sweet Sinfonia

It might be a bit late for Valentine's Day, but Sinfonia Toronto is still feeling lovey-dovey with their 'Con Amore' concert, taking place Friday at Grace Church on the HIll.

Toronto's best-kept chamber music-secret will be playing a concert featuring the works of Mozart, Bach Canadian Ernest MacMillan, as well as a little-heard instrumental work by operatic great Verdi.
With such a widely varied program, one has to wonder about the dots connecting such wildly diverse pieces.

Mary-Elizabeth Brown is Concermaster of Sinfonia Toronto and an accomplished violinst who will be performing Bach's Violin Concerto in A Minor.

She says Artistic Director and conductor Nurhan Arman "does a brilliant job of putting together well-balanced programs. (The pieces) are very much audience-friendly, very accessible. You don't have to be a really educated classical listener to go."

"It's a looking-toward-the-spring," Arman comments, "The Mozart is so lively and the Bach is one of the masterpieces of the Baroque period."

As to the interesting addition of Verdi, Nurhan notes, " it's not often performed. Somehow, it gets neglected -but then, it's very difficult as well."

The Bach Concerto in which Brown will be a featured soloist holds special memories for the player.

"I played it for first time when I was ten or eleven. Coming back to it as an adult is a really interesting experience. In the interim -roughly fourteen or fifteen years -I've had the chance to work with some really accomplished Baroque specialists and accomplished modern violinists."

Brown notes the piece presents "some interesting challenges. It's fun to be able to find a balance between Baroque performance practise and modern violin-playing. I'm learning to find a way to play that pays respect and homage to the origins of the music but also takes into consideration we are in the twenty-first century, playing a modern instrument."

"I have a feeling it will be a terrific performance," Arman says with enthusiasm, "Mary-Beth is an intelligent musician and outstanding player but also she is very..."

He trails off, laughing.

"For one thing, she has a rock and roll background!", he exclaims gleefully, "did she tell you that? She plays in a rock band!"

Certainly it's no surprise, considering that Brown already has a resume that reads like an encyclopaedia of musical accomplishment: a Master's of Music (from Universite de Montreal), award and grant recipient from, among a large list, the University of Toronto, the City of London, and the American Suzuki Foundation, soloing in masterclasses with Lorand Fenyes and Pinchas Zuckerman (to name a few), playing under conductors Lorin Maazel, Benjamin Zander, and Placido Domingo (again, just a partial list), and working with the Orford Quartet, the Gryphon Trio -plus many more.

Arman laughs, figuring the rock and roll addition is a natural addition.

"She's really a stage person," he notes in somewhat evuncular tones, "she feels comfortable onstage and with me, with her colleagues in the orchestra. It's all about communicating, and the audience feels that -they feel it the moment the electricity arrives."

This "electric" quality reaches across musical experience, background, race, and that other barrier some might view with suspicion.

"Good music is good music regardless of age," Brown says firmly when asked about traditional attitudes in the classical-music-world toward someone of her age and experience, "sometimes being young is a wonderful asset, because there's so much you can learn. Being able to work with conductors of all different nationalities, every different background, at such a young age... it's influenced my growth as a musician. I take away countless lessons through every project and every orchestra."

Arman notes the narrow box classical music often gets placed in popular culture, that "media tries to portray it as a museum thing".

"But," he notes, "we are of course a museum, in a way, and we are proud to be part of it. Masterpieces that are written are part of our civilization, but we still have to be relvant to today's music, so (Sinfonia Toronto) always performs work that is homemade. For instance, this concert on Friday has a piece written in Toronto by Sir Ernest MacMillan. It's based on Canadian folk songs -French Canadian folk songs -and it remains relevant."

Brown notes the smaller size of the Chamber music group makes works "more accessible for an audience. The Sinfonia Toronto audience is very warm, very supportive, and they have a chance to experience a really wide range of repertoire. This particular Chamber orchestra combination really runs the entire gamut -from early (music) to recently composed."

She pauses, lost in thoughts of small-versus-large orchestra comparisons.

"I think that in some ways, while it may not have the massive impact of a full symphony orchestra, there's an impact that comes from the individual energy of the symphony players. There is this incredible energy that gets exchanged with just fourteen or fifteen of us onstage."

In her first season as Concertmaster, Brown says she's learned a lot from the group, and from her conductor.

"It's been a wonderful season so far. I feel incredibly lucky to be there, because my colleagues are just fantastic and Nurhan is a wonderful conductor to work with. He has this wonderful balance of the insight that comes with a really great musical grounding -and a really terrific background - combined with the patience it takes to fine-tune things. And he has a very clear concept in his own mind of what he's going after. I've learned a lot from him."

Arman says there is a close relationship between musicians in such a small group.

"We all depend on each other. It's a totally different form of artistic creativity in a group like this because we work on every note within the time limits we have. Everything has to be there. In a 100-piece orchestra, if someone drops a few notes, nobody will notice. If we do it, everyone will know."

"So," he says carefully, "everybody has to be playing like a soloist."

Sinfonia Toronto perform at Grace-Church On the Hill Friday, March 7th at 8pm.

For more information, including special student rates, go to www.sinfoniatoronto.com, or check their Myspace and Facebook pages.