (breakfast is included).

Regards,
Shawn

Windsor Canadian Music Festival

Hi everyone,

I just got back from a week in Windsor, Ontario where I performed as part of the Windsor Canadian Music Festival. There were a number of talented composers in residence for the week, invited by composer and artistic advisor of the series Brent Lee: Geof Holbrook, Christien Ledroit, Christopher McNamara, Francois Rose, and Andrew Staniland. Normally, a new music festival like this wouldn't be likely to have any tabla-related content, but this time around, there were two tabla pieces in the festival, which I performed: Christien Ledroit's Trade Winds (tabla concerto with orchestra) and Elementalities (trio for flute, vibraphone, and tabla).

Rehearsing with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, directed by Maestro John Morris Russell

First was the performance of Trade Winds with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra on Friday, Feb. 1. Aside from a pair of tabla, the piece also calls for an octave of Sabian Resonating Bells, a C gong, and a wind gong.

Performing Trade Winds with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra

(Photo credit: Windsor Star; used with permission.)

Next was the performance of Elementalities as part of the University of Windsor faculty concert on Feb. 2, with Jaimie Wagner (flute) and Nick Papador (vibraphone). It was really enjoyable for me to perform the piece with these two talented musicians.

Performance of Elementalities.

Both concerts were recorded by CBC for future broadcast on The Signal. Unfortunately, I don't know the broadcast dates right now.

Congratulations to the WSO and the WCMF for an extremely successful and well organised event. It's great to see new Canadian music being promoted so well.