Editorial

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“My obligation is to serve the music, not to profit from it, to get more credit than its creator." These words from November’s cover artist, violinist Gidon Kremer, echo La Scena Musicale’s philosophy in promoting music and the arts. For the last fourteen-and-a-half years, our non-profit charity has made music accessible through the power of the written word, reaching over nine million people in print and millions more online. As we enter the final month of our Endowment Fund Campaign, we urge you to help us reach our goal of raising $100,000 by November 27; each dollar raised will be matched with an additional $1.50 by the Quebec Placement Culture program, making a $250,000 fund that will help us continue our work. See Joseph Rouleau’s letter of support on page 56.

Kremer’s philosophy also serves as sage advice for musicians and students, especially in our annual Higher Education issue, which will include our annual Guide to Higher Music Education, how-to articles and higher education news.

How do we get more people involved in music? One answer is through amateur choirs. We talked to Mary-Jane Puiu, conductor of the McGill Choral Society, and Simon Fournier of the Opera Bouffe de Québec to discover the secret formulas that work.

Our jam-packed issue also includes a homage to Otto Joachim, a conversation with Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins, reviews of Robert Lepage’s Das Rheingold at the Metropolitan Opera, and Opéra de Montréal’s upcoming Roberto Devereux. Our Mahler series continues with an analysis of the composer’s Kindertotenlieder. Parents will enjoy our music and arts previews for Les coups de théâtre, International Festival of the Arts for Young Audiences. To round things off, there is plenty to enjoy in our regular features: the new Classical Music 101 and El Sistema columns as well as the Jazz, Reviews, and Concert Calendar and Previews sections.

And don’t forget: subscribers receive a complimentary Discovery CD (in collaboration with XXI Records) each month—we meet violinist Vladimir Landsman, who won the 1966 Montreal International Music Competition.

Last month, thanks to our team of volunteer translators, we launched our new English-only and French-only electronic editions to allow readers access to all the texts in their language of choice. This marks an important new step in advancing our mission to promote music and the arts. Please visit our award-winning website SCENA.org for the September and October issues. We are looking for more volunteer translators for this project. If you would like to help, please email cv(at)scena.org

On behalf of the La Scena team, have a great musical November!