4th Annual WholeNote C~N~RY P~GES A Directory of Choirs May2006
The WholeNote Canary Pages 2006 WholeNote "Canary Pages" choral directory is published annually as a special feature in the May issue of WholeNote. WholeNote Magazine is published ten times a year (monthly, with combined issues in July/August and December/January). A regularly updated version of the Canary Pages is also available online at www.thewholenote.com. Links to choirs' own websites are available from this site. If your choir missed inclusion in the printed version of the directory but would like to appear on the web version, e-mail canary@thewholenote.com or phone 416-323-2232 for information on how to apply. If any corrections to the current listing need to be made, please e-mail canary@thewholenote.com Choirs wishing to place events in our free concert listings should e-mail information to: listings@thewholenote.com by the 15th day of the month prior to publication. Project Editor: Listings Coordinator: Copy Editor: Design & Illustrations: Paul Farrelly Karen Ages David Perlman Verity Hobbs The WholeNote Canary Pages 2006 is a publication of WholeNote Media Inc. 503-720 Bathurst Street, Toronto ON Canada MSS 2R4 WELCOME! Welcome to WholeNote magazine's 2006 edition of the Canary Pages - a guide to 140 choirs that make music week in week out, year in year out, in Southwestern Ontario. WholeNote readers can use this guide in many different ways: If you are a singer - or if you would like to be a singer - you can look up choirs in your area and get in touch with them to audition or sign yourselfup to sing. If you have a child who is interested in singing, you can find an appropriate children's choir, training choir or school that will best suit your child's level of interest and proficiency and arrange for an audition or sign them up to sing. If you are a concertgoer who has a passion for choral music and you are interested in the scope of choral activity in and around Toronto, you can peruse these pages, find a choir that suits your taste and go to one of their concerts. As I look through these pages, I am astounded by the variety of repertoire, size, cultural interest, and style of all these organizations. Another thing that strikes me as well is the tremendous level of effort it takes to keep these groups functioning. Each listing represents not only a choir of between 16 and 180 voices, but a support system, administration and audience base that keeps it strong and vital. This is a guide to choirs that we know and love from all over the province, but as you read through it, you will find - as I did - reminders that the choral landscape is always changing and new groups are being formed all the time. I read with interest about: • Voxworks, founded in 2005 in the west end of Toronto • Harbourfront Chorus, formed in February of this year with the purpose of learning "diverse repertoire for a diverse city" • Caribbean Chorale of Toronto, formed over 10 years ago and going strong. • Choral De Lites, formed a few years ago in Port Perry. • The Irish Choral Society of Canada, which has been giving concerts in Toronto for the past five years. • The Monday Morning Singers: "a group of25 women who meet to sing every Monday at 9:30 am at Goodwood United Church in Uxbridge" and give concerts from time to time. • The Toronto Swedish Singers who meet and sing together in Swedish every Wednesday night at York Mills and Yonge. It goes to the heart of what a wonderfully varied and exciting choral environment we enjoy in and around Toronto. Life is difficult in 2006: there are challenges to our natural environment, bad news is hitting us from all sides, both domestically and abroad. Pessimists' predictions of society's erosion abound. And yet people are singing. More than ever, our response to the challenges of life is to sing. Medieval chant, Renaissance masses and chansons, Baroque and Classical oratorios, Romantic choral symphonies and Requiems, 20th century film scores, arrangements of pop songs, musicals, and music from cultures around the world. Most importantly, these pages are a celebration of the true spirit of music-making here in Ontario. What a comforting and uplifting feeling it is to know that in every corner of Southwestern Ontario, people are regularly gathering together to sing: to deeply and more fully celebrate and marvel at the mysteries of life and death through music. Enjoy. Larry Beckwith Larry Beckwith has authored WholeNote 's Choral Scene column since November 1997 at which time he made it his mission to "gently nudge WholeNote readers in the direction of intriguing choral events in and around Toronto ... [with]. .. one or two trips beyond the city limits from time to time. "
