When this happens, algorithms embedded within the Music Genome Project present users with similar types of music. Many Pandora subscribers discover new music when searching for a particular artist. This internet radio station relies on automated software. “Because of her, the Piaf show exists,” Topp says.Pandora radio differs in many ways from traditional stations. When Topp’s Piaf project was just starting, it was Reed who transcribed the bulk of the repertoire that numbers about 30 songs. Photo by Jean Levac / Postmediaįor the 20-plus years that Topp has been performing Piaf’s music, one of her collaborators has been Iona Reed, a Sudbury-based accordionist of international renown who won the World Accordion Championships in Prague in 1962. Sudbury vocalist Pandora Topp, who sings the music of Edith Piaf on Sunday in Ottawa with the Thirteen Strings chamber ensemble. “I’d be singing the words and crying all the time,” Topp says. She recalls that when she was a child, one of her favourite singer-songwriters was Chris de Burgh. Topp, who is also an actor and poet, says her own strengths include “storytelling, the ability to emote, and understand the narrative line.” It was imperfect and raunchy, but it had a life in it.” I went and found some of her music and was immediately captivated. “My mom said, ‘Do you know who Piaf is?’ and I said no, and she said, ‘She is the Janis Joplin of French music’ because of her life, which was filled with drugs and rock and roll, but at an earlier time,” Topp says. Topp, a 53-year-old, self-taught vocalist, says she was introduced to Piaf and her music when her mother suggested she consider the late chanteuse for that French class presentation. Topp and Thirteen Strings perform the music of Edith Piaf on Sunday in Ottawa. Kevin Mallon, music director of Thirteen Strings, left, and Sudbury vocalist Pandora Topp, right, at a June 8,m 2023 rehearsal. Piaf’s best-known songs include La Vie en rose, Non, je ne regrette rien, Hymne à l’amour and Padam Padam, all of which Topp is to perform with Thirteen Strings on Sunday. These and other works will put Topp’s renditions of Piaf in a historical, cultural context, says Mallon.īorn in 1915 in Paris, Piaf lived a hard life of just 47 years that was expressed through autobiographical songs about love, loss and sorrow. “I’m delighted that the concert is finally happening,” Mallon says.Īlso on the program will be works by the composers Gabriel Fauré and Camille Saint-Saëns, who preceded Piaf in the chronology of French music. But COVID-19 postponed that concert for three years. All of this happened before the pandemic, because Thirteen Strings and Topp were to have performed together in June 2020. Mallon was so committed to the idea that he spent almost two weeks at his computer creating arrangements of songs associated with Piaf for Thirteen Strings. But in this case, quirkiness could help Thirteen Strings attract new listeners at its season-closing concert Sunday, he says. After, he was determined to team up with Topp, whom he calls “a powerful force.”įor Thirteen Strings, covering Piaf is a bit “quirky,” Mallon says. Kevin Mallon, the artistic director of Thirteen Strings, heard Topp sing Piaf with her band at Southminster United Church in Old Ottawa South in the fall of 2018. “We’re coming together to do the highest art in the world, listening together, breathing together, playing together, evoking an atmosphere, a time, words and a story.” “My gosh, it’s such an honour and a rare, rare opportunity,” says Topp of the upcoming collaboration.Ī Jrehearsal by Kevin Mallon, music director of Thirteen Strings chamber ensemble, and Sudbury vocalist Pandora Topp, who sings the music of Edith Piaf on Sunday in Ottawa with Thirteen Strings. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |