Browsing: Choral

Author : (Eva Stone-Barney)

Canada boasts a vast, vibrant choral community—with countless professional and amateur choral organizations of all sizes scattered across the country. Among the most exciting places to be a choral singer, conductor, or lover of the choral arts is Toronto, Ont. It comes as no surprise that the country’s largest city would be ripe with choral activity. Jamie Hillman, U of T head of choral studies, describes it as “an international hub for artistic and cultural work.” Toronto is home to some of the country’s oldest choral organizations, such as the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Founded in 1894 by Augustus Vogt, the…

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My first choral conductor Mary-Jane Puiu (b. March 8, 1950) passed away on May 16, 2023 at the age of 73. According to tenor Eduardo Aparicio, “despite battling a long devastating disease, she heroically managed to keep conducting her choir till the last minute of her life.” We pay tribute to Puiu by republishing a profile/interview I conducted of her in La Scena Musicale in 2010 for her 60th birthday. According to the McGill Choral Society’s Facebook page, here are the details of the service on June 12, 2023: An Orthodox service for close friends and family will be held…

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Author : (Eva Stone-Barney)

MONTREAL/QUEBEC Centre Culturel de Pointe-Claire In an effort to make cultural programming accessible to its residents, and breathe life into public park spaces, the Centre Culturel de Pointe-Claire will present a series of free concerts as part of their Summer Evenings in the Parks / Summer Beats in the Parks Festival. Running from June 28 to Aug. 16, the festival will consist of 10 concerts in parks across the city. Starting at Stewart Park on June 28, audiences are invited to a concert of world music titled Paul Kunigis: Yallah. Performances of blues, Latin jazz, world jazz, and Brazilian percussion…

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Soloists: Jacob Abrahamse, Neil Aronoff, Julia Barber, Lesley Emma Bouza, Rebecca Claborn, Simon Honeyman, Kieran Kane, Rebecca McKay, Nicholas Nicolaidis, and Sinéad White; Toronto Mendelssohn Choir; Baroque Orchestra, Jean-Sébastien Vallée, conductor. Koerner Hall, March 28, 2023. With Easter just around the corner, we are at the height of the oratorio season. Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s offering this year was Bach’s great B Minor Mass. It was a large and enthusiastic audience gathered last evening at Koerner Hall, where they were treated to a superlative performance from the 100+ voices and baroque orchestra, under the assured and knowing baton of its Maestro,…

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Toronto, March 29th, 2023 – The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir is delighted to announce their 2023/2024 season under the artistic  direction of Jean-Sébastien Vallée. Highlights of the upcoming season include two major choral  masterworks: Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, which features the TMChoir with a full orchestra at Roy  Thomson Hall, and Verdi’s haunting Requiem at both Koerner Hall and George Weston Recital Hall. In addition to these major performances, the TMChoir also returns with their annual holiday celebration,  the Festival of Carols, at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. This season will also feature two performances with the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, the TMChoir’s …

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March 16, 2023 (Toronto, ON) – Choral Canada, the National Arts Service Organization for the choral and group singing arts sector and community, announced yesterday that Roseline Blain has been chosen as the 2024 Guest Conductor for the National Youth Choir of Canada (NYCC), one of Canada’s finest youth choirs. “We are delighted that Roseline will lead the 2024 National Youth Choir of Canada. She is a tour de force in the Montreal community and will bring fabulous energy and expertise to the singers. What an opportunity for all of us to experience her repertoire choices and interpretive approach in…

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Max Reger (1873-1916) was born at a time marked by profound changes, when every aspect of human experience—social, political and cultural—was called into question. This was reflected in classical music written around the turn of the century, as composers negotiated the tension between tradition and modernity. Paul Hindemith called Reger “the last of the giants” and said his own work would be “inconceivable” without Reger’s influence. Schönberg considered him “a genius.” In Reger’s short lifetime, he composed over 1,000 works in most genres, yet he is less familiar to audiences than his contemporaries including Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Ravel, Richard Strauss and…

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Conductor Jean-Sébastien Vallée programmed his second season at the helm of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (TMC) under the theme of journeys. On March 18, TMC performs David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale about a poverty-stricken youngster sent out into the cold by her father to sell matches. The journey of this young girl serves as a stark reminder of the problems of hunger and homelessness in our world, where hope and memories meet the harsh reality of the snowy streets. This modern work is strongly inspired by the music of J.S. Bach, and…

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Bourgie Hall has kick-started the year with a plethora of concerts. Local musicians and ensembles—such as SMAM (Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal) on Feb. 12, Les Violons du Roy on Feb. 24, Nicolas Ellis and Cameron Crozman on March 10, and Orchestre Métropolitain, directed by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, on March 26—and international musicians are front and centre. The Gesualdo Six will make their debut in Quebec. Renowned for their Renaissancerepertoire performances, the United Kingdom-based Gesualdo Six will give a one-of-a-kind concert in Montreal on Feb. 21. Montreal will be the final stop of the singers’North American tour that took them…

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Jane Archibald, sop., Susan Platts, mezz., Isaiah Bell, ten., Kevin Deas, bbar., Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Michael Francis, cond., Roy Thomson Hall, Jan. 11, 2023. Photos: Jag Gundu January is Mozart Month at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. To mark the 267th anniversary of the birthday of the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Jan 27, 1756 – Dec. 5, 1791), the TSO is giving four performances of his incomparable Requiem Mass. The story behind its genesis is very well known, thanks to the hugely successful 1984 movie Amadeus. Mozart died before the completion of the work, and it was left…

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