Live concerts will resume on February 7 in Quebec. But this recovery at half capacity and for a maximum of 500 people will not take place without adaptations to the schedules initially planned.
It’s the “Chaconne et chocolat” evening of Happy Ideas at Bourgie Hall, which becomes, Tuesday, February 8, the concert of the musical revival. Music lovers who hoped to see harpsichordist Jean Rondeau and his Nevermind ensemble the next day in the same place will be disappointed. The Bourgie Hall line is clear: “Concerts with international artists scheduled for February are canceled or postponed to a later season”. We will therefore not see the Kings Singers or the Cuartetto Casals either. Management is assessing the situation for March and April and only confirms for the time being that “the maintenance of all concerts presented indoors from February 10 to April 21, 2022 with Canadian artists”, the concert of Janina Fialkowska being however also postponed. . The only concert organized by Arte Musica in February will therefore be The Doxas Brothers, on February 10. Bourgie Hall will host Pallade Musica for “Le Cercle de la Reine Christine” on February 11 and will only reopen on March 2 for a recital by Charles Richard-Hamelin.
Nearly two days
The date of February 7 falls badly for the OSM, which was to hold its big concert of the year on February 5, with the return of Zubin Mehta. The latter will come to Montreal and will record without an audience for webcasting what we will call for the moment “a program” rather than “his program”, as the new health and safety methods require to be integrated. It is the Frenchman Louis Langrée who will inaugurate the concerts with public, on February 9 and 10, with an unchanged program and, therefore, the 7and Symphony of Beethoven in the second part. Confirmation also of the arrival of Xian Zhang on February 16 and 17, concerts for which we are awaiting a final confirmation of the program.
At OM, Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct works by Isabelle Panneton, André Mathieu and Jean Sibelius on Friday 11 February. Another concert with the Symphonic dances by Rachmaninoff and a guest conductor is scheduled for February 27. At the Maison symphonique, again on February 13, Francis Choinière will conduct the Requiem by Fauré and Duruflé in version with organ at the head of the Ensemble vocal Arts-Québec.
I Musici is performing “Stéphane Tétreault and Yuli’s Legacy” on February 10 at Pierre-Mercure, a hall that will host the Orchester Classique de Montréal on February 15. Quasar and Le Vivier will program Heats by Walter Boudreau on February 18 at the Espace orange in the Wilder Building.
In Trois-Rivières, Jean-Claude Picard conducts “Un après-midi aux ballets” on February 13. In Quebec, the OSQ will resume on February 20 with the 5and Symphony by Tchaikovsky by the Estonian Anu Tali, but the Violons du Roy had to cancel the Passion according to Saint John by Bach, a project which, with choirs and soloists, at half capacity would lead to a dangerous deficit.