October/November 2024 containing our 30th annual presenter directory (25th under the Blue Pages name) is now available for viewing. Also first four instalments of ART OF THE ARC -- a concert curators' Q & A, with more to follow online and in print throughout the fall. Also View from Up Here parses the difference between a two lane highway and a two-way street; Choral Scene digs into singing and health; Music Theatre taps joy-fuelled offerings at London's Grand Theatre and elsewhere; In with the New looks at Letters to God; Classical and Beyond tackles a 212-listing 68 days; thirteen new recordings in our listening room and more.
BLUE PAGES
BLUE PAGES 2024/25 ● Upper Canada Choristers The Upper Canada Choristers is an SATB community choir in Toronto with a history of collaboration with both local and international choirs and professional guest artists. UCC is committed to excellence and diversity. Cantemos is UCC’s auditioned Latin American ensemble. Founding Artistic Director, Laurie Evan Fraser, and Accompanist, Hye Won Cecilia Lee, provide the professional musical leadership for this vibrant organisation. The 2024/25 concert season opens with “A Holiday Travelogue” on Friday, December 13 at 7:30pm at Grace Church on-the-Hill, 300 Lonsdale Road. The concert includes music from Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Scotland, Venezuela, France, and England. A featured work will be Fantasia on Christmas Carols by Ralph Vaughan Williams with baritone soloist, Bradley Christensen. On May 16, 2025, the Choristers will be joined by Caribbean choir La Petite Musicale, under the direction of Lindy Burgess. Our special guests will be Venezuelan composer, Cesar Alejandro Carillo and his wife, poet Laura Morales, visiting Canada for the first time. “Venezuela Viva” will provide a snapshot of the diversity of Venezuelan music. Repertoire will showcase a slice of choral culture with Afrocentric, Spanish, and Caribbean influences. Laurie Evan Fraser 416-256-3809 laurieevanfraser@gmail.com www.uppercanadachoristers.org www.facebook.com/ uppercanadachoristers ●Vesnivka Choir Award-winning Vesnivka Choir was established in 1965 by founding artistic director Halyna Kvitka Kondracki. The choir has delighted audiences with its rich repertoire of Ukrainian classical, contemporary, sacred and traditional folk music. Vesnivka, together with its partner the Toronto Ukrainian Male Chamber Choir (also founded by Ms. Kondracki), are often joined in concert by area musicians and soloists. We are excited to announce that Nazar Lozynskyy will be assuming a broader role as co-conductor of the choirs in the upcoming 2024/25 season. Our concert season will consist of three major concerts, the first being “Prayer for Ukraine”, a concert of sacred music by classical and contemporary Ukrainian composers, to be held on November 3, 2024. Joining the choirs will be guest ensemble St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir from Toronto. On January 12, 2025, we will celebrate the new year with our annual Christmas concert, featuring traditional and contemporary Ukrainian Christmas carols and New Year’s songs. Our final concert of the season will be held on May 4, 2025. “Songs of Love” will feature a program of Ukrainian music depicting themes of romance, unrequited love as well as familial love. Nykola Parzei 416-246-9880 nykola@vesnivka.com www.vesnivka.com www.facebook.com/vesnivka www.instagram.com/vesnivka ●VIVA Singers Toronto VIVA Singers Toronto is a family of seven choirs with a mandate to give members, ages four through adult, the opportunity to achieve artistic excellence in a singer-centered, collaborative choral community. VIVA offers diverse musical programming, including regular performance and international touring opportunities, musical literacy, chorister composition and Orff-based creation activities, an annual fall Performing Arts Camp and commissioned works and partnerships with distinguished musicians and composers. VIVA’s dedicated efforts to put choristers first inform our rehearsal structures and music-making processes. We embrace the coexistence of a high level of artistic and educational engagement while fostering a truly inclusive environment. We continue to advocate for all voices, and push for inclusivity to ensure that anyone who enjoys music is welcomed - and challenged - at VIVA. VIVA is proud to celebrate its 25th anniversary in the 2024/25 season! Victoria Shalygin 416-788-8482 hello@vivayouthsingers.com www.vivasingerstoronto.com www.facebook.com/vivasingerstoronto www.twitter.com/vystoronto www.instagram.com/ vivasingerstoronto ●VOCA Chorus of Toronto The VOCA Chorus of Toronto, a dynamic, auditioned ensemble under the leadership of artistic director Jenny Crober, performs a broad range of repertoire in collaboration with a variety of superb guest artists. VOCA’s season consists of concerts, cabarets, community performances and workshops. Our wonderful collaborative pianist is Dakota Scott-Digout. Numerous remarkable artists have joined VOCA as clinicians, including composer Ola Gjeilo, conductor Ivars Taurins and jazz vocalist Dylan Bell. VOCA’s 2024/25 season, our artistic director’s 20th Anniversary, will be an exciting one. On October 27, our professional leads will be featured in a cabaret / fundraiser. On December 14, our ‘Season Songs’ concert will include Sarah Quartel’s Iesous ahatonnia, Jenny Crober’s arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s River, a world premiere by Nicholas Ryan Kelly, an Ontario premiere by Matthew Emery and more, with guest artists Michael Occhipinti, jazz guitar and Jamie Drake, percussion. On May 10, we’ll be performing Carl Orff’s monumental Carmina Burana, featuring several brilliant instrumentalists and soloists, including our special guest, tenor Andrew Haji. VOCA rehearses Monday evenings at Eastminster United (Danforth/Chester subway). Jenny Crober 416-931-8224 crober.best@gmail.com www.vocachorus.ca www.facebook.com/vocachorus www.twitter.com/VOCAChorus ●VOICEBOX: Opera In Concert VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert is Canada’s only company dedicated exclusively to the presentation of rare opera programming for 50 years. Our performances rely on the power and beauty of the human voice, the dramatic inflection of text and poetry, accompanied by orchestra or piano. This season features three contrasting operas that reflect diversity through the ages in our new venue! The first opera to be presented at the Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity St. Paul Centre, is Gluck’s Alceste on Sunday, January 12, 2024, followed by Puccini’s La Rondine on Thursday, March 20, and Friday, March 21, 2025. The season concludes with Meyerbeer’s Robert Le Diable. The OIC Chorus will also be featured in each opera, led by Robert Cooper with our Music Directors. Guillermo Silva-Marin 416-408-0208 www.operainconcert.com www.facebook.com/OperaInConcert www.twitter.com/OperainConcert www.instagram.com/ voiceboxoperainconcert ●Westben In 2024, Westben celebrates 25 years of bringing people together through music in nature. Yearround programs include the international summer festival from June to August in three outdoor venues, concerts at the Schoolhouse, music in nature small group experiences, community programs, workshops, kids camps and more. Westben’s International Performer-Composer Residency (PCR) is an annual collaborative gathering where diverse listeners and performer-composers build relationships and connect through creating music and exchanging perspectives. Westben is located in Northumberland County, 40 minutes from Cobourg, Peterborough and Belleville, 2 hours east of Toronto, and 2.5 hours west of Ottawa. Westben is nestled amongst the gently rolling hills of the Gunshot Treaty lands and subsequent Williams Treaties of 1923, and the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig (Mississauga) Anishinaabeg, near what is now known as Campbellford, Ontario. Westben’s summer festival has presented over 5000 international and local Canadian artists including Gerald Finley, Angela Hewitt, Oliver Jones, Peter Appleyard, Michael Kaeshammer, Broken Social Scene, William Prince, Jeremy 64 | October & November2024 thewholenote.com
Dutcher, Holly Cole, Colin Mochrie, Deb McGrath, and Natalie McMaster. Donna Bennett 877-883-5777 westben@westben.ca www.westben.ca www.facebook.com/westbenconcerts www.twitter.com/westbencentre www.instagram.com/westben ●Wychwood Clarinet Choir The Wychwood Clarinet Choir brings together the family of clarinets from the E flat sopranino down to the contrabass. Our range of instruments is matched by the variety of our repertoire. We perform new compositions and arrangements, many written or transcribed by our Composers’ Collective. The choir, now in its 16th season, is directed by clarinetist and conductor Michele Jacot. Choir members are admitted by audition and pay an annual membership fee. Members are dedicated clarinetists eager to share their love of music-making in a collegial and musically challenging environment. We strive to create opportunities for serious amateur musicians to develop their musical skills and to share our music more broadly in educational settings and in the wider community. The group rehearses and performs on a regular basis in Toronto’s St. Clair and Wychwood area. Check out our You- Tube videos and look for updates on our website. New members welcome - please contact us for audition information. Roy Greaves 905-468-7486 wychwoodclarinetchoir@yahoo.ca www.wychwoodclarinetchoir.ca www.facebook.com/Wychwood- Clarinet-Choir-19846695686023 WYCHWOOD CLARINET CHOIR ●Yorkminster Park Baptist Church Yorkminster Park is synonymous with magnificent music. Whether it’s the choir accompanied by the majestic Casavant organ, our Memorial Carillon, or the congregation lifting their voices in hymns of praise, vocal and instrumental expressions of faith are integral to the Yorkminster Park experience. Our choir, under organist and music director William Maddox and his assistant, Sharon Beckstead, enjoys a reputation as one of the best church choirs in Toronto. We present free organ recitals at 12:30pm, every Wednesday from September through June, and have recently started a series of carillon recitals in the summer months. We have a wide variety of unique musical events throughout the year, but Yorkminster Park is renowned for its special seasonal concerts. The quality of the music ministry at YPBC is never more evident than during Advent and Holy Week. These services have become community traditions: City Carol Sing, Carols by Candlelight, Iona liturgical music, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, Passiontide Devotion during Holy Week and Evensong services three times a year. Our sanctuary is frequently made available to other choral and concert groups, which draw appreciative audiences from all over Southern Ontario. William Maddox 416-922-1550 wcmaddox@yorkminsterpark.com www.yorkminsterpark.com www.facebook.com/ YorkminsterPark.BaptistChurch www.twitter.com/YorkminsterPark www.instagram.com/ yorkminsterparkbc A LITTLE OVATION This is our 25th Annual Blue Pages. But we started publishing a directory of presenters in the summer of our very first season, four years before our first ever Blue Pages. Almost 30 years later, of those 38 presenters who first supported our then-quixotic quest to create free and comprehensive live event listings at the heart of our magazine, 24 are still making music. ABOUT THE PHOTO ON THE BLUE PAGES COVER (pg 51) The bronze of a flute player was created by the sculptor Ernst Steinacker. We chose it because it reminded us of how the desire to make music - alone or collectively, in private or in public - endures everywhere. Amadeus Choir | Bach Children’s Choir | Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus | Canadian Music Centre | Canadian Music Competitions | Orchestra Toronto (formerly East York Symphony Orchestra) | Elmer Iseler Singers | Elora Festival | Esprit Orchestra | Mooredale Concerts | Music at Metropolitan | Music Gallery |Music Toronto |Opera Atelier | Opera Division, U of T| Orpheus Choir of Toronto | Scarborough Philharmonic | Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra | Tallis Choir of Toronto | Toronto Consort | Toronto Early Music Centre | Toronto Mendelssohn Choir | Toronto Operetta Theatre | Women’s Musical Club of Toronto. thewholenote.com October & November2024 | 65
