From the Editor

Version française...

Dear reader,

On the eve of La Scena Musicale’s 20^th season beginning in September, I look back with pride on our accomplishments: in numbers, we’ve published 206 issues, many with separate English and French editions, listed 100,000 concerts and reached 11.5 million Canadians. We have helped make a new generation of musicians into household names, including this season’s cover artists Jean-Willy Kunz, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Stéphane Tétreault, Kiya Tabassian, the Alcan String Quartet, Ensemble Caprice and this month’s cover, Mathieu Lussier.

One of our proudest achievements was the creation of our website scena.org, at the dawn of the Internet, back in 1996. With meager means but an innovative idea, by 2000, the website became a destination for classical music news and the searchable Canadian Classical Music Calendar, winning global awards from Chamber Music America and Le Monde. Recently, the site’s 15-year-old technology was showing its age, crashing with too much traffic, and needing an overhaul.

I’m pleased to announce that the Canada Periodical Fund has just approved a financial contribution to rebuild the site with new technology and the ability for visitors to have their own customized page, scena.org 2.0 if you will. This funding covers only Phase I of our rebuild, slated for a launch in September. For us, a new website needs do more than improve the look and performance. We plan to further expand the site in Phase II to offer tools for artists and organizations to better connect the arts to art lovers and consumers; the site would help build a new community for music and the arts. For this reason, we are launching our 2015 fundraising campaign with a capital goal to fund this new component.

The new website is part of a menu of exciting projects (including a Mentorship Program and The Next Great Art Song contest) that will see us through our 20^th anniversary celebration in fall 2016. However, in order for LSM to continue as a dynamic organization for another 20 years, we need to have continuity in our team, and the second priority for our 2015 fundraising campaign is increase staff wages.

Canada Periodical Fund’s support is confirmation of La Scena Musicale’s positive impact on the Canadian arts community. I invite you to contribute to our success with a donation, joining renowned artists like LSM Ambassador Denys Arcand. In fact, Arcand has graciously agreed to headline the next event in our 2015 fundraising, a benefit conference with music on May 3, revealing his secret passion for Gretry’s Zémire and Azor, the operatic treatment of the Beauty and the Beast legend (an opera he will stage with Mathieu Lussier and Les Violons du Roy; see article here). Soprano Florie Valiquette will perform two of the opera’s celebrated arias. Your purchase of our VIP, regular and student tickets (www.lascena.ca) will help.

Please enjoy the rest of this special issue on Voice.