Leslie Barcza, barczablog December 17, 2021 Tonight was the first of several TSO Messiahs to be heard at Roy Thomson Hall featuring the Mendelssohn Choir, Conductor Simon Rivard, and four terrific young soloists. This 85 minute version is the latest in a series of adaptations to the new normal. Chorus and orchestra, except for the...
Five emerging conductors heading to Toronto in June to study with conductor Jean-Sébastien Vallée and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s annual Choral Conductors’ Symposium (returning after a three-year hiatus) offers an incredible opportunity for emerging conductors from across North America to work with the artistic director of the TMC and the full...
Review by Ken Stephen, Large Stage Live! Dec 3, 2021 As the second live-performance program since the lifting of pandemic restrictions, the annual Festival of Carols from the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir shared music of rejoicing, music that has highlighted Christmas celebrations for centuries, and modern contributions to the Christmas festival. At the same time, the...
The program notes are written by musicologist and PhD student Rena Roussin. Welcome to the 2021 Festival of Carols! This concert, a time-honoured tradition of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, is an opportunity to begin the holiday season by hearing, reflecting on, and singing carols. The 2021 edition of the Festival of Carols is bringing this...
Arthur Kaptainis, Classical Voice North America November 5, 2021 TORONTO — Any performance of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem counts as an occasion, but the concert given on Nov. 2 by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir was special in a few ways. It represented both the return of this venerable society (founded in 1894) to live public performing after an enforced...
Ken Stephen, Large Stage Live November 4, 2021 With the coming of November, the first performing arts season in nearly two years is getting under way. Arts organizations are finally planning live audience performances, and audiences are buying tickets and preparing to return to a whole world of beauty, excitement, and involvement that had seemed lost...
David Perlman, The Wholenote November 2021 I recently connected, twice, with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s recently appointed artistic director, Jean-Sébastien Vallée (the eighth conductor in the choir’s 127-year history). The first time was on September 20, when I visited a TMC rehearsal; the second on October 4, for a chat in The WholeNote office. Both...
The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir Board of Directors, Staff, and Choristers today recognize the passing of John Lawson with profound sadness. We pause to recognize, with deep gratitude, his extraordinary influence and impact on this organization and, in fact, the arts in Canada. John showed his love of the performing arts in multiple ways and his...
Program notes written by musicologist and PhD student Rena Roussin. Nathaniel Dett’s The Chariot Jubilee (1919) and Johannes Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem (1868) were written just over fifty years apart and yet one could be forgiven for initially thinking, as I did, that the two pieces have little in common. While both pieces were written...