Media Reviews
Media Room
June 23, 2017
TSO’s Carmina Burana is a memorable conclusion to its 16/17 season!
2016-17 Season
David Richards, Toronto Concert Reviews. Carmina Burana, Carl Orff’s masterpiece of ritualistic primitivism, the main event of the week’s concerts, was everything one could hope for. The performance was a tour de force. Peter Oundjian led the orchestra, choirs and soloists through the medieval poetic settings paying homage to the ebb and flow of “fortune”. The celebration of spring time, the decadence of life in the tavern and the joys and sorrows of love-making all took their turn. The large orchestra that included two pianos and five percussionists filled the hall with rhythmic drive, virtuosic passages and subtle melancholy. The work held its high energy throughout the full hour of intense music making. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir was in fine form in both the explosive O Fortuna choruses and the delicate a capella sections.Toronto Children’s Chorus added to the large choral sound and had some tender moments of its own.
June 22, 2017
A Sensational Night of Music at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Carmina Burana
2016-17 Season
Taylor Long, Broadway World Toronto. Following the suspense of watching over one hundred choir members enter the hall – Orff’s CARMINA BURANA begins. “O Fortuna” may be one of the most popular pieces of classical music, but I can’t recall if I’ve ever heard it sung with such incomparably crisp diction. Oundjian makes CARMINA BURANA extremely exciting in the way he drives the tempo and skillfully manipulates the work’s dynamics. The work has a wonderful flow to it, adding to the excitement – some moments are serene and hushed, before being interrupted by jubilant fanfare.
June 22, 2017
Carmina Burana reviewed by operaramblings
2016-17 Season
John Gilks, operaramblings. After the interval it was Carl Orff’s well known reworking of a bunch of medieval scribblings; the Carmina Burana. Variously sexually explicit, scatological and just plain daft it…
June 5, 2017
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Huddersfield Choral Society combine to create choral ecstasy!
2016-17 Season
Dave Richards, Toronto Concert Reviews. Yesterday’s concert was a momentous celebration of the great music that grew out of the nineteenth century British choral tradition. It included the music of the famed British composers Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Parry, Holst, Stainer, Sullivan and Tavener as well as Canadians Healey Willan and Elizabeth Ekholm, each heavily influenced by the musical traditions of England.
The concert began with organist Michael Bloss performing the long introduction to Handel’s Coronation Anthem Zadok the Priest. The first sound of the two hundred voice combined choir shook me so intensely that the majesty of the music overwhelmed me at a visceral level. It was a sound that produced goosebumps throughout the entirety of my body.
June 4, 2017
Sir Andrew Davis, TSO And Choirs Make A Feast Of Walton
2016-17 Season
Arthur Kaptainis, Musical Toronto. Much of tale of the wicked Babylonian king is told in choral fortissimo, and it was a credit to all the participants – numbering almost 200, if my count is accurate — that words were often clear enough to be understood without the support of the printed text. Brass were hearty, strings full of fire. Percussion had a field day with the false gods of gold, silver, iron, wood, stone and brass. The RTH organ added impressively to the climactic (but entirely vain) accreditation of Belshazzar as “King of Kings.”
June 3, 2017
Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast rocks the house as the TSO teams up with the Mendelssohn Choir and Huddersfield Choral Society!
2016-17 Season
Dave Richards, Toronto Concert Reviews. The combined forces of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and the Huddersfield Choral Society from Leeds, England rocked the house with a tremendously powerful choral sound. Their hushed voices were heart-wrenching as they sang about the humiliation of the Jewish slaves.
April 24, 2017
Good Friday with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
2016-17 Season
The concert opened with Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere mei, Deus — the piece that will forever be associated with the brilliance (and cheekiness) of Mozart, who, at the age of fourteen, wrote it down from memory after just one hearing. With the Miserere, Edison established an aesthetic tone that would govern most of the program: a precise and spacious treatment, notable for perfect intonation and for its restrained approach to tempo and dynamics. I don’t know who the unnamed stratospheric soprano was whose voice soared above all others, but her contribution was impressive.
April 18, 2017
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir soars in a heavenly a cappella performance of sacred music!
2016-17 Season
David Richards, Toronto Concert Reviews. The pared down version of the choir, The Mendelssohn Singers, sang the first half of the program from the balcony above and behind the nave. The positioning gave a wonderfully mystic effect to the music, allowing the audience to focus on the sounds that reverberated off the arched columns and the vaulted ceiling of the ornately decorated church. The music of Allegri, Pärt and Sanders all made use of plainsong and choral responses to give life to the texts. The recurring solo treble descants in Allegri’s Miserere Mei, Deus were particularly beautiful, the high “C” ringing throughout the church. This was a cappella singing at its finest.
January 24, 2017
From the Podium: A Who’s Who of the TMC Choral Conductors’ Symposium
2016-17 Season
Brian Chang, The Wholenote. Twenty years ago, Noel Edison took the reins of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (in which I sing). Even then he knew it as “one of Canada’s great cultural institutions.” Predating every other major symphony orchestra and major arts organization in Canada, the choir has operated continuously since 1894 – and since 2010, it has hosted one of the preeminent training symposiums for emerging conductors in North America. This year, five candidates will workshop with Edison, associate conductor Jennifer Min-Young Lee, the Elora Festival Singers, and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir over a one-week intensive. The week culminates in a free concert on Saturday, January 28, 3pm at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church in Toronto. I got in touch with this year’s participants, to talk early influences, choral philosophies and personal musical goals.