About a year and a half ago, I fell completely in love with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir – a team of Canadian ice dancers. In light of their gold medal victory, I feel completely justified as many of my friends have expressed their awe after watching them. Personally, I also find it hard NOT to love them – I mean, they’ve skated together since they were 7 and 9, it’s obvious that there’s a lot of love and joy in their skating, they’re skilled, beautiful to watch and after meeting them at Skate Canada, I can say that they are wonderfully congenial people. In any case, let’s recap what they did at the Olympics, how they won gold and what their win means in the grander scheme of things. (more…)

Waking up in the morning is always an ordeal for me. Seeing that I sleep at 3 or 4 in the morning, nothing is harder than dragging yourself out of bed at 8:30 to get to your 10AM class. To make the process of waking up easier, my iPod docking station is always there to wake me up with lovely tunes at the proper time. Admittedly, my favourite music to wake up to has to be the music from Carmen – even if it is overused figure skating music. (Also, yes, I have opera on my iPod, go ostracize me if you dare.)

Anyways, tonight, I had the wonderful fortune of getting one of the rare tickets to the Carmen dress rehearsal staged by the Canadian Opera Company. (My source of dress rehearsal opera tickets told me that they were completely sold out.) Tickets for the regular shows – on from January 27th to February 27th -  may also be sold out, but if you’re interested and perhaps lucky you can purchase tickets on the Canadian Opera Company website.

As for the show itself, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The orchestra and sets were very impressive (my favourite set being the one from Act II where the gypsies are in front of an inn) and the cast, although rather large was charismatic and fun to watch. Rinat Shaham – who played the title character – had the misfortune of stumbling upon this reviewer (who is, admittedly, an opera newbie) whose standard Carmen is the legendary Maria Callas, who has no equal; however, she held her own for most of the performance. The unfortunate corporal, Don José performed by Bryan Hymel was well cast and delivered a steady and touching performance. Songs by the two gypsy girls, played by Teiya Kasahara and Lauren Segal were also highly entertaining and formed some of the best parts of the opera.

My special mentions however, will go to Jessica Muirhead, who played the innocent Micaela with so much commitment and passion that she sent shivers up my spine when she was pleading with Don José to return to his mother. Another special mention will be sent to the youth or children’s chorus who displayed a kind of professionalism that was beyond their age.

All in all, it was a lovely evening of beautiful music, interesting choreography and a wonderful opera. I highly doubt that Carmen needs any more advertising as it is, but if you do get a chance, I encourage you to see it.

Picture by the Canadian Opera Company.

“Oh, bless their souls, they’re using dial-up!” I exclaim as I watch You’ve Got Mail, but if we really put this into perspective, our generation has experienced a rapid change in the technology we use in our daily lives in the last two decades. This is a bit of an ambitious blog, so please don’t get huffy if I miss anything. (more…)

In my honest opinion, Saints Alive! is one of the best student productions I have ever seen! I laughed almost the entire time and the music was stuck in my head even after the performance. The performers were so talented and, in, addition to acting, sung marvelously as well. Each actor had his or her own unique quirkiness and charm. The piano accompaniment was solid and lively and the musical numbers were choreographed well; not a single note was off tune (to me, anyway, the tone-deaf girl).

The actors were so well versed in their dialogue, as any actor should be, I kept thinking to myself, How could they possibly remember all those lines and lyrics? They pulled off such a grandiose play with ease.

I was impressed by (more…)

Earthcycle, also known as Environment Week, is coming up at U of T from September 21st to 26th. With over 25 things to see and do — all incorporating the theme of climate change and the environment — you might get overwhelmed with what you want to check out. Here are some of blogUT’s event picks for Earthcycle.

Workshops and Tours

Container Gardening Workshop
Thursday Sept. 24 from 1pm – 3pm @ International Student Centre Veranda

Learn about city gardening – grow your own food

Trinity College Green Roof Tour & Lunch
Wednesday Sept. 23 from 12pm – 2 pm @ St. Hilda’s College Residence

Students from Trinity College, the first University of Toronto signatory to the Presidents’ Climate Change Initiative, will provide a tour of their green roof and free lunch to visitors.

Food

Hot Yam vegan lunch
Thursday Sept. 24 from 12pm – 2 pm @ International Student Centre, Baldwin Room

A $4 vegan lunch by the Hot Yam! — a healthy environmental alternative to fast food and animal products.
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This was submitted by a reader, Anubha Momin:

Here comes September, and with it, tuition costs, book money, and empty wallets. As students, many can feel as though their money is stretched thin, that little is left for enjoyment and pleasure. An evening at the opera? Not possible… or is it? There are lots of ways to enjoy an evening of fine art, music, or dance in Toronto, but here are some of the city’s major institutions at some very minor price points.

Art Gallery of Ontario
A stunning building in and of itself, the new Frank Gehry-fied gallery houses more than 79,000 works and hosts a changing set of exhibitions.
Cost: FREE Wednesday nights from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Website: http://www.ago.net/hours-admission

Canadian Opera Company
The largest Canadian producer of opera in the country’s largest city, the COC offers world-class performances out of the Four Seasons Performing Art Centre. The 2009/10 season includes opera classics like Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Bizet’s Carmen.
Cost: COC’s Opera for a New Age provides a limited number of tickets for most shows at $20 each for anyone under the age of 30. Book early for the best availability.
Website: http://www.coc.ca/PerformancesAndTickets/Under30/OperaforaNewAgeTickets.aspx

Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
Alright, so this may not be a “major” institution, but you don’t have to travel beyond the campus walls to indulge your inner artiste. The Barnicke Gallery is constantly changing its exhibits, and staff are always available to walk you through their collections.
Cost: FREE for all, all the time. Take note of opening night festivities, where the free entrance includes beverages, fruit, and cheese. As an added bonus, the gallery is within Hart House, which boasts its own impressive collection of art work.
Website: http://www.jmbgallery.ca/exhibitions.html

National Ballet of Canada
Headlined by Tchaikovsky’s perennial favourites, Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, the National Ballet of Canada promises another stellar season of elegant, entertaining performances.
Cost: Anyone between the ages of 16 and 29 can register with DanceBreak in order to gain access to $20 tickets. DanceBreak tickets are purchasable online at midnight the day of performance.
Website: http://dancebreak.ca

Royal Ontario Museum
This fabulous attraction has been recently covered on blogUT, so I shall direct you to the post: http://www.blogut.ca/2009/08/02/travel-the-world-for-free.
Cost: FREE for post-secondary students on Tuesdays, half price for everyone Fridays from 4:30 pm to 9:30 pm.
Website: http://www.rom.on.ca/visit/tickets.php

If you have any other suggestions for enjoying Toronto’s cultural landscape, feel free to post them in the comments!

Both the Dave Holland Quintet and the Branford Marsalis Quartet could have easily sold out the MainStage space at the Toronto Jazz Festival had they each been the headliner act of their own show, so it’s a little strange that they should be shoved together in a double bill on Friday, July 3rd. Nevertheless, it’s hard to complain when you get to see that much talent and good music on display for the affordable price of $40 at the Toronto Jazz Festival, all in one night, even if the acoustics leave something to be desired.

The Dave Holland Quintet – Robin Eubanks on trombone, Steve Nelson on vibraphone, Chris Potter on alto/soprano sax, Nate Smith on drums, and Dave Holland on bass – opened the evening with a wonderful, energetic 75-minute set of original compositions from Holland’s albums. The set list included: “Step to It”, “Last Minute Man”, “Full Circle”, and “Lucky Seven”. The Dave Holland Quintet has a very eclectic sound, and at times, dissonant. Generally, this means there’s a lot going on at once, with Potter and Eubanks each carrying a bit of the melody – at the same time – and Nelson, Smith, and Holland sharing the rhythm sections. This tends to lead to a lot of complexity, and because of all the different instruments, each with what could be a standalone part, all together, gives you a rich variety of things to listen to. You can tune in and tune out of various different instruments, take your pick, and never be bored. Sometimes all this action leads to really rewarding and interesting dissonance and other times it ends up as just too busy. Sometimes I had trouble differentiating between the parts that Potter and Eubanks were playing, sometimes they blended together, and it felt like a bit too much mushiness. But the band really shone when its three stars took the stage with their solos: drummer Nate Smith, saxophonist Chris Potter, and bassist Dave Holland.

Drummer Nate Smith also played with Chris Potter in his “Underground” group at the Pilot on Monday, but it was in this concert with Holland where he really impressed me. Generally, when drummers take solos, they are so excited to finally be allowed to stray from just beat-keeping that they try to hit and bang as many drums and cymbals as possible in the smallest amount of time: this is their chance to make a lot of noise. But this approach lacks musicality; it’s just an unpleasant racket, the kind I usually can’t wait to stop. But Nate Smith, much like drumming greats Jack DeJohnette and Tony Williams, understands that less is more with drum solos. He hits a beat, he finds a rhythm to play with, and he lets the audience in on what he is doing. We can keep up, we can enjoy, and while it’s not “simple” it’s not overdone either: there’s music and clarity here. He also finds different pitches and tones to play with so that when his drum solo comes to an end, we can’t help but want more, or look forward to his next one. Smith is a great drummer and these are very, very few and far between.
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