************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** Classical Sites Happy days are here again. The Toronto Symphony has begun selling single tickets. The last couple years I've been trying to take advantage of all the cultural things Toronto has to offer. I figure there's a reason why I'm paying Toronto rent. If I had no need for easy subway access to Roy Thompson Hall, I might as well live in Mississauga. I don't have much of a background in classical music. Someone tried to teach me violin one summer in grade 10. I couldn't get my mind around a stringed instrument without frets. I think a big reason I like to go to the symphony is because it's a chance to dress up. Working in the software industry there's rarely a need to wear shirts and ties. A couple years ago I tried to see just the hits: the 9th, the Brandenburg concertos, Holst's The Planets. Last year I undertook an effort to broaden my classical music experience. I got tickets to a lot of concerts for composer I had never really heard of like Bruckner (a guy who wrote very long symphonies) and Sibelius (a Fin who should have written much longer symphonies). Okay you may have heard of these guys but I'm from Windsor. So cut me some slack. I found a good way to enjoy a concert was to buy a CD with the piece, listen to it about fourteen times before the concert, then listen to it again after the concert. Doing some research on the net (ah yes, the point of this column), is another nice way to flesh out a concert. Knowing that Beethoven wrote his seventh symphony to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon adds a critical dimension to the music. Toronto Symphony Orchestra www.tso.on.ca Your first stop is naturally the TSO's home page. A search engine lets you find up coming concerts based on such things as composer, guest musicians, or conductor. I never miss a concert guest conducted by the Winnipeg Symphony's maestro Bramwell Tovey. He's a witty fellow. If you're looking for a concert on a special night, you can use an interactive calendar. The page's main weakness is the lack of an electronic ticket ordering system and detailed biographical and educational materials. TSO Musicians www.tsomusicians.com Although the orchestra plays as one, it's comprised of seventy- some distinct personalities. When you attend as many concerts as I do (sometimes three a month), you begin to notice little snippets of the person behind the instrument sneak through. Once, after a particularly sizzling performance given by guest violinist Kyoko Takezawa, I saw principle second violinist Sonia Jun snatch the sweaty chin cloth Takezawa left on the conductor's podium. She stared at it for a brief moment with awe and then excitedly clutched it to her body as if she had just caught a World Series wining home run ball. The TSO Musicians page attempts to hang some flesh on the wood and brass. You get pictures, biographies, links to the musicians' home pages, and non-TSO related musical projects the various artists are involved in. Unfortunately, many of the biographies are all too brief and few of the musicians have listed their homepages. It would be nice to have some sort of FAQ filled with information about what the life of a professional musician is like. What time do they have to wake up in the morning? How many black dresses does a female musician have to own? Do the musicians all hang out together like the cast of Friends? There is a pretty interesting section on the TSO's January '99 Florida tour. We can only hope there will be something similar offered for the musicians' up coming European tour. The Toronto Symphony OrCATstra www.globalserve.net/~danieldomb/tscats.html TSO cellist Daniel Domb has scanned in the photos of the various cats owned by TSO musicians. It's one of those too rare cute peaks into the lives of musicians who I've come to revere over the last couple years. They clean litterboxes like normal human beings. Imagine. The Classical Music Website www.hnh.com When I started going to the TSO I didn't know the difference between an Allegro (Italian for "tap your feet") and an Adagio (Italian for "time to read your program"). I thought they were just names of Italian restaurants. The Classical Music Website offers an amazing array of easy to understand material for the culturally impaired under its Educational Content link.