The All-New West End Micro Music Festival Presents: MOZART IS DEAD

Musicians and co-producers Brad Cherwin and Sebastian Ostertag today announced the West End Micro Music Festival (WEMMF) and the festival's inaugural concert series: MOZART IS DEAD. The 2021 WEMMF lineup includes three live concerts that explore distinct responses to the complex legacy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: rejection, ambivalence, and love. MOZART IS DEAD will feature the Interro Quartet, clarinetist Cherwin, violinist Emily Kruspe, singer and multi-disciplinary performer Hillary Jean Young, and electronic music duo Joyful Joyful, presented at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Toronto's West End. Concert series performances are scheduled for November 26, December 3, and December 10, 2021 each at 7:30 PM ET.

"The aim of the West End Micro Music Festival is to center community in the creation and performance of great music," says Cherwin. "We wanted to create an atmosphere where performers could take risks, and where audiences could witness bold art-making in real time. Audiences who seek out classical repertoire will be introduced to contemporary and non-classical music they might otherwise avoid, and adventurous audiences will be shown an expressive and exciting facet of traditional repertoire they may have initially thought was not for them.

It was also essential to have a festival roster that represents our community: By creating a new context for the performance of classical chamber music - one that frames the music of the past with the music of today and the character of our west-end Toronto neighbourhood - the festival provides new entry points into both making and enjoying art music."

Each concert can be purchased as a series, or individually. Tickets must be reserved in advance online here. Student tickets are free with valid ID at the door; single tickets are $20 and a full Festival Pass is $50. COVID-19 protocols for the venue will be followed. Masks for all attendees are required.

DEAD MOZART on November 26, 2021, features rebellious works for string quartet by Nicole Lizée and Norma Beecroft, two of Canada's most daring composers. Their compositions defy audience expectations of the string quartet, using whistling tubes, sheets of paper, and electronics to bring an 18th-century genre boldly into the modern world. These works will be placed in contrast with Mozart's Clarinet Quintet K581 featuring Interro Quartet and clarinetist Brad Cherwin.

#$*%! MOZART on December 3, 2021 will feature experimental and electronic music by visionary queer artists, Hillary Jean Young and Joyful Joyful. Employing a thicket of cables and effects that transform single voices into visceral, shimmering, and otherworldly choruses, these musicians explore the relationships between traditional, sacred, and avant garde music. Their creative practices conjure a nostalgia that is specific, earnest, and affecting, offering a contemporary rebuttal to the delicate refinement of the eighteenth century, and giving voice to their personal experiences.

LOVE MOZART will conclude the festival on December 10, 2021. This concert will use theatrical staging, memorization, and startling transitions to trace the musical lineage of Jean Francaix's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings. Evoking both Mozart's refined classicism and the angular modernism of Igor Stravinsky, the textures and colours of Francaix's quintet veil the sarcastic gestures and complex harmonies of the twentieth century that lurk beneath the piece's unassuming surface.

Community engagement with arts and non-arts organizations is also a key component of the WEMMF. Outreach performances will be offered to the student musicians at Sistema Toronto, and invitations will be extended for young musicians to attend rehearsals and performances. Partnering with restaurants that neighbour the festival venue, WEMMF will host a gathering at partner businesses after each performance.

The collaboration of artists and small businesses is a natural one, as both communities have been hard-hit by COVID-19. Social events built around the festival will spur conversation between the artists and audiences, and further anchor the festival in the specific character of the West-End community.

Festival tickets on sale now at: via website at www.westendmusic.ca and via Eventbrite.

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