November 27, 2012
The SuburbanNovember 23, 2012
By Mike Cohen
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Luis Grinhauz makes no bones about it. The artist director of Musica Camerata Montreal, one of Canada’s foremost chamber music ensembles, is a great admirer of noted Canadian composer Steven Gellman. That will be evident at the first concert of their 43rd season on Sunday, December 2 (2 p.m.) at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts (5170 Cote St. Catherine).
Music Camerata’s “ Salute to the Jewish community” will see them perform pieces by the likes of Julius Chajes, Richard Danielpour, Solomon Rosowsky and Gellman. “I had planned on being there,” Gellman told The Suburban.. “But I have been called out of town on the same date.”
Born in Toronto in 1947, Gellman showed great musical talent at an early age. When he was 16 he appeared as soloist with the CBC Symphony Orchestra under Boyd Neel in his own Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. His studies took him to the Juilliard School in New York and the Paris Conservatoire, where he was awarded the Premier Prix.
“At the Juilliard I had a very thorough foundation in all subjects such that I was placed immediately into the third year of the curriculum,” Gellman explained. “Studying at Juilliard placed me in New York City and exposed me to a wider, more international world than I would have had in Toronto in the sixties. The exposure to the latest international music helped bring me up-to-date in musical developments.”
In 1970 Gellman won the UNESCO prize for “the best work by a composer under the age of 25,” for “Mythos” for flute and string quartet. Gellman’s expertise in the area of orchestral music triggered a commission from the Toronto Symphony to compose Awakening in 1983, a short concert overture moving from darkness to light, chaos to order, through a gradual accumulation of energy. That spring it was featured by the orchestra during a major tour throughout Europe. In 1986, the Toronto Symphony unveiled another newly commissioned Gellman opus, Universe Symphony. Since then he has composed a wide variety of works. One of them, Piano Quartet (commissioned by Radio Canada) received its world premiere on April 3, 2004 in Montreal, performed by Musica Camerata. They will showcase this again on December 2.
“I admire Camerata’s wonderful choices of music, which represent rarely heard great gems from the past and a very good representation of today's music, always carefully chosen for good quality,” Gellman said.
Gellman says he has always considered himself to be a composer first and teacher second, “so I tried to carve out enough time to compose during my tenure as a professor,” he remarked. “Most years I was able to schedule my teaching on three days each week. This resulted in very long and full days of teaching, but allowed me to devote myself to creating music for four days each week. Also, I was grateful that our university terms did not include summers and so I was free to devote myself to musical composition for another three months each summer.”
Gellman soon heads to Calgary, where he will be collaborating with La Caravan Dance Theatre on a new modern-dance/opera to be premiered there in January. Musica Camerata has devoted much of its energy to promoting the music of Canadian composers. Its repertoire includes more than 350 works from the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. On tour, they have given many concerts in Canada, the United States, Costa Rica and Argentina, always to high critical praise.
Besides Grinhauz, who also plays violin, other members of the ensemble are Berta Rosenohl (Grinhauz’s wife), piano; Lambert Chen, viola; Van Armenian, violin; and Sylvain Murray, cello. Other instrumentalists and singers are regularly invited for a more varied repertoire. They are now in residence for the third year at the Segal Centre, besides other venues in this city and touring in Quebec, Canada, USA and abroad. “Every concert we do is a unique event, presenting original masterpieces seldom heard,” says Grinhauz. “It is classical music inspired by Jewish spirit and tradition, following an evolution from the late 19th century to the present. The music is beautiful and that’s why we play it.”
The December 2 concert is sponsored by Barbara and Donald Seal. Camerata’s Chamber Music Concert: a Salute to the Jewish Community takes place on Sunday, December 2 (2 p.m.) at the Segal Centre for the Arts. Tickets are $30 general admission, $15 for students and $20 for seniors and those under 30. Info: 514-739-7944, www.segalcentre.org and www.camerata.ca.