Many rewards in Tafelmusik’s multimedia show
Safe Haven (out of 4) Repeats Jan. 19, 20 and 21 at Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. tafelmusik.org or 416-964-6337
It is so much more satisfying to experience a lesson than to simply be told about it. That’s the soul-lifting upshot of seeing and hearing Safe Haven, Tafelmusik Orchestra’s latest multimedia show, unveiled on Thursday night at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.
The show’s premise is simple: to demonstrate to us through words, music and projected images how refugees have, for hundreds of years, improved the cultures that have welcomed them into their midst. Tafelmusik bassist Alison Mackay’s assembly of the music, narratives and images (with the help of videographer Rava Javanfar) into a tidy, twohour presentation including intermission is anything but simple, but the complexity of the puzzle is hidden by the seamlessness of its execution.
Members of the Tafelmusik Orchestra, who play on European instruments from the 17th and 18th centuries, were in excellent form under their new musical director, Elisa Citterio. She was nothing short of dazzling in her solo work in the “Winter” movement from Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. This old chestnut was as crisp and bracing as a sunny January morning in Toronto.
On a sad note, violinist Patricia Ahern had slipped on ice and fractured her wrist. She was replaced by music director emerita Jeanne Lamon, who shared the stage Thursday with her successor for the first time.
We heard a lot of other works from the Baroque era over the course of the evening, all reflecting, echoing or illustrating the great migrations of refugees from religious persecution in England (the Protestants were in, the Catholics were out); France (the Catholics were in, the Protestants were out) and Spain (where Jews and Muslims were no longer welcome). The plight of the Roma also came up in both the narrative and music as we saw how the refugees brought their esthetics, arts and crafts to their host countries.
But Safe Haven does not stop with the Baroque era, as the European slave trade displaced peoples from all over Europe’s new colonies in Africa. Mackay invited Malian musician Diely Mori Tounkara to play the kora, a 21-stringed instrument that is a sort of cross between a lute and a harp.
She also invited Persian percussionist Naghmeh Farahmand to contribute her tremendous talents to the concert.
The colonial powers may not have appreciated the music and instruments of their new properties, but we certainly can. Rather than let these non-European artists only showcase their talents on their own — we were treated to mesmerizing solos by both — Tounkara and Farahmand were also included in music performed by the whole orchestra, to beautiful effect.
We saw, heard and felt what it was like to have people from completely different traditions come together with a common purpose to do what musicians do best: entertain.
Vocalist Maryem Tollar also acted as narrator for the evening, gently tying together all the strands into a neat and compelling package.
It was hard not to shake one’s head and laugh as she described the reaction of Londoners to the influx of Protestant Huguenots from France in the late 1680s.
The English were upset by the strange headdresses the women wore, they didn’t like hearing a foreign language being spoken in public and they worried that these refugees would take their jobs. Sound familiar? There are daily performances of Safe Haven until Sunday afternoon at Trinity-St Paul’s Centre. There is an additional performance on Jan. 23 at George Weston Recital Hall in North York. You can go for the excellent music, or for the compelling story about loss of homeland and redemption in the welcoming arms of strangers.
Or you can go just so you can leave the concert with a big smile on your face. Classical music writer John Terauds is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.