If you were at the TMC’s opening Mozart and Haydn concert, you received a bright orange card in the concert program asking you to complete an online survey about your concert experience. This survey is part of a two-year 21-choir intrinsic impact research project being conducted by Chorus America and managed by the respected arts research firm WolfBrown. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir is the only Canadian choir participating in this North-America-wide project.
The critics who review our concerts and audience members who take the time to tell us how they liked us are often “classical music people”: experienced aficionados of Classical music, who know what to expect from a concert. We love these people, and cherish them, and we feel that we have a pretty good idea of how to make concerts an enjoyable experience for them. Attracting new audience members presents a challenge for any classical music ensemble, but especially for an ensemble whose performances typically run only one evening.
It’s not difficult to understand why even longstanding and tremendously accomplished choirs like the TMC occasionally worry about how to appeal to new generations of patrons; classical music is pigeonholed in the culture as a niche pursuit with an aged, lily-white target audience. But the labels are largely unfair, and with performances this inspired and beautifully put together, it’s hard not to have hope for the future.
Voices from the Choir We asked choristers about their connection to the TMC’s heritage of excellence. Ngaio Potts, Soprano Susan Worthington, Alto Sam Broverman, Tenor Barry Clegg, Bass Ngaio Potts, Soprano How long have you been in the choir? Two years, but this is actually my second time in the choir. I first joined the...
Barry Clegg sent along a poem from his book The Beginning of Time to accompany his interview questions. The Eyes Have It Barry Clegg In those bold days I understood almost everything. Pythagoras, the periodic table, and Sir Isaac taught me: this and this and this– thus this! The chance to study a musical...
Concert Patrons Provide Valuable Feedback by Anne Longmore, Director of Marketing In December, we reported on the first set of results from our Chorus America Intrinsic Impact Survey. Now that we are one quarter of the way through the data-collection for this eight-concert research project, we are working hard to compile and evaluate our results...
To learn how “new ears” experience the TMC’s concerts, we launched The New Ears Review Project in November 2014. At each TMC concert, a brand new audience member will review the concert and tell us about their experience. We will post the reviews here, link via social media, and share them with our community.
Michael Vincent for the Toronto Star. Led by Welsh conductor Grant Llewellyn, the TSO presented an impressive and balanced performance, backed by an on-point orchestra and a full-throated Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Read the full review online.
The first of our New Ears reviews comes from the Noah Goodbaum, aka the Mighty Rhino, a Toront0-based rapper and writer, and was first published in the November issue of the Voice of Mendelssohn.