k.d. lang Makes Luminato Fans Yell “Hallelujah!”

Hallelujah, what a voice!

I think k.d. lang could coax music out of a rock. Watching and hearing her coax and tease each note from a quiet, tender song, and then belt out a ballad with such pure voice and power, you start to wonder if there’s anything, musically, that she can’t do. I admit, though, that my own favourite moment in last night’s free concert for Toronto’s Luminato arts festival was when Ms. lang sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

I confess that I’ve always disliked that song, feeling like it was melodically kind of boring. But when lang did it on her “Hymns of the 49th Parallel” album, all of that changed. For me, it typifies how she puts her whole soul into a song, pulling every nuance of meaning and emotion from it and sharing it with the audience. I stood in David Pecuat Square, downtown, under the stars with several thousand others, and listened literally in tears.

Once a year, for ten days, Luminato fills Toronto with art, music, and literature. Some of the events in other venues can get pricey, but the festival makes sure that there are plenty of free events too, so no arts lover is left out. And clearly, they  don’t skimp at all, even for events that are free. From Halifax alternative band, The Joel Plaskett Emergency, to Arabic fusion with Yemen Blues and the Sultans of String, to k.d. lang last night, the concerts at David Pecaut Square have been of the best quality — and the greatest fun.

The American band, the Belle Brigade,  who are currently supporting lang on her tour, got us all warmed up with some great folk rock music. But of course the square was primarily  packed with fans of lang’s music, and every one of us responded to her the same way. We swayed to “Hallelujah,” and we clapped and danced to the more lively songs, pulled by lang’s personality and artistry into what felt like an intimate circle of friends. (As she remarked at one point, “Many of you, especially of the female persuasion, may feel yourself drawn toward the stage. I want you to know…this is normal.”)

And when lang and her band, the Siss Boom Bang, burst into a hard rock version of “Constant Craving” (which had been released in a more country style originally), that was the crown of the evening for me. To combine one of my favourite k.d. lang songs with my love of hard rock, well, it made the night perfect. And again — musically speaking, there’s apparently nothing she can’t do.

Even the weather cooperated, being warm but not oppressive. And after the concert, everyone seemed relaxed and fulfilled, strolling and chatting along the streets on the way to their cars or public transit. This great festival is almost over for another year, with just this weekend remaining. But Ms. lang and the Siss Boom Bang made sure that it’s going out with a bang indeed.

Can I get a “Hallelujah?”

 

Trifecta – Guitar-lovers get a Triple Treat

Pavlo, Rik Emmett, Oscar Lopez

Those of us who love the guitar experienced a triple treat recently at Koerner Hall, at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music. Three guitarists who are known for their music in different styles – the Latin musician, Oscar Lopez, Rik Emmett of hard rock fame, and Pavlo the Mediterranean guitarist – came together in a concert in support of their marvelous album, Trifecta. And to say it was a magical evening is an understatement.

The album itself had been an experiment in combining styles that have their own distinct flavours to see how well they could mesh. While Latin and Mediterranean music may sound similar and work more organically together, could they then be successfully combined with a rock ‘n’ roll sound? These three musicians gave us a living demonstration that they can.

There is something about watching master craftsmen at work that is just riveting. It didn’t matter what type of music these men were playing: their hands and fingers moved with such ease and control along those strings that you could almost believe the guitars were mere extensions of their own bodies. And they could coax divine sounds from them with the mere flick of a couple of fingers and the fine movements of a guitar pick.

Koerner Hall

The rock element was somewhat toned down, with the Latin and Mediterranean sound often predominating, as Emmett provided background rhythm and power chords during Pavlo’s or Lopez’s complex finger work. But the guitar leads of a hard rock band are swift and intricate, so Emmett was perfectly equipped whenever he soared into the same heady realms as his counterparts.

The atmosphere of the concert was warm and almost cozy, partly due to the genius of Koerner Hall itself. It’s arranged so that nobody is that far from the main stage. And the warm colours and soft woods around the stage and beamed across the high ceiling guarantees an intimate sound. Pavlo remarked that he’d been to Koerner hall soon after it opened last year, and immediately thought, “This is where we have to play!” He turned to us in the audience and said, “Isn’t this the perfect place for this concert?”

The musicians have been touring, off and on, since January, so they obviously know each other very well by now. Lopez often got the others laughing, and there was a lot of entertaining banter back and forth. At one point, Pavlo and Lopez goaded Emmett into getting up and demonstrating the patented “pelvic thrust” which, he explained, “every rocker has to learn at rock school.” Some of their giddiness might have stemmed from the fact that this was the final concert of their long tour. But the three musicians seemed genuinely relaxed and enjoying each other’s company.

At these moments, we in the audience felt as though we were part of a big family just hanging out and amusing ourselves. But each time these three guitarists got back down to business and began to play again, we were lifted to another realm entirely. A realm of brilliant skill and exquisite music that left us breathless.

 

The Orchid Ensemble at the Toronto Music Garden: a Perfect Fusion

Han Dynasty lament and the Willow Tree

It was a very typical Toronto sort of concert event, complete with beautiful setting, exquisite music, airplanes, and condos.

We sat in the curved, broadly stepped amphitheatre of the Toronto Music Garden, surrounded by lush greenery, listening to the Orchid Ensemble playing a Chinese-modern fusion of music from different regions of the Silk Road. A perfect cultural setting. And to the right, beyond the border of high trees surrounding the Music Garden – several condo buildings lining the busy downtown street outside. To the left, the dock for several sailboats along the shores of Lake Ontario – and the Island airport, from which the sound of occasional helicopters and small planes punctuated the music.

Greenery, music, and condos

Yet none of this detracted in the least from the experience. I’ve been to several Music Garden concerts now, and somehow the Silk Road music, the musical instruments, and the beauty of the garden blended into a natural fusion. The concert began with a perfect rendering of “Hujia,” a lament from the Han Dynasty of the third century BCE, and the huge weeping willow tree serving as a backdrop for the ensemble seemed to sway its trailing tendrils along to the haunting Chinese melody. And that mood of unity wafted over the audience and kept us riveted for the entire hour.

Some people ate supper there, having brought containers of sushi, vegetable wraps or burritos, or perhaps a small pizza picked up on the way. The audience was just as diverse: people of Asian heritage sat cross-legged beside those from the Caribbean. I reminded the man beside me (whose family obviously came from India) not to forget his cell phone on the grass. And the two Caucasian women behind me discussed whether they should some day try to visit the Calgary Stampede.

Erhu

The instruments were primarily Chinese: Lan Tung’s erhu, a two-stringed fiddle with a sound box held on the lap and a long neck held upright, and the zheng, a flat, 21-stringed instrument lying on a stand in front of Haiqiong Deng, who plucked the strings with her fingers. But Jonathan Bernard played a marimba, using padded mallets, and added several drums and assorted gongs, bells, and other small percussion instruments.

The ensemble used music from their current CD, Road to Kashgar, to take us to several stops along the Silk Road. We heard a Mongolian folk song at one point, a Bengali song at another, and even an Ashkenazi song in tribute to the Jewish community that settled in central China in the tenth century.

This was a multicultural tour of that mystical ancient trade route, played by a multicultural musical ensemble in multicultural Toronto. All that would have been missing, as essential parts of Toronto, would have been the downtown condos and the sounds of the Islands. But we had those too. No wonder it all fit together with such perfection.

The Orchid Ensemble