Thursday, May 31, 2018

Theatre director Luciana Silvestre Fernandes returns to Halifax

Theatre director Luciana Silvestre Fernandes
Luciana Silvestre Fernandes is a theatre director who’s returning home to Halifax.

She’s here to participate in Neptune Theatre’s Chrysalis Project, which provides practical experience and mentorship to emerging artists within the structure of a professional theatre as well as exposure to the broader theatre community.

Luciana received the 2011 Canada Games Young Artist of Excellence Award in 2016. She was artistic director for Taboo Theatre as well as working with independent companies such as Villains Theatre, Child's Play and Doppler Effect. 

Luciana completed her undergrad education at Dalhousie University, then relocated to British Columbia to pursue her MFA in directing at UBC.

Her work “embraces the philosophy that artists are artisans of reality. In shaping how audiences perceive the world, we can shape how they interact with it. It is through our choices of representation, what we normalize and what we challenge, who we give a voice to, and what questions we deem worthy asking that we challenge unconscious or semi-conscious dogmas of our audiences”.

She brought this philosophy to her most recent work as director of French playwright Jean Anouilh's Antigone, a devised movement-based expressionist adaption of Sophocle's Classic titled Antigones, and Thomas Middleton's Jacobean era play A Yorkshire Tragedy.


Monday, May 28, 2018

Devin Huang and Alex Yang Shine Bright at the Kiwanis Music Festival

The Gala Recital for the 2018 Halifax Kiwanis Music Festival took place on May 5 at the Music Room in Halifax. Two Talent Trust scholarship recipients received accolades for Junior Piano.
Gordon Murray Rising Star winner Devin Huang and teacher Lynn Stolola
Devin Huang (pictured with his teacher Lynn Stodola) received the Adjudicator’s Recommendation to the 2018 Nova Scotia Kiwanis Music Festival for Junior Piano. 
He was last year’s recipient of the first ever Gordon Murray Rising Star Award. He captured first place in each of his seven piano repertoire classes, and received an unprecedented mark of 98 in his Chopin class. 
Devin’s achieved great things during the past year. He was one of the winners of the 2017/18 Chebucto Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, an honour which gave him the privilege of performing with the Orchestra on April 21, 2018.
2018 Gordon Murray Rising Star winner Alex Yang
Alex  (Zixuan) Yang received the 2018 Gordon Murray Rising Star Award, which was presented at the May 5 Kiwanis Music Festival  Gala.
Alex plays at the RCM level 7/8, and was named as the Alternate to Devin Huang for the Provincial Festival Recommendation in Junior Piano.
He was a Canadian Music Competition national finalist in 2017, were he also received an Honorable Mention in the Scholarship Competition for Junior Piano.
The Provincial Music Festival Competition dates are Friday June 1 and Saturday June 2, 2018. The Gala Concert will be held on Saturday June 2 at 7pm at Denton Hall Auditorium, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

This story was first published in our May newsletter. Subscribe to have all our monthly news delivered to your inbox!

Friday, May 25, 2018

An operatic Talent Trust reunion in La finta giardiniera on May 25 and 26

On May 25 and 26 at the Sir James Dunn Theatre in Halifax, Opera Nova Scotia presents La finta giardiniera, a story Mozart set to music for Munich at the age of 18. 

The cast of seven soloists, directed by David Overton, features four Talent Trust scholarship recipients


     

  • Top left: Lindsay Connolly as Cavalier Ramiro 
    (Portia White Award 2015)
  • Top right: Marcel d'Entremont as Don Anchise 
     (Portia White Award 2013) 
  • Bottom left: Jennifer Farrell as Arminda
    (Portia White Award 1999) 
  • Bottom right: Suzanne Rigden as Serpetta
    (Portia White Award 2007)

The title La finta giardiniera roughly translates into ‘the would-be, or supposed, (finta) gardener/gardener’s, girl (giardiniera)’, and we’re told a more nuanced translation contains spoilers.

The work is multifaceted, with shades of Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well and Much Ado About Nothing. It will be presented fully staged with orchestra: arias in Italian, narrative in English.

The performance begins at 7:00 p.m. on both evenings. 

For more information (and spoilers), visit the La finta giardiniera Facebook event page. 

For tickets, contact the Dalhousie Arts Centre box office.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Andrew Son Wins Atlantic Young Artist 2018 Competition


Andrew Son 2018 Atlantic Young Artist Competition winner
On April 21, five talented pianists from the Atlantic provinces participated in the 2018 Atlantic Young Artist Competition held at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. After recital programs of contrasting works, Andrew Son was declared the winner.

Andrew is currently in his first year at Dalhousie University, studying with Lynn Stodola. He plans to major in neuroscience while completing a minor in music.

He was recently awarded the Piano Rose Bowl in the 2018 Kiwanis Music Festival in Halifax. He represented Nova Scotia at the 2015 Canadian Federation of Music Teachers’ Association National Piano Competition in Vancouver.  As the Atlantic Young Artist for 2018, Andrew will complete a short concert tour of the Atlantic region in the fall.

The competition and tour are projects of the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers’ Associations and its provincial counterparts in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island. Instrumentalists between the ages of 16 and 25 and singers between 16 and 27 who are studying with a registered music teacher are eligible to enter. 

This story was first published in our May newsletter. Subscribe to have all our monthly news delivered to your inbox!

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Rachel Hastings in Art Attakkk - Three Short Plays for Kids by Halifax Theatre for Young People

Rachel Hastings is a member of the cast and creative team of Art Attakkk, three short plays inspired by original Nova Scotian art and written by Nova Scotian playwrights.

Rachel, a graduate of Dalhousie University's acting program, wrote and performed Red Fish, a comedy about the pitfalls of being a teenager in 2016, with her colleague Taylor Olson. The play originally appeared in Halifax's Fringe Fest and is currently touring in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Described as a “vibrant and fascinating mix of art and theatre”, Art Attakkk is a funny and endearing set of works that feature a hip hop musical, the story of an unexpected encounter at the art gallery, and a eulogy for a cat. 

The show “hits kids where they live and demonstrates that art and creativity can help us understand, accept, and express our emotions and connect with others. Ages 9-12”.

June 2, 11:00 a.m.
Tickets: $10.00
Neptune Theatre Scotiabank Stage

Tickets and Festival Passes can be purchased at the Neptune Theatre Box Office (telephone 902-429-7070), online, or in person at 1593 Argyle Street in Halifax.


Art Attakkk is a Halifax Theatre for Young People production, presented by Eastern Front Theatre as part of NextSTAGES Theatre Festival for Families.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Gina Burgess Presents an Exclusive Quintet Premiere at the Halifax Central Library


For this year's Obey Convention, Gina Burgess has created a new and unique piece which she will present at the Halifax Central Library. 

Gina is a four-time ECMA award winner with the gypsy-jazz outfit Gypsophilia, fronts her own klezmer band Der Heisser, is one fifth of the Iqaluit-based Arctic rock band The Jerry Cans, and is a regular collaborator in flamenco and Arabic music ensembles. 

Inspired by the minimalistic compositional tradition of Terry Riley and Steve Reich, Gina has also infused elements of traditional Inuit throat singing, poetry, trance, and Gregorian/Indian chant in her latest composition.

The quintet will feature Gina (violin) Susanne Brown (viola) Norm Adams (cello) Lukas Pierce (double bass) and Janice Jackson (voice).

The premiere will take place Halifax on Thursday, May 24 at the Paul O’Regan Hall at the Halifax Central Library. 


The show starts at 6pm. Admission is free.

Monday, May 21, 2018

Emily Doolittle and Wind Quintet International Present a Free Workshop on Her Latest Composition

Composer Emily Doolittle Halifax-born composer Emily Doolittle and Wind Quintet International will present a free workshop with Nova Scotian wind quintet Fifth Wind.

The workshop features Emily's new composition for the Forecasting the Canadian Wind project.

When & where:
Wednesday, May 23, 1:00 p.m. 
MacAloney Room (Room 406) 
Fountain School of the Performing Arts
Dalhousie University, Halifax

Emily grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia and attended Dalhousie University, Indiana University, Princeton University, and the Koninklijk Conservatorium in the Hague, where she studied with Louis Andriessen with the support a Fulbright fellowship. From 2008-2015 she was an Associate Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. She now lives in Glasgow, UK, where she is an Athenaeum Research Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

She's written for such ensembles as Orchestre Métropolitain (Montreal), Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (Toronto), Symphony Nova Scotia, the Vancouver Island Symphony, Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal, the Motion Ensemble and Paragon, and soloists such as sopranos Suzie LeBlanc, Janice Jackson, Patricia Green and Helen Pridmore, pianist Rachel Iwaasa, violinist Annette-Barbara Vogel, viola d'amorist Thomas Georgi and viola da gambist Karin Preslmayr.

For more information: https://windquintet.international/events/