http://www.thestar.com/Entertainment...article/599305 - pictures at link
LUMINATO
TheStar.com | Music | Neil Young's music at Massey Hall again
Neil Young's music at Massey Hall again
BARRIE WENTZELL FILE PHOTO/AP FILE PHOTO
At left, Neil Young performs in 1971, the year he played a legendary show at Massey Hall. Now the citys Luminato festival plans to recreate that Toronto show, by having Canadian stars gather at the hall and play all 17 songs, including such hits as "Helpless," "Old Man" and "Ohio." Email story
Old Man (MP3 audio clip) June festival plans a celebration of Young's fabled 1971 concert - listen at link above.
Mar 10, 2009 04:30 AM
Martin Knelman
ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST
The queue starts now for Wednesday, June 10, when Luminato presents a celebration of Neil Young's fabled 1971 concert at Massey Hall.
The venue need you ask? is the same sacred space where the original event took place 38 years ago on a cold mid-January night.
The one-show-only concert will be the second edition of Luminato's Canadian Songbook series, launched last year at Massey Hall.
The Neil Young event will be announced at a Luminato media conference today, the Star has learned, along with other attractions that will make up the music program in Year 3 of Toronto's annual festival of arts and creativity.
A more esoteric but equally exciting highlight will also be announced today. The Children's Crusade is a daring and ambitious new opera by veteran Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer about the doomed expedition of idealistic 13th century children who set out for the Holy Land, only to discover that the waters did not part for them the way they did in the Bible.
Details to be revealed today include the lineup of bands, singer-songwriters and guitarists who will perform all 17 of the songs Young sang at Massey Hall in 1971, including "Helpless" "Old Man" and "Ohio."
The organizers are hoping Young who returned to Massey Hall in 2007 will turn up on June 10, and perhaps even perform at least one of his own songs.
Who will be the performers paying tribute to him? Among the big names you can bet Luminato would try to entice are Robbie Robertson, Steven Page and k.d. lang.
In 1971, the gig marked Young's return to the city he had left behind five years earlier when he drove to Los Angeles and wound up as part of Buffalo Springfield and then joined Crosby, Stills & Nash.
There was supposed to be one performance only that night, but it was sold out weeks in advance, so a second was added. More than half the songs Young sang had not been recorded yet and were new to the audience; it was an emotional homecoming; and the acoustics of the hall gave it a special glow.
It took 26 years, but in 2007 a CD and DVD were issued, selling 11,000 copies in the first week and topping the charts in Canada.
The world premiere of The Children's Crusade, co-commissioned by Luminato and produced in association with Soundstreams Canada, will be staged at a non-traditional venue, a warehouse near the CNE grounds.
It will star Jacob Abrahamse, an 11-year-old Peterborough schoolboy. And instead of remaining in their seats, audience members will be encouraged to follow characters around.
A coup: The opera will be directed by Tim Albery, whose magnificent production of War and Peace thrilled audiences both at the Coliseum in London's West End and Toronto's Four Seasons Centre, ranking as easily the highlight of the Canadian Opera Company season so far.
This is the biggest venture in the brave history of Soundstreams, featuring more than 100 performers, including three choirs and an orchestra. It is also unusual because it brings together professional and amateur performers.
The production preceded by a September workshop costs about $500,000, and has funding from the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. Luminato has provided a showcase as well as a hefty investment.
According to The Children's Crusade composer Schafer who recently marked his 75th birthday and will receive a Governor General's Performing Arts award in May the story of disadvantaged kids hoping save the world through love rather than force is more relevant than ever today.
Unfortunately, the miracle they sought did not occur, and their crusade ended in disaster, with many children drowning and others sold into slavery. But Schafer offers a shred of hope: "Maybe they're in heaven now trying to lead us to a better ending," he says in an Internet promotion for the opera.
Neil Young
