From the Editor

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What better way to begin 2014 than with an issue dedicated to great pianists? The cover artist for this February/March issue is Canadian concert pianist extraordinaire Angela Hewitt; our interview with Denise Massé shines light on the work of accompanists and vocal coaches; and we present a feature on piano prodigies rom past to present, including a review of the new album from prodigy Daniel Clarke Bouchard. Watch for more piano features in our April-May issue, including a review of prodigy Karin Nagano’s new disc.

La Scena’s 17th annual summer music and arts camp guide includes a complete list of Canadian arts camps along with news and articles on the camp scene. Our series on great Quebec compositions continues.

This issue also covers the Opus Awards, and includes a profile of jazz bassist Michel Donato, recipient of the Homage Prize.

As it was for all arts organizations, last year was a financial challenge for La Scena Musicale; we were only able to weather the storm by cutting the annual production from 10 issues to seven, reducing the number of separate language editions, trimming the number of pages and reducing our staffing. Nevertheless, we finished the year in the black.

Thanks to a successful 2013 Endowment Fund campaign, we begin 2014 with optimism: we are returning to our original core strengths. La Scena Musicale will continue to be the reference for concert music, serving both music lovers and the music and arts industry, telling the stories of music-making and musicians, and helping make music accessible. In this issue, you will find more pages and more content. For our bilingual editions, this will mean more editorial content as we will publish fewer side-by-side translations. Full translations will now be the exclusive benefit of subscribers, and we hope you will now consider subscribing.

Our 2014 Fundraising Campaign begins with our fourth annual Singing Valentines Fundraiser featuring sopranos Mirjana Milovanovic, Chantal Parent and Janice Goodfellow, mezzos Kathrin Welte and Priscilla-Ann Tremblay, and tenor Wah Keung Chan. For a donation of $30 to $60, offer your loved ones a unique Valentine on February 14, a song sung by trained opera singers over the telephone. New songs such as Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon,” Mozart’s “Voi che sapete” have been added to the list that includes such favourites as “Mon Coeur s’ouvre à ta voix,” “Che gelida manina” and “My Funny Valentine.” Visit www.lascena.ca to see the list of singers, song list, listen to clips, and read the testimonials before you place your order at 514-948-2520 or don(at)lascena.ca. We also have tickets for sale to Opera de Montréal’s production of Turandot, and other items in our ongoing Online Auction.

On behalf of our dedicated team of staff and volunteers, I wish you a Happy 2014 and a Happy Year of the Horse.