Gregory Oh

This just dropped. When I read about this piece in an article by George Lewis, I immediately listened to this great recording by John Davis. I am blown away by this work. It is powerful, incredibly intense and feels like it could have been written today. It was written by a 14-year old blind virtuoso pianist in the 1860s who was a slave.

I’m pretty excited to be programming again! Harbourfront has always been one of my favourite areas of Toronto and I love the beauty and unique vibe that the Music Garden has brought to the lakeshore.

Press release below:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Summer Music in the Garden Welcomes Curator Gregory Oh

Harbourfront Centre opens a new chapter for landmark outdoor concert series

Toronto, ON, August 23, 2021 Harbourfront Centre‘s beloved music series Summer Music in the Garden welcomes genre-defying new music revolutionary Gregory Oh as its new curator for the 2022 season. The award-winning pianist, Dora-nominated music director and conductor takes the helm of this landmark summer event beginning September 2021.

“We are delighted to announce that Gregory Oh is the new Curator for Summer Music in the Garden, succeeding founding Artistic Director Tamara Bernstein. Gregory is an acclaimed Toronto-based pianist, conductor and curator with a remarkably versatile career and a deep curiosity for music programming that is relevant to today’s audiences. We look forward to Gregory’s dynamic vision and our return to the Garden in summer 2022.” “ Nathalie Bonjour, Director Performing Arts, Harbourfront Centre.

Just released this new recording of Steve Reich’s Piano Quartet on Bandcamp! With NEXUS and Midori Koga.

The piano sounds pretty good for all of its multiple broken strings and the fact that it hasn\’t felt the loving touch of a tuner for longer than Toronto has been under lockdown (a very long time). For you gear nerds, I used a pair of Line Audio CM4s – I think they sound amazing for the price. Love what Alex Samaras did with this (we recorded virtually). New tune by Juliet Palmer with text by Richard Sanger.

A fun time shooting the sh*t with a good friend, Dr. Richard Marsella. Forgot to post this when it came out, so enjoy!

So Russell Hartenberger (from NEXUS) just dropped off the latest NEXUS CD, which includes our recording of Steve Reich\’s Quartet, which we made a few years back with Bob Becker and Midori Koga, with Ray Dillard at the board.

He also dropped off a copy of his new book, the Cambridge Companion to Rhythm, where I am quoted:

So this was a good day!

I’ve been going through old recordings and thinking about new projects. I’ve always wanted to record this work, as well as Vivier’s Shiraz. Turns out I actually will be recording Shiraz in June 2021, so maybe I should try to squeeze this piece in as well. This is a live version from the Music Gallery, recorded by Paul Hodge.

I really loved talking to Emilie LeBel and James O\’Callaghan in this interview for NYO Canada. Not only have they written really wonderful music and sounds, but they really got me thinking about some important issues in a very clear way. What is classical music? How should we be approaching music education? What is the path to becoming a composer? Check it out!

Some great stuff here by this year\’s cohort of PIVOT composers.

Ep 2 featured Seeking Congruency by Carlie Howell.

Also Coloured-in Black and White by Joseph Chiu.

One interesting this about this recording – with the sudden (less than 24 hrs notice) change in COVID regulations, our two days of recording got smushed into one. Then the hard drive got corrupted, and…well, it was due to everyone being really good at their job that we got takes of everything.

Ep 3 features Snowmelt by Liam Gibson

and King of Chlorophyll by Kim Farris-Manning. In the latter, I got to do a lot of singing, humming and muttering. Also my first time playing the strings with magnetic tape.

Here are some great pieces by the participants of the PIVOT composer workshop, a joint venture of Continuum and the Canadian League of Composers.

Always a pleasure to play with Carol Fujino and Paul Widner.

Round 1: Trios by Sointu Aalto and Kevin Gironnay. Cool thing about Kevin\’s piece – the actual notes of the piece are uniquely generated with each performance.