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Isidore String Quartet

Festival Picks

By Eva Stone-Barney on 26 May 2023 Baroque and Early, Canadian Music, Chamber Music, Choral, Classical, Classical Music, Contemporary, Opera, Orchestral, Piano, Strings, Vocal

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…

Photo: Taylor Long

Review | Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s B Minor Mass a Fine Performance of a Great Work

By Joseph So on 29 March 2023 Choral, Concert Reviews, Toronto, Vocal

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,…

Newswire | Toronto Mendelssohn Choir Announces 2023/2024 Season

By Newswire on 29 March 2023 Choral, Newswire, Romantic

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 …

Photo : Guy Rochette

Newswire | Announcing NYCC’s 2024 Guest Conductor

By Newswire on 16 March 2023 Choral

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…

Photo: Tam photography

St. Lawrence Choir: Reger, Kodàly & Raminsh Psalms

By Kristine Berey on 5 February 2023 Choral, Classical Music, Vocal

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…

Tam Photography

Mendelssohn Choir – Journey through Bach’s B Minor Mass

By Denise Lai on 3 February 2023 Baroque and Early, Choral, Classical Music

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…

Bourgie Hall: First Gesualdo Six Concert on Quebec Soil

By Justin Bernard on 31 January 2023 Baroque and Early, Choral

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…

Review | Toronto Symphony Orchestra Celebrates Mozart’s Birthday with A Superb Requiem

By Joseph So on 12 January 2023 Choral, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Orchestral, Toronto

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…

Gilbert Patenaude (1947 – 2022)

By La Scena Musicale Team on 14 November 2022 Choral, Classical Music, Daily News Roundup, La Scena Online

Laval, November 14, 2022 – The wife and children of Gilbert Patenaude regret to announce his death on November 13, 2022 at the Cité de la santé de Laval. Born in Montreal in the Rosemont district, he grew up in Outremont where he learned music as a soprano with the Clerics of Saint-Viateur, then piano and organ at the Vincent-d’Indy School. He then pursued most of his musical training at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec in Montreal. On the recommendation of Raymond Daveluy, he became the first lay musical director of the Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, a position that…

Bach and Labadie: A Love Story

By Marie-Claire Fafard-Blais on 4 November 2022 Choral, Classical Music, Orchestral, Vocal

The Chapelle de Québec and Les Violons du Roy, under the direction of Bernard Labadie, will present the concert Bach, que ma joie demeure (may my joy remain) this December in Quebec City and Montreal. The program, consisting of Bach’s cantatas Ich glaube, lieber Herr (BWV 109), Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 140) and Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (BWV 147), was conceived by the maestro who is particularly fond of this repertoire.”Bach is the composer who compelled me to become a musician; he is the one to blame,” he confides with a smile. “And his…

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