2017-18 Season

The enduring high note of Handel’s Messiah returning in dual Toronto productions
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The enduring high note of Handel’s Messiah returning in dual Toronto productions

John Terauds, Toronto Star. No one expects a stopgap to turn into a masterpiece. But that’s what happened to George Frideric Handel when one of his collaborators, Charles Jennens, handed him some texts to set to music.

Messiah has, since its premiere in Dublin at Easter time 275 years ago, become one of the best-loved pieces of classical music in the English-speaking world. Toronto is no exception, becoming a virtual shrine to Messiah at this time every year.

The city’s two flagship orchestras — the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on modern instruments, and Tafelmusik Orchestra on historical ones — present multiple performances every December. The two-hour oratorio, either in part or whole, is also heard in churches, cathedrals, schools and community concerts from the city core to rural villages.

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir marks the beginning of the holiday season with glorious sounds!
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Toronto Mendelssohn Choir marks the beginning of the holiday season with glorious sounds!

Dave Richards, Toronto Concert Reviews.

For the eighteenth consecutive year, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir has begun its hectic December schedule of performances with its Festival of Carols. The cathedral-like Yorkminster Park Baptist Church was festooned with twenty-five foot high Christmas trees at either side of the chancel, lit with thousands of sparkling lights. The sounds of the TMC, organist David Briggs, the Canadian Staff Band of the Salvation Army, and the Canadian Children’s Opera Company was glorious. This was indeed the beginning of a month of great music, celebration and festivities.

From the opening bars of Bob Chilcott’s arrangement of the Sussex Carol, the energy of the choir’s rhythmically charged singing was joyfully uplifting.

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Performers Also Work Extra Holiday Hours: Noel Edison, Conductor

Liz Parker, Classical 96.3 Blog.

Q: The holidays can be a lot of fun for the fans who love to be entertained – but it’s a lot of fatigue for the performers. What is the hardest thing about performing over the holidays? Be honest.
Noel: To be honest, I actually enjoy performing over the holiday season. When you conduct so many choirs, there is so much variety in what you are doing, you never get bored! Now, all the programming that has to happen in October ….that’s tedious!

On the history of Christmas carols and brass bands
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On the history of Christmas carols and brass bands

“The typical carol gives voice to the common emotions of healthy people in language that can be understood, and music that can be shared by all.” Percy Dearmer (1867-1936)

The singing of Christmas songs and carols with music for brass instruments goes hand-in-hand – like mistletoe and eggnog, or turkey and cranberry sauce. Christmas carols date back to pagan times, originally used to mark the end of one season and the start of the next. As Christianity grew, carols gradually developed a link to the birth of Jesus, but the association to paganism remained in the shadows and the singing of carols was prohibited at times. In the 19th century, the Victorians reinvented Christmas as a sentimental festival of good cheer with families and friends and the carol enjoyed a renaissance. Many new carols and songs, in a pseudo-traditional style were written, and there was a conscious shift from the nativity story to a focus on the more secular, festive pleasures of Christmas like the winter solstice, eating, drinking and Santa Claus. By the end of the 19th century, small English parish churches began the Christmas Eve practice of lessons, prayers and a short sermon mingled with a variety of carols. It was later expanded to a festival of nine lessons and carols, made popular around the world in the 20th century by King’s College, Cambridge in England.

Meet a Member: Anne Longmore, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
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Meet a Member: Anne Longmore, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

Mike Rowan, Chorus America.

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir director of marketing and community outreach Anne Longmore has an unusual dual career—college professor and arts administrator, thanks to a big move.

“I worked for a year and a half in Dubai with my family, and taught some marketing classes at Canadian University Dubai where my husband was working,” recounts Longmore. “When I came back to Toronto, I wanted to work in the arts, but also look for an opportunity to teach part-time.” She teaches at Humber College, which offers a post-graduate certificate program in public relations, in addition to her work with TMC.

After obtaining her master’s in arts administration and working for some of Toronto’s large cultural institutions, Longmore was happy to combine her personal passion for singing and working for an arts organization that makes a difference in society. She also increasingly enjoys opportunities to lead seminars and webinars where she can share practical advice for those just starting out with a stretched budget or staff. Says Longmore, “I love to help other professionals understand how to make the ideas that you read about actually happen.”

Longmore spoke to Chorus America president and CEO Catherine Dehoney about trends in marketing and arts administration programs in our latest edition of ‘Meet A Member.’

Toronto Dominates Classical Music Nominees At The 60th Annual Grammy Awards
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Toronto Dominates Classical Music Nominees At The 60th Annual Grammy Awards

Michael Vincent, Ludwig Van Toronto. The 60th annual Grammy Awards have announced the complete list of nominees.
This year, three Toronto artists/presenters represent the only Canadians nominated over the 10 classical music categories.
Soprano Barbara Hannigan is nominated for in the Best Classical Solo Vocal Album category for her 2017 album release, Crazy Girl Crazy featuring music by Gershwin, Berg & Berio with Orchestra Ludwig. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir are both nominated for last year's recording of Handel’s Messiah with Andrew Davis, (conductor) Noel Edison (chorus master) and soloists: Elizabeth DeShong, John Relyea, Andrew Staples & Erin Wall. TSO Messiah album producer, Blanton Alspaugh, also has a nod for producer of the year.

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TMC Announces winner of the 2017 Debbie Fleming Prize for Choral Composition

Toronto composer Joannie Ing has been awarded the Debbie Fleming Prize for Choral Composition for her composition The Good News Carol.  This is the third year of the TMC’s Choral Composition Competition for emerging Canadian composers.  For 2017, the competition called on unpublished Canadian composers to submit a sacred or secular work for the Christmas season, not more than five minutes in length, for SATB, either a cappella or accompanied by organ.

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The Toronto Symphony Remembers…

Jeff Mitchell, Toronto Concert Reviews. (T)he Toronto premiere of an hour-long work entitled Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation, by Vancouver-based composer Jeffrey Ryan, with text by Canadian poet Suzanne Steele, who spent time with the Canadian Light Infantry in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2010.  Her “observations of a Canadian battle group’s road to war and that of their loved ones, before, during and after war”, as expressed through her vivid and graphic poetry, set the stage for the dramatic and visceral music composed by Ryan.  The work is written for orchestra, vocal soloists, as well as adult and children’s choruses. Each of the soloists were exceptional, singing music that was not as lyrical or melodic as one often hears in a requiem but that was, at turns, percussive, violent, plaintive and emotionally raw, even at its quietest moments.

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Toronto Symphony Orchestra lifts war into art with Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation

John Terauds, Toronto Star. Art loves conflict and resolution, while the real world muddles along in the sludgy mass between the two. But art, carefully applied and administered as it was by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on Thursday night, can lift that sludgy mass up and turn it into something almost as beautiful as neat resolution.