On Saturday, February 2nd, the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra (PSO) will present “Classical Roots”, a concert at Showplace Performance Centre featuring celebrated Canadian cellist Stéphane Tétreault.

Classical Roots will take the audience through Romantic and contemporary music that is strongly influenced by music of the past, with Stéphane Tétreault performing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra. The concert will also feature Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. and Marjan Mozetich’s Steps to Ecstasy.

Stéphane Tétreault holds a Master’s Degree in Music Performance from the University of Montreal and was a student of the late cellist and conductor Yuli Turovsky for more than 10 years.

Stéphane recently received the 2018 Maureen Forrester Next Generation Award in recognition of “his sensitivities with music, his enviable technique, and his considerable communication skills.” This is only the second time the medallion has been awarded. He was the first ever Soloist-in-Residence of the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, and has played with the Philadelphia and London Philharmonic Orchestras.

“Stéphane Tétreault is one of the most exciting young soloists to emerge from Canada in recent years,” says PSO Music Director & Conductor, Michael Newnham. “Comments about Mr. Tétreault’s marriage of technique and passion have come our way. We are very fortunate to be able to present him with the PSO in February with one of the gems of the Romantic cello repertoire, Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme.”

While regarded as the composer representing the apogee of the 19th century Romantic period (circa 1830 to 1900), Tchaikovsky possessed a deep affection for music of the 18th century Classical period (circa 1750 to 1830) — particularly that of Mozart and Haydn, the former of whom Tchaikovsky referred to as a “musical Christ.”

Uniquely, however, the theme in Variations on a Rococo Theme does not actually emulate the musical style of the Rococo period but is more a nostalgic declaration to it.

“When you hear the theme played, you get the impression,” says Stéphane. “A Rococo tapestry is extremely detailed, a Rococo carving is defined, and that is translated itself to music: phrases are shorter, they round up as a Rococo detail would.

“Thereafter, as the variations progress, we get more and more into what Tchaikovsky’s voice was (still with a classical influence): heart on sleeve, openly expressing emotion — extremely dramatic, touching, moving.”

Following a short orchestral introduction, a solo cello states the theme. Stéphane will be playing the 1707 “Countess of Stainlein, Ex-Paganini” Stradivarius cello, once owned by Nicolò Paganini and most recently by Bernard Greenhouse.

It was originally purchased and loaned to Stéphane by benefactor and patron of the arts Jacqueline Desmarais, who passed away March 2018 at the age of 89, and is now on generous loan by her daughter Mrs. Sophie Desmarais.

AUDIO: “Variations on a Rococo Theme – Variation III : Andante sostenuto” by Tchaikovsky performed by Stéphane Tétreault

Valued at $6 million, it is not the monetary value that makes this cello so important to Stéphane but, rather, its unique character and easy personality.

“It has its own soul,” he says. “At some point they develop that … it has been in the hands of many great cellists.”

He says he is “thankful” that it is not temperamental, but very understanding, as these instruments can be hard to get to answer or react to temperature or humidity. While he states that it is not a difficult cello to play, the key is to get its sound out as naturally as possible.

“Its open rich tone projects really well in a hall, so there is no need to force out the sound,” Stéphane says. “It sounds pretty, naturally.”

The performance of Tchaikovsky’s work will be complemented by Brahms’ invigorating Symphony No. 2, which Maestro Newnham describes as “one of the most serene and beautiful symphonies that I know.”

“This a brilliant pairing of two great Romantic works,” Stéphane adds. “Brahms’ work is a huge adventure, heartbreaking. They do work well together given that Tchaikovsky’s is a huge celebration at the end — a compare and contrast.”

Concert ticket holders are invited to attend “Meet the Maestro,” a popular behind-the-music pre-concert talk with Maestro Newnham at 6:40 p.m. in the Showplace theatre.

Concert tickets for Classical Roots are $20, $39 and $49 for adults, and $10 for students. Tickets are available at the Showplace box office (290 George St. N, Peterborough), by phone at 705-742-7469, or online at showplace.org.

This story has been written by Susan Oliver on behalf of the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra.

Every Thursday, we publish live music and performance events at pubs and clubs in Peterborough and The Kawarthas based on information that venues provide to us directly or post on their website or social media channels. Here are the listings for the week of Thursday, January 17 to Wednesday, January 23.

If you’re a pub or club owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our Nightlife Editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com.

On Thursday, January 17th, The Theatre on King (TTOK) in downtown Peterborough presents its first drama of the year with French Dadaist playwright Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes’ The Mute Canary.

Written in 1919, The Mute Canary is directed by Ryan Kerr and performed by Matt Gilbert, Kate Story, and Dan Smith. A study in the difference between sex and power, the play — despite being written a century ago — eerily shadows the current political crisis in the U.S., making this show an extremely thought-provoking and relevant drama.

Little is known about the origins of The Mute Canary. Director Ryan Kerr discovered this odd piece of drama in a collection of Ribemont-Dessaignes’ works, including his other dramas The Emperor of China (1916) and The Executioner of Peru (1928).

A writer and artist, Ribemont-Dessaignes was a key player in the Paris Dada movement, and The Mute Canary has been called a high point in the Dadaists’ contribution to the theatre. The Dada movement, which developed in reaction to World War I, consisted of avant-garde artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society.

Described by Ryan as being Ribermont-Dessignes’ most “linear” productions, The Mute Canary is a show that is clearly ahead of its time, and deals with themes such as the battle between masculinity and femininity, xenophobia, misogyny, empty politics, feminism, hypersexuality, and the fragility of art and beauty. Yet the big surprise is that, while bleak, the play has a farcical quality that actually leaves the audience laughing.

Matt Gilbert plays Riquet and Kate Story plays his wife Barate. It’s unclear who these two characters are, but it’s clear what motivates them. Riquet is obsessed with politics and conflict, while Barate is hungry for sex.

Riquet goes hunting for an afternoon, leaving Barate at home. The two spend much of the play soliloquizing their individual thoughts on both world and sexual politics. Things come to a surreal climax when Barate comes across a strange composer named Ochre (Dan Smith) who arrives with a strange caged bird — a canary that cannot sing. As Barate becomes seduced by the tragic beauty of art, Riquet’s lust for conflict and destruction threatens to destroy the fragile world that has been created on stage.

When Ryan Kerr decided to stage The Mute Canary, there’s no way he could have predicted the current U.S. government shutdown and Donald Trump’s current rhetoric about the border wall. With the current American crisis so prevalent in our world news today, The Mute Canary — and especially Matt Gilbert’s performance as Riquet — becomes a relevant piece of political theatre that satirizes the current U.S. president and the political crisis he has created. The play suggests that, although we like to believe our society has evolved, perhaps it hasn’t at all.

Sitting high on his perch overlooking the theatre, Matt Gilbert monologues empty politics with a false sense of importance. Armed with a gun, he is all-knowing and all-seeing but without any clear vision of the reality around him. Repugnant, arrogant, and foolish, he is intolerant towards allies and colonists, expresses hatred for the Turks, and chooses power and conflict over love and beauty and hatred over knowledge. Although expressed in an eloquent and poetic manner, Matt Gilbert’s lines read like Republican rhetoric and a cutting satire of President Trump.

Kate Story also gives an interesting performance as Barate, Riquet’s neglected wife. As Kate said after the performance, Riquet’s and Barate’s motivations are pretty clear: if Riquet wants to hunt, Barate just wants to have sex.

But Kate’s piece is interesting for a number of reasons, especially when put in context of the time the play was written. As a dominant female character who speaks intelligently and bluntly about female sexuality, the role of Barate would have been risqué when performed one hundred years ago. Today, the character feels fresh and modern, making Barate a feminist decades before feminism. Kate also brings a great sense of physical comedy to the piece with her whimsical performance and wonderful moments where she showcases her ability as a dancer.

Dan Smith gives a strange yet oddly endearing performance as the composer Ochre. A parody of real-life French composer Charles Gournod, Ochre (along with his mute canary) becomes a symbol of art, beauty, and fulfillment. However, despite his attempt to bring a sense of sensitivity to the world, it becomes questionable if Ochre’s beauty and art has a place in a society filled with rampant toxicity.

Once again, real-life modern parallels come into view with the fragility of artistic institutions in a political climate where irrationality seems to rule over reason. But, with Dan Smith’s signature brand of comedic timing and performance, Ochre also manages to bring some surreal laughs to the show.

The Mute Canary is a thought-provoking piece of political and social commentary, presented at the perfect moment in time to generate discussion. If this show were presented two months ago, it would have had a very different impact on the audience and, and if presented two months from now, the impact could change again.

But most of all, get ready to laugh. While it contains some heavy-handed material and is somewhat bleak, The Mute Canary is also a very funny piece of theatre. In a world that never ceases to be absurd, it is interesting to see how society is still concerned with the same issues one hundred years later.

The Mute Canary runs from Thursday, January 17th to Saturday, January 19th, with performances starting at 8 p.m. Admission is $15 at the door (or pay what you can).

From Thursday, January 24th to Sunday, January 27th, the 2019 ReFrame Film Festival returns to downtown Peterborough, marking its fifteenth year of presenting engaging and inspiring documentaries from filmmakers across the world.

This year, 70 films are being screened along with panels, filmmaker talks, and other events at Market Hall, Showplace, and The Venue with additional related events at The Theatre on King.

“Documentaries are having a resurgence,” says ReFrame’s creative director Amy Siegel. “We are seeing platforms like Netflix and other streaming sites featuring documentaries, and we’re seeing huge box office revenues from some documentary films.”

A filmmaker and working artist with her MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University, Amy relocated to Peterborough from Toronto last August to take over programming of the festival from departing festival director Krista English.

Since the summer Amy and a dedicated team of volunteers, including festival director Jay Adams and technical coordinator Lester Alfonso, have spent hundreds of hours of reviewing films to create this year’s program.

“It was an amazing gift to become a part of the ReFrame family, because they’ve been doing this for so many years and have had so much community support that it’s an absolutely pleasure,” Amy says. “I’m also grateful for the vision and perseverance of Krista English for the fifteen years that she spent at ReFrame. This is her first year away from it, and I am absolutely in awe of what she did with this organization. It’s a real honour to now be a part of it in its current form.”

Fifteen years for any small city film festival is an impressive feat, but with documentaries being such a niche genre, this anniversary mark is truly special for Reframe — especially as it continues to thrive stronger and bigger than ever before.

“I think the Peterborough community is very invested in what’s happening in the world, and what’s happening in their own community,” says Amy of Peterborough’s relationship with ReFrame. “When you think about the environment or gender issues or music and the arts, these are happening in a microcosm here, but it’s a reflection of what’s happening in the world, and being able to bring those stories here … people really connect to them on a personal level.

“ReFrame is also so community focused and community supported. When you look at programs from past years, as well as this year, for a lot of the films you’ll see the community sponsors. That’s an amazing system that has been developed here where the community and the filmmakers and the organization are all helping to lift each other up, and provide platforms for each other, which is so unique.”

With 70 films in this year’s festival, this is the most ever featured at ReFrame.

“We had hundreds of submissions and it was hard to choose,” Amy recalls. “We have an amazing group of volunteer programmers who are part of the programming committee and they watched hundreds of hours of films, mostly over the summer, which is an investment in itself. Then we got together and discussed the films and themes and how they might fit together, and we built the program from there.”

Although it is impossible to see all of the films over the course of the festival, a comprehensive list of the films are available at the ReFrame website and on kawarthaNOW.

While all of the films screening at ReFrame are special to Amy and her staff, here are a few highlights:

Youth Unstoppable

Director – Slater Jewell-Kemker
Thursday January 24th at Showplace Performance Centre. Film starts at 7:30 p.m.

The opening film of the weekend, Youth Unstoppable was created over a decade by local filmmaker Slater Jewell-Kemker.

Youth Unstoppable is a front-line look at the global youth climate movement. Jewell-Kemker began filming her documentary at the age of 15 while still a student at at PCVS in Peterborough.

VIDEO: “Youth Unstoppable” Trailer

“I’m really excited that we are showing this film,” Amy says. “It’s moments like this, as a programmer, that I get excited because we can feature a film by someone who grew up in this community, has been working diligently as a filmmaker and as an activist, and will be able to share that with not just her peers but the broader Peterborough community.”

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

Director – Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, & Edward Burtynsky
Friday January 25 at Showplace Performance Centre. Film starts at 7:30 p.m.

One of the most important documentaries on the festival circuit today, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch has won multiple awards thus far, including Best Canadian Documentary from the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award and, most recently, The Toronto Film Critics Association’s Best Homegrown Film Award.

Attending the ReFrame screening will be drone operator Jim Panou and locations manager Mike Reid.

VIDEO: “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” Trailer

“We are excited to be screening Anthropocene, which is a very big film right now,” Amy says. “The film is broadly about human’s impact on the earth. Everything from mining to poaching to the oil and gas industry. The film is made in a very artful and beautiful way, which is interesting to see as an audience member because it’s often very difficult imagery.

“But it’s presented in a very aesthetically beautiful way. It goes across the world and presents very different aspects of environmental devastation but presents it in a really unique way. It’s beautiful. Everyone should see it.”

The Rest I Make Up

Director – Michelle Memran
Saturday January 26 at Showplace Performance Centre. Film starts at 5 p.m.

An intimate look at the life of award-winning playwright Maria Irene Fornes, The Rest I Make Up looks at the declining years of a faded New York theatrical icon and celebrates not only her past, but the spirit of creativity and the bond between herself and filmmaker Michelle Memran.

“The Rest I Make Up is a really special movie,” Amy says. “It’s about an aging actress who had a flourishing career in New York in the 1960s and 1970s, but when the filmmaker meets her she’s living by herself in a small apartment.

VIDEO: “The Rest I Make Up” Trailer

“She and the filmmaker form this really beautiful friendship that really shines in the film and becomes really tangible, so you just don’t just see the incredible and vivacious woman Maria is today, but you get to learn about this incredible life she lived in the past as well as her ideas about art and writing and theatre.”

Inventing Tomorrow

Director – Laura Nix
Saturday January 26 at Showplace Performance Centre. Film starts at 12:15 p.m.

Inventing Tomorrow follows six teenage inventors from Indonesia, India, Mexico, and Hawaii who travel to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair — the largest gathering of high school science students in the world — to solve environmental problems in their own community.

“Inventing Tomorrow features teenagers from across the world who are working on science projects to help their own communities, and they come together to compete at the world’s biggest science fair,” Amy says.

“It’s amazing to see these young people who care so deeply about where they live and how they come together to help and become part of the dialogue.”

VIDEO: “Inventing Tomorrow” Official Trailer

Postings From Home

Director – Kelly O’Brien
Saturday January 26th at Market Hall. Film starts at 2:45 p.m.

Documentaries don’t necessarily have to be presented as films. That’s the case with Postings From Home, performed live by filmmaker Kelly O’Brien, who combines social media postings with the traditional family slideshow of years gone by to create a humorous and poignant portrait of motherhood during the current political and environmental crisis.

“Postings From Home is not a traditional documentary,” Amy says. “It’s a live performance that is made by filmmaker Kelly O’Brien and it’s more of a family slide show. She’s taken a lot of social media posts that she’s made over the years and has strung them together to make an intimate narrative about her personal life: her family, her children, her insights into the world.

“She has two very eloquent daughters who have very quirky and funny insights, and she speaks beautifully about her family and her children, about disability and the environment, about the political impact of our leaders. She kind of weaves them all together into this performance and brings the audience in. It’s really not to be missed. It’s also really nice to weave in live performance into a documentary context and she does that seamlessly.”

The Woman Who Loves Giraffes

Director – Alison Reid
Saturday January 26th at Showplace Performance Centre. Film starts at 7:30 p.m.

The Woman Who Loves Giraffes takes a look at the life of Dr. Anne Innis Dragg, who became the first person to study animal behaviour in the wild when she took a solo trip to South Africa in 1956 to study giraffes.

Facing alarming sexual prejudice from the scientific community upon her return, Dr. Dragg’s experiences helped solidify her role as a feminist activist. Dr Dragg will be also be attending the ReFrame screening of the film.

VIDEO: “The Woman Who Loves Giraffes” – Official Trailer

“Dr. Dragg has had a wonderful career studying animals in the wild, even before Jane Goodall,” Amy says. “The film follows her life as she gets blocked from the university because of gender. She becomes a gender activist and then she lives her life and falls away from academia and zoology.

“But the giraffe people of the world find her, and she starts writing again and becomes part of the scientific community again. We are excited to have her coming to ReFrame.”

Last Beer at the Pig’s Ear

Director – Peter Blow
Sunday January 27th at Showplace Performance Centre. Film starts at 7 p.m.

For the final presentation of the festival, ReFrame closes with Peter Blows’s emotional tribute to one of Peterborough’s oldest and most celebrated institutions, The Pig’s Ear Tavern. Closing its doors in 2017 after 152 years, “The Piggy” was a local institution for musicians, drinkers, and local thrill seekers.

A place that resides in the heart of the community, its closure is so recent that we can still taste the pickled eggs in our memory. This is a perfect film to close ReFrame and is sure to be one the community will want to see.

“Music and film collide in our closing night film, which is the Last Beer at the Pig’s Ear,” Amy says. “It features so many recognizable musicians and so many local characters and it’s really fun. I think it’s going to be a really joyful and uplifting way to end the festival.

“It’s so wonderful when filmmakers and musicians and bar owners are all together and you end up having this beautiful documentary of this tavern that the community fostered.”

This is only a small selection of the massive body of films playing at ReFrame, and I encourage you to take the time to look and read about the many films at reframefilmfestival.ca.

It will be a busy weekend for film-goers, with no shortage of fascinating and engaging films to see. Festival passes are $60 ($50 for students and the under waged), and include access to all films from Friday to Sunday. Single-day passes are also available for $25 each. Tickets for opening night on Thursday are sold separately and cost $15 per person ($10 for festival pass holders).

Tickets and passes are available online at reframe.tickit.ca. They can also be purchased in person (cash only) in Peterborough at the GreenUP Store (378 Aylmer St. N., 705-745-3238) and Watson & Lou (383 Water St., 705-775-7568), in Lakefield at Happenstance Books & Yarns (44 Queen St., 705-652-7535) and in Millbrook at Pastry Peddler (17 King St. E., 705-932-7333).