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Volume 24 Issue 3 - November 2018

  • Text
  • November
  • Toronto
  • Jazz
  • Theatre
  • Musical
  • Arts
  • Orchestra
  • Performing
  • Symphony
  • Bloor
Reluctant arranger! National Ballet Orchestra percussionist Kris Maddigan on creating the JUNO and BAFTA award-winning smash hit Cuphead video game soundtrack; Evergreen by name and by nature, quintessentially Canadian gamelan (Andrew Timar explains); violinist Angèle Dubeau on 20 years and 60 million streams; two children’s choirs where this month remembrance and living history must intersect. And much more, online in our kiosk now, and on the street commencing Thursday November 1.

Toronto’s Christmas

Toronto’s Christmas Tradition featuring St. Michael’s Choir School continues at Roy Thomson Hall Repertoire to include Benjamin Britten’s ‘A Ceremony of Carols’ and an array of seasonal favourites Special Guests True North Brass, Lori Gemmell, harp Conductors Vincent Cheng ( SMCS 1999 ), Maria Conkey, Teri Dunn, S. Bryan Priddy / Accompanists William O’Meara, Joshua Tamayo ( SMCS 2003 ) DEC 9 AT 3PM DEC 10 AT 7PM Tickets to ROY THOMSON HALL 416-872-4255 www.roythomsonhall.com Massey Hall Forever • Roy Thomson Hall for Now Bob Chilcott that there are many technical and emotional responses within music that express some very deep and essential elements of our humanity,” Chilcott continues. “Harmony, resolution, blend, balance and unity.” These are all words used by conductors to describe the musicality they are looking for. It is fitting that these are virtues extolled by artists to the wider world. Chilcott finishes with a strong sentiment: “Remembrance is so important in that it teaches us to honour those who believed that fundamentally, good is better than bad.” The Toronto Children’s Chorus presents “We Remember” a concert commemorating the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. Featured guests include the Toronto Youth Choir, Elmer Iseler Singers, and guest conductors Lydia Adams and Bob Chilcott. November 11, 7:30pm. George Weston Recital Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts. When the old and the new meet “I want my choristers to know that history matters,” shares Charissa Bagan, artistic director of the Bach Children’s Chorus. “And that we have great power as singing storytellers and artists because we can connect the past, present and future… Choir offers a wonderful way for children to interact with serious topics.” For Remembrance Day, the Bach Children’s Choir and the Bach Youth Chamber Choir present “Resonant Reflection” on November 10. Choral performance is always meant to be educational. One should learn from every rehearsal, every concert, and leave changed in some way, even if very small. Children’s choirs have a unique place in the musical process, being equally education- and performance-based. Bagan understands the role she has to play in a complex concert like this: “When it comes to working with the choir on a particular song and the text highlights a significant and catastrophic event from the past such as the Holocaust, there is absolutely a responsibility for the conductor to make space in the preparation of the music for the choir to engage with the story,” she shares. “[We have] to consider all that is being expressed and the implications it has for the future.” The management skills necessary to balance this educational and narrative process can easily become unbalanced in the pursuit of performancereadiness. “It is so easy for rehearsal minutes to be consumed with simply learning and polishing the notes,” she says. “And yet choral performances can really only come alive when the singers know the story that they are collectively expressing and the reason for singing it in the first place. “While War and Remembrance are overarching themes, the concert is designed as just that – a concert and not a ceremony,” says Bagan. There are works by many female Canadian composers on the program including Lydia Adams’ gentle and simple arrangement of In Flanders Fields, Eleanor Daley’s flowing rendition of An Irish Blessing, and Sarah Quartel’s focused, bright Lux aeterna, a sonic setting of Vancouver Island sky from her four-part Sanctum. Bagan has also found an arrangement of After the War with words and music by Canadian actor Paul Gross and David Keele. The song was made popular by local Toronto artist Sarah Slean in the 2008 WWI film, Passchendaele. Like Chilcott, Bagan has some insights, as well, on the new generation: “It seems to me that young people are more likely to [be] educated by their families, friends and teachers, facing new, complex issues, which were oversimplified for us in the past.” Bagan sees 22 | November 2018 thewholenote.com

! ! ! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ! WINTerSONGS Seasonal songs, including Celtic choral & instrumental Jenny Crober, Artistic Director Elizabeth Acker, Accompanist Saskia Tomkins, violin, nyckelharpa Sybil Shanahan, cello Charissa Bagan their intelligence and compassion firsthand: “Their thoughts go to the people their own age who are affected by the devastation of war as well as human suffering in all forms, from residential schools to modern-day slavery to famine and injustice at local, national, and international levels. …They’re more aware of the importance of considering multiple perspectives, less likely to assume a Commonwealth allegiance, and are genuinely grappling with how to be peacemakers in their communities.” Music is a good place to start. TORONTO CLASSICAL SINGERS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2018 7:30 PM Eastminster United Church, 310 Danforth Ave. (Chester subway), Toronto, Ontario Gen. Adm. Seniors Students; Under 30 416-947-8487; www.vocachorus.ca REJOICE & SING SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2018 • 4:00 PM JUBILATION AND JOY BACH CHRISTMAS ORATORIO THE MOST INTELLECTUAL COMPOSER TELLS THE MOST JOYFUL STORY JURGEN PETRENKO, CONDUCTOR THE TALISKER PLAYERS SHEILA DIETRICH, SOPRANO CHRISTINA CAMPSALL, MEZZO-SOPRANO ASITHA TENNEKOON, TENOR MICHAEL NYBY , BARITONE SUNDAY DECEMBER 9, 2018 4PM CHRIST CHURCH DEER PARK 1570 YONGE STREET AT HEATH TICKETS .00 CALL 416 444 7863 torontoclassicalsingers.ca FEATURING Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto | Lydia Adams, conductor | Joan Andrews, conductor Shawn Grenke, conductor and piano | Mary Lou Fallis, soprano | Trillium Brass Quintet Single tickets: | | For tickets, call (416) 446-0188 www.amadeuschoir.com Eglinton St. George’s United Church 35 Lytton Blvd, Toronto (at Lytton Blvd and Duplex Ave, one block west of Yonge St) PRESENTING SPONSOR transcending tradition thewholenote.com November 2018 | 23

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