For Immediate Release: January 12, 2015
TAPESTRY
35th Anniversary Season
presents
SONGBOOK V
Saturday, January 24, 2015
One Performance Only!
Tapestry presents SONGBOOK V, an opera aria and scene concert, featuring beautiful, absurd, and tragic selections from Tapestry’s award-winning 35-year history, starring internationally-acclaimed baritone Peter McGillivray, alongside virtuosic pianist Steven Philcox.
SONGBOOK V is a limited engagement, with one exclusive performance on Saturday, January 24, 2015, at the Ernest Balmer Studio in The Distillery Historic District, followed by a post-show reception.
SONGBOOK V showcases Canada’s vibrant, emerging performers from Tapestry’s New Opera 101 program, alongside acclaimed baritone Peter McGillivray, performing excerpts from Tapestry’s unique 35-year-old Canadian opera collection. These vital and rare selections have been crafted and curated over three decades from Tapestry’s LibLab, Briefs, Opera2Go, and main stage productions.
“We are very excited to work with this group of talented young artists and inspire them with a daring and provocative repertoire written in our own generation,” said Michael Mori, Artistic Director of Tapestry, recently named one of “Ten to Watch in 2015” by the Toronto Star.
SONGBOOK V repertoire will include highlights from works including: The Perfect Screw (Abigail Richardson/Alexis Diamond), a cheeky comedy about a woman in search of the perfect screw—a Robertson or a Philips; The Shadow (Omar Daniel/Alex Poch-Goldin), a melodrama where a mailman disguises himself as a suave bachelor at the turn of 20th century Barcelona; “In this World, George is Heartbroken” (Lembit Beecher/Hannah Moscovitch), a psychological exploration of the demented imagination of a middle aged couple paralyzed in routine; and Noor over Afghan (Christiaan Venter/Anusree Roy), a story of a woman who, upon discovering her terminal illness, begs her sister to take her place at the altar as she flees on her own wedding day.
Award-winning baritone Peter McGillivray leapt to international attention in 2005 by winning top prizes both at the Montreal International Musical Competition and the Queen Sonja Competition in Oslo, Norway. This past season, Peter was featured on opera stages from coast to coast including Opéra de Québec, Manitoba Opera, Saskatoon Symphony, Edmonton Opera and Vancouver Opera.
For Tapestry, McGillivray appeared in the world premiere of Juliet Palmer and Julie Salverson’s Shelter in 2012 with Edmonton Opera, and the world premiere of Andrew Staniland’s Dark Star Requiem as part of the 2010 Luminato Festival in Toronto.
Making his Tapestry debut in SONGBOOK V is the highly respected and lauded collaborator, pianist Steven Philcox. Steven is one of Canada’s finest collaborators and has performed with renowned singers including Richard Margison, Isabel Bayrakdarian and Measha Brueggergosman.
Steven has spent seven seasons as vocal coach, répétiteur, and assistant conductor with the Canadian Opera Company, where he also made his conducting debut in 2006. Steven is also the faculty head of the collaborative piano department at the University of Toronto.
Tapestry is committed to defining the future of opera with stories that both reflect and comment on the present day, with a language and style that is both familiar and surprising. Tapestry will go further and push harder to explore new worlds of sound that ignite the imaginations of artists, championing and consolidating a Canadian repertoire for the world stage.
TAPESTRY
35th Anniversary Season
presents
SONGBOOK V
Peter McGillivray, Baritone
Steven Philcox, Piano
January 24, 2015 at 8pm
Ernest Balmer Studio, Studio 315,
9 Trinity Street, Distillery Historic District
All Tickets $25 and include post-show reception
To purchase online visit https://tapestryopera.com/SongbookV
or call 416.537.6066
