Volume 5 Issue 4 - December 1999/January 2000

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I ! r!''·r·-· SPOTLIGHT ON CHORAL MUSIC I continued from page 12 L~.t•-d ~the appearance of arts ~stration training programs. he most crucial need for and musical organizations need to make themselves a community resource. ~ustajnable growth, however, is 1 ·gh th 1i ~or ~ten .. t.ed choral conducting. "Just ast ru t we ( e oronto t' · ~ · Children's Chorus) sang at the While much about conducting meeting of the Coalition for the fan be taught, the ability to Abolition of Child Poverty. In F~}Wy_c1 t ~ell is a mysterious gift doing that our children develop a r-vmt:fisome people have more sense of responsibility to and for ~an others. Every spring Ms. the community and everyone ~artie and the Toronto Children's there was uplifted by the beauty FhoFtill give 15 choral conductors of the music." ~e opportunity to participate in a She points to the Winnipeg training session here in Toronto. Symphony Orchestra's conductor, ~ these sessions "I see fifteen Bramwell Tovey as an example of piff~rent conductors stand in what she is speaking of. Every ~ontbfthe same choir and spare moment he has, she says, ~onduct the same music and get he is in the schools promoting 'fifteen completely different music. His Winnipeg New Music responses. What is it? Personal­ Festival is packed every night, ~ty, charisma, an ability to involve not with senior citizens but with ,oneself with people? It's hard to young people. ~efme- but some have it and some do not. It's incredible how It is absolutely essential, she :sometimes a person with a very says, for musical organizations to modest C.V. will bring so much make recordings and to tour. more music out of the choir than "These two things" she says "are a person· with really impressive the life blood of any musical 'acadeinic credentials." ; organization." Both activities are Her. annual training program is high on her priority list for the orre·ofthe ways she is contributi,hg to the global expansion of last summer she took her choir on Toronto Children's Chorus. Just choral music, but, she is quick to a nint;-concert tour of Australia add, there are many, more and New Zealarid, and while ~pportunities now than there there, also gave nine choral used to~. Many universities conducting workshops - gratis. now offer post-graduate programs ,, ih choral conducting. So, it is indeed the best and the 1ln fact, Jean is very optimistic worst of times: the worst because about the future of music, our governments seem so out of dismissing the doom and gloom touch with the place of art in the Cliches about "more grey heads in community and.seem so unwilling to support it; the best because the audience every year" as the nonsense they are. The prodigious number of alumnae of these so many people seem so aware of the importance of art in the lives choirs will be not only the of individuals and of the community. musicians but also the audiences of the future. We are living in the midst of a paradigm shift right now, she says. "If we keep doing things exactly as we have always done them then of course music will die, but this time is the worst of times and the best of times, it offers tremendous possibility." Conductors and musicians need to be creative in their programming and to work with their community and, very importantly, with other arts organizations. Conductors need to be part of the community, The life and work of Jean Ashworth Bartle is cause in itself for optimism about the future of music. The Toronto Children s Chorus will be at Roy Thomson Hall on December 18. Please see the listings for details. And for more about about their recordings, please read THE GIFT oF Mus1c,pages 28 to 35, WholeNote's special feature on available recordings by some of Toronto's most active classical and new music ensembles. ELMER ISEI~ER . SINGERS Lydia Adams, conductor The Canadiarls & The Estonians Sunday February 6, 2000 at 8 pm St. Patrick's Church Dundas & McCaul Streets, Toronto regular, senior/student Lydia Adams, Tonu Kaljuste, Doreen Rao, Robert Cooper, conductors ., Special Guest Artists: EstO:nian Chamber Choir and Orchestra; MacMillan Singers, Faculty of Music, U ofT; Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir Repertoire Includes: ' Peters Four Choirs and Orchestra (World Premiere) Freedman Voices Vasks Litanija (Canadian Premiere) Sven Tur Requiem (Canadian Premiere) After our successful collaboration with the Stuttgart , Kammerchor last season, we are thrilled to be joining forces with another of the world's great choirs, the Estonian Chamber Choir. Their conductor Tonu Kaljuste, undoubtedly one of the finest choral conductors today, also leads the Swedish Chamber Choir and the Netherlands Kammerkoor. 'He will be touring North America with the Estonian Chamber Orchestra, who will join us for the World Premiere of a large work for four choirs and orchestra by the Canadian composer Randolph Peters, who recently scored a great success with the Canadian Opera Company's premiere production of The Golden Ass. tORONtO aRtS COUNCIL ...·[11 ll ~ C I" ., ,.. (. 0 0 ' " ' ' ''' " ' TOitONTO THE CANADA CouNCIL · ~ L E CoNSEIL o ES ARTS FOR TH E ARTS l)U CANADA SINCE 1957 !)£PUIS 1957 For information or to order tickets call (416) 217-0537 ;

Sil!9for o ..•·• Si@ for Sight \t 3rd tlnnual ·., Choral and tl Cappella Concert Sight Sund@, march 5th, I ·w: I. ,£!· ! ive aiftedluouna :mtetfb~rfmrm contenllooranJilrtllsi from the Republic~~. . : to be missed. ~.:1c : 2000 ~mtidelines Jnten1.1tional Champions - of jals 015 of em9 perfonn mulltt~na:rmonu hll1'hDrc-hnn SO® and dance. tlwesome! · crickets: ( seniors(group rate) call (i16) i61.-8905 Proceeds in part to: ~ lhe Foundation Fighting Blindness For11erly RP Reseerch Foundetio•·Fighting Blindness ) ' t{qfelmusih ...··,·,: ............·_· .......................................... 0 BAROQUE ORC H ESTRA & CHAM BER C HOIR I h 4,· 1'iAil?'~i! Q N, Mus1c D .lJl ECT OR I lvAHS TALI HI NS. DI RECTO R. C HAM B E R C HO IR 8;~,- _,