The Annex-based Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) is respected nation-wide and even world-wide for their lessons and examinations, but if they keep up their current pace, they might become equally associated with the Grammy Awards.
For the second year in a row, the venerable Annex-based institution at 273 Bloor Street West is celebrating a Grammy nomination.
A group of musicians based out of the RCM, called Artists of the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARC), nabbed a Grammy nomination in the category of Best Chamber Music Performance for their recording called Right Through the Bone.
In addition, the producer of that recording, David Frost, a well known American classical music producer, is nominated in the category of classical producer of the year.
It’s becoming old hat for ARC who last year were also nominated in the same category (of Best Chamber Music Performance) for their recording titled On the Threshold of Hope: Chamber Music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Subsequently it was also nominated for a Juno Award.
Right Through the Bone will also no doubt be in consideration when this year’s Juno Award nominations are released Feb. 3.
Annex resident Simon Wynberg, the RCM’s artistic director who served as executive producer on both recordings, said just to be nominated is an honour.
“It’s actually easier to win if you’re nominated, then it is to be nominated,” he pointed out.
A nomination, he said, can be a tremendous help in putting a recording on the map, especially in terms of international exposure.
“People know what a Grammy is. It has a huge kind of marketing effect just in terms of the PR for a group.”
The same core of local musicians from ARC are on both albums, all but one of them currently living in Toronto, including: Steven Dann (viola) in East York; Erika Raum (violin) in Riverdale; Marie Berard (violin) in Parkdale; Dianne Werner (piano) in North Toronto; Ben Bowman (violin) just west of Riverdale in east Toronto; Joaquin Valdepenas (clarinet) and David Louie (piano) in North York; and Bryan Epperson (cello), east of the city.
They’ve had a hectic schedule this past year with performances in London, Rome, Budapest and Warsaw and capped off last month with their Kennedy Center debut in Washington as well as an engagement at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.
The two albums were recorded in the GTA, Right Through the Bone at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga and On the Threshold of Hope at North York’s George Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.
The Grammy nominations are a great way for ARC to kick off a high profile recording deal with Sony BMG, that is slated to include an upcoming third CD.
The recordings are widely available, as they are distributed on the RCA Red Seal label, one of the most prestigious classical labels and the home for a formidable array of artists including Jascha Heifetz, Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, Leopold Stokowski, Ben Heppner and Placido Domingo.
“We’ve tended to go for music which is not represented in the catalogue,” explained Wynberg.
Right Through the Bone, released in November 2007, features the chamber music of the neglected Dutch composer Julius Röntgen (1855-1932), whose influences included Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Edvard Grieg.
“In the case of Röntgen, I don’t think any of these pieces had been recorded – maybe one. But some of them had not even been performed before. It’s pretty well new material,” said Wynberg.
Röntgen’s cousin was Nobel prize-winner Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, the discoverer of x-rays. The title of the CD actually comes from a quote by composer Edvard Grieg who observed that unlike x-rays, Röntgen’s music went “right through the bone”.
“He wrote a lot of really amazing music which has just not been explored, certainly not in a big way,” said Wynberg. “We chose what we thought were some of the best of his works.”
While the composer may be obscure, Wynberg stressed that it’s accessible.
“The first CD we did (On the Threshold of Hope) was, in terms of the average classical listener or even the average music lover, it was perhaps a little more challenging for them than this CD (Right Through the Bone) which is really very accessible and instantly likable music. It’s like listening to Mendohlson or the Brahms that Brahms never wrote. That’s really what it’s like.
The first CD (On the Threshold of Hope) featured the chamber music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg who fled Nazi-occupied Warsaw in 1939 and spent most of his life in Moscow.
A lifelong friend and protégé of Dimitri Shostakovich, Weinberg is today considered one of the three most eminent Russian composers, along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
Dating from 1944 and 1945, the works recorded on the new CD have not been available on CD before.
As for the third CD, you can be sure ARC will continue their mission.
“It will definitely be music that needs a catalogue. And we’re just deciding on that right now,” said Wynberg.
The Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) returned to its Bloor Street home in the Annex earlier this fall after a two-year, $110 million redevelopment that will finally be complete with the opening of the state-of-the-art, 1,140-seat Koerner Concert Hall projected for “Sepember 2009.”
“That’s the star on top of the Christmas tree,” said Wynberg.
