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SOUNDSTREAMS TD ENCOUNTERS:

The Nigun: Marc Chagall, Aaron Copland, and James Rolfe
From Medieval Hasidic Judaism to the Present

Co-presented with Koffler Arts

Date: Tuesday, November 26th | 7:30pm
Location: Holy Blossom Temple, Mishkan Room (1950 Bathurst St, York, ON)
Featuring the Gryphon Trio (piano trio), Aviva Chernick (vocals), James Rolfe (composer)
FREE EVENT

Join Soundstreams in an exploration of the connections between art, music, and Jewish heritage through the vibrant cultural landscape of Vitebsk, Belarus—home to a celebrated art school founded there in 1918 by Marc Chagall and others including Wassily Kandinsky. While the school didn’t last, the legacy of Vitebsk lives on through music. Both Aaron Copland’s Vitebsk: A Study on a Jewish Theme, written 1928, and James Rolfe’s Metzarim, written 2024, were inspired by the form of the Hasidic nigun—originally a wordless melody and improvised prayer. Copland was inspired by one such melody he encountered listening to the incidental music which accompanied S. An-Sky’s play The Dybbuk, performed by the Yiddish Theatre in New York City in 1925. This Soundstreams TD Encounters will delve into the rich heritage of the nigun form and how it continues to inspire artists today.

Featuring the renowned Gryphon Trio, Annalee Patipatanakoon (violin), Roman Borys (cello), Jamie Parker (piano), performing Aaron Copland’s Vitebsk, alongside an excerpt from Canadian Jewish composer James Rolfe’s newest work Metzarim (Narrows), also featuring Aviva Chernick (vocals), the inaugural artist-in-residence at Beth Tzedec Synagogue. Following musical performances, composer James Rolfe will join our performers for a panel discussion and audience Q&A. 

Soundstreams’ TD Encounters event series are free and hosted in venues across the city. Always offering something different, they are equal parts performance, artist discussion, and Q&A, and give audiences the opportunity to engage with artists and their work in an intimate and accessible setting.

Seats are free but space is limited. We ask you to reserve your seat here.

This Soundstreams TD Encounters event is a companion event to Soundstream’s mainstage concert Invocations. Find out more and reserve your ticket here.

ARTIST BIOS

Aviva Chernick, vocals
As an award-winning singer, and teacher of voice and meditation, Aviva Chernick brings movement, song, and story to each and every offering. Aviva sings in Hebrew, Ladino, and English, and her soulful, soaring vocal sound arises from a training and aesthetic that desires to be unencumbered by any particular style. She was the first Canadian to be awarded a Virginia Folk Life apprenticeship to continue study with ‘American National Treasure’ and Sephardic musician Flory Jagoda whose music she celebrates in La Serena. As a founding member and lead singer of the Canadian World Music group Jaffa Road, and while leading her own ensembles, Aviva has toured across Canada, the United States, Israel, Brazil, and most recently, as a guest of the Canadian Ambassador to the UAE at Expo in Dubai. Aviva is also trained in the Cantorial Arts and as a meditation teacher through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She leads the meditation and singing community in Toronto called neySHEV.
Aviva’s solo and collaborative recordings have garnered nominations and awards including Canadian Folk Music Award (CFMA) nominations for her albums La Serena (2020) and When I Arrived You Were Already There (2012), JUNO nominations for both of Jaffa Road’s albums  Where The Light Gets In (2012) and Sun Place (2010), a CFMA Award for Where The Light Gets  In and a CFMA nomination for The Huppah Project’s Under the Canopy (2009).  Aviva and her co-writers from Jaffa Road won the John Lennon International Songwriting Contest Grand Prize for their rendition of “Lo Yisa Goy”, a prayer for peace. She was co-writer for “Ana El Na” which received an industry nod from OCFF (Ontario Council of Folk Festivals), winning the prestigious “Songs From the Heart” award.

Gryphon Trio:  
Roman Borys, cello  
Jamie Parker, piano  
Annalee Patipatanakoon, violin 
Violinist Annalee Patipatanakoon, cellist Roman Borys, and pianist Jamie Parker are creative innovators with an appetite for discovery and new ideas. They have commissioned over 85 new works, and they frequently collaborate with other artists on projects that push the boundaries of Classical music. The Trio tours regularly throughout North America and Europe. It enjoys longstanding relationships with prominent arts incubators and presenters like Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Orford Music Academy, Music Toronto, Ottawa Chamberfest, and Festival del Lago International Academy of Music in Ajijic, Mexico. Gryphon Trio often performs triple concerti with the world’s major symphony orchestras and smaller chamber orchestras. 

Gryphon Trio’s prolific recording catalogue includes 22 releases on Analekta, Naxos, and other labels; it is an encyclopaedia of works for the genre. Honours include 11 nominations and three Juno Awards for Classical Album of the Year in 2004, 2011, and most recently in 2019. In 2013, Canada Council for the Arts presented Gryphon Trio with the prestigious Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts. 

The Gryphons are deeply committed to community engagement, education, and the development of next-generation audiences and performers. They conduct masterclasses and workshops at universities and conservatories. They are ensemble-in-residence at the Isabel Bader Centre for Performing Arts in Kingston, Ontario, and artists-in-residence at Trinity College, University of Toronto. Since 2010, the Trio’s ground-breaking outreach program, Listen Up!, has inspired 16 Canadian communities to collaborate on large-scale multifaceted arts creation projects. The Trio leads Orford Music Academy’s Piano Trio Workshop and directs the Classical Music Summer Programs at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. From 2007 to 2020, Roman Borys was Artistic Director of the Ottawa Chamber Music Society; Annalee Patipatanakoon and Jamie Parker served as OCMS’ Artistic Advisors. Mr. Parker is the Rupert E. Edwards Chair in Piano Performance at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. Ms. Patipatanakoon is Associate Professor of Violin and Performance Area Chair of Strings. 

James Rolfe, composer
Toronto composer James Rolfe has been commissioned and performed by ensembles, orchestras, choirs, theatres, and opera companies in Canada, the USA, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. He has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, the K. M. Hunter Music Award, the Louis Applebaum Composers Award, the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, Choral Canada’s Outstanding Choral Work Award, and the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize. He holds composition degrees from Princeton University and from the University of Toronto, where he now serves as a composition instructor. He also works as a composer mentor.

Rolfe’s operas have been performed in Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver, Banff, Edmonton, and New York. Beatrice Chancy (1998, with librettist George Elliott Clarke) played to sold-out houses and rave reviews; The Overcoat (2018, with librettist and director Morris Panych) was premiered by Tapestry Opera with Canadian Stage and Vancouver Opera, and nominated for 10 Dora Awards. Among his other collaborators are writers André Alexis, Anna Chatterton, Luke Hathaway, Steven Heighton, Camyar Chai, Alex Poch-Goldin, Dennis Lee, and Sophie Herxheimer, and choreographer James Kudelka. His solo CDs raW (2011) and Breathe (2017, nominated for a JUNO Award) are available on Centrediscs; Wound Turned to Light (2023, a songbook setting contemporary Canadian poets) is available on Redshift Records.