Quantum of Amici: Twenty-five years of making music

Through its 24th season, the Amici Ensemble has stretched the limits of music; pairing its inspiration with food and fashion. In their 2011/2012 season finale performance, they incorporated artist Lavinia I. Voicu into the concert, having her paint live to the music. Much like her paintings, which were on display in the lobby, the musical programme was abstract and diverse.

On Sunday afternoon, Glenn Gould Studio became host to a professional photo-shoot as well as the Amici Ensemble’s feature concert, “Fashionista: Fashion as Art.” The unique theme featured elegant gowns by Rosemarie Umetsu, demonstrating what one can draw and create from such elaborate musical selections. First on the programme was Galina Ustvolskaya’s Trio for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano.

Through its 24th season, the Amici Ensemble has stretched the limits of music; pairing its inspiration with food and fashion. In their 2011/2012 season finale performance, they incorporated artist Lavinia I. Voicu into the concert, having her paint live to the music. Much like her paintings, which were on display in the lobby, the musical programme was abstract and diverse.

Amici’s unique Friday night performance entitled Critics’ Choice entertained requests from three notable music critics and connoisseurs from the greater Toronto area. It also featured a composition by Ezra John Pablo, a grade 12 student in the Claude Watson Arts Program at Earl Haig Secondary School.

They may have come out for the Mozart, but it is the boldly programmed Britten and Mazzoli that make this midwinter concert stand out. 

Francis Poulenc’s 1957 opera Dialogues des Carmélites has the virtues of necessity. Director Robert Carsten’s production puts these virtues before us in simple black and white. The virtues begin with the story: Blanche, an aristocrat afraid of the French Revolution who hopes to find refuge in a nunnery, becomes a refugee of religious persecution, and chooses to die a martyr with her sisters.