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Volume 9 Issue 7 - April 2004

  • Text
  • April
  • Toronto
  • Theatre
  • Jazz
  • Arts
  • Musical
  • Symphony
  • Festival
  • Yonge
  • Composer

I WholeNote has an

I WholeNote has an Editorial Special every month! May's focus is CHORAL SCENE by Larry Beckwith Choral Celebration Choral Celebration is the,'l3n;ual bible for singers interested in joining a choir, with f~ listings for more than 100 choirs in Southern and Southwestern Ontario. Would-be choristers can find out who you are, how often you rehearse and perform, and where and when to audition or apply. We will be contacting the Choirs we know about by e-mail with details on submission of your listing. If you have not heard from us by March 31 contact choralscene@thewholenote.com or call 416-323-2232 for a form. Deadline for directory entries is Friday, April 9 and publication date is Thursday, April 29, 2004. Focus in the coming months June issue Overview of Summer Music Festivals Overview of Summer Music Festivals. Profiles of festivals scheduled to take place during the Summer Season. Contact us to have your listing included. Publication date is Thursday May 27, 2004. July issue Summer Music Festivals: Detailed Listings Comprehensive listings of Summer Festival schedules and performers. Publication date is June 25, 2004. Listings: Simone Desilets listings@thewholenote.com 416-323-2232 Advertising Reservations: Allan Pulker or Karen Ages 416-323-2232 Editorial: David Perlman 416-603-3786 editorial@thewholenote.com It's another banner month for cho- Daley is well known as one of the ml music in Toronto, with a wide country's finest choral accompanists variety of activity across the city in. and a composer of short and accesvenues large and small. sible works for choir. Her Requiem BACK-TO-BACK HIGH-CALIBRE setting - commissioned in the early performances of J.S. Bach's St. 1990s by Daley's friend, choral tenor John Passion begin the month. The Jake Neely - is her most profound Exultate Chamber Singers present and personal work. the work 'on April 2 in the beautiful surroundings of St. Andrew's Church downtown. Montreal tenor Michie! Schrey is the Evangelist and the Aradia Ensemble provides the band. John Tuttle's award-winning choir is so accomplished that its members will step up and sing the solo arias and roles of Christ, Pilate, Peter, etc. The following evening, Bernard Labadie's La Chapelle du Quebec comes to town and performs the St. John Passion at Massey Hall. I Their A-list of soloists and Labadie' s intelligence and flair recommend this performance highly. If you can, make a weekend of it and compare and contrast. ALSO ON APRIL 3, the Amadeus Choir presents a contemplative evening of Requiem settings by John Rutter and Eleanor Daley, as well as Palestrina's Stabat Mater at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. The Mendelssohn Choir continues a highly successful season with a dramatically-titled program "Life and Death" on April 7. Noel Edison conducts a work with which he is very familiar, the Requiem by Johannes Brahms, and a recent major work by Ruth Watson Henderson. Like Eleanor Daley, Watson Henderson is known for her steady accompanying and highly-crafted and varied works for choir. Her piece From Darkness to Light was first performed at the annual conference of the American Guild of Organists in Philadelphia in 2002. Watson Henderson finished the work on September 9, 2001. "If someone had asked me to write a piece after September 11, this is what I would have written", Watson Henderson has said of her work. "I had just finished it. .. and with a strange feeling." The work is based on Cana- 16 Canada's foremost Violin Specialists 201 Church Street Toronto, ON MSB 1Y7 e-mail GHCL@idirect.com www.georgeheinl.com vvvv vv . , 11tv\lHOLENOTE.COM Sight Singing Workshops (Tat(ght by Dmid]. King. B. Mm .. B. Ed.) Level 1: May 17-20 & 25-27, 2004 Level 2: June 7-10 & 14-17, 2004 Level 3: July 26-29, 2004 Level 4: August 16-19, 2004 ---t---.._:::Whcn? 7:15 - 9:45 p.m. Loc.,tion" Willowdale United Church, 349 Kt:.•11111..:1 h .-\v(·.t1m'., North York c:o!,;t? (includel- materials, parking and reftc,:;hmenrs) Call 416-225-2255

dian poet Wilfred Watson's Canticle of Darkness, a poem that explores the constant struggle between darkness and light as its central theme. ORGANIST PATRICIA WRIGHT continues the long tradition of Good Friday concerts at Metropolitan United Church on April 9 with an offering of works by Heinrich Schutz (his magnificent St. Matthew Passion), Brahms, Max Reger and Hugo Distler. SOME LIGHTER FARE is thrown into the mix the following week with the Mississauga Choral Society's singing medleys from the great MGM Musicals on April 13. The Toronto Symphony backs them up and Jack Everly conducts. Halyna Kondracki's very fine Ukrainian Choir Vesnivka presents a tribute to the important composer Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912) on April 16 at 7:30. Their guests are the Toronto Ukrainian Male Chamber Choir. Cape Breton's pride and joy, the Men of the Deeps, stop in for a concert on April 17, which they are dedicating to the memory of choral impresario Nicholas Goldschmidt. THE FINAL WEEKEND of the month features three fine choirs in special concerts. Kelly Galbraith's women's choir Cantores Celestes celebrates its 15th anniversary on April 24 with a characteristically eclectic program with an impressive line-up of soloists and guest instrumentalists. In a financial climate where arts organizations struggle to stay afloat, Galbraith's choir is an interesting phenomenon. A significant portion of the proceeds of each concert they present goes to local charities and over the years, they have given thousands of dollars to deserving community organizations. The choir is a stellar example of the power of music to elevate a community. Happy Anniversary! The same evening, the Pax Christi Chorale, directed by Stephanie Martin, teams up with Kitchener's Menno Singers (founded many years ago by Martin's father, Abner) to perform the Requiem by Maurice Durufle and Vaughan Williams' masterpiece Dona Nobis Pacem. One of the . hallmarks of the Mennonite faith is a deep and active dedication to the notion of peace on earth and this event will serve as a powerful statement - a musical prayer for an end to violence. The following afternoon, David Fallis' excellent Toronto Chamber Choir offers a rare performance of J. S. Bach's challenging Ascension Oratorio, first performed in 1735. Two other cantatas are on the bill and Fallis has hired a handsome quartet of soloists, which includes the return to Toronto of Gillian Keith, a soprano who is rapidly gaining international renown in concert and on recording. Roy Thomson Hall continues its popular free noon-hour choral series on April 27 with an appearance by La Jeunesse Girls' Choir from Cobourg. Marie Anderson's charges have won many awards and toured extensively and this is a great opportunity for Toronto to hear one of Canada's leading choirs of young people. SPEAKING OF YOUTH, I wrote of the recent curtailment of the Ontario Youth Choir in last month's column. Since then a mailing has gone out to Choirs Ontario members and supporters soliciting funds to restore stability to an organization hard hit by a variety of hardships in the past two years. Many of our great singers were nurtured by the Ontario Youth Choir and the choir's alumni sing with choirs all across the province - the world, probably. I urge WholeNote readers to contribute what they can in support of a vital program. Phone 416-923-1144 for more information, or contact me at the e-mail address below: dunnbeckwith@sympatico.ca Viva Voce Voice Studio ' A DYNAMIC ONE-OF-A-KIND TEACHING DUO Deborah jeans Soprano, Mus.Bae. Performance, Diploma in Operatic Performance, University of Toronto Andree Bernard Chanteuse, Jazz singer, Laval Universi Preparation for entrance exams and auditions, all styles and levels 7 Pleasant Blvd. (Yonge and St. Clair) 416- 323-1417 APRIL 1 - MAY 7 2004

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