Media

June 3, 2018

TMC announces 2018-19 Season and appointment of David Fallis as Interim Conductor

2018-19 Season

Acclaimed Toronto conductor David Fallis has been named as Toronto Mendelssohn Choir Interim Conductor and Artistic Advisor for the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons. “David brings to the TMC a life-long passion for choral music, incredible conducting experience, and a wide-ranging knowledge of choral repertoire and creative programming,” commented TMC Executive Director Cynthia Hawkins.  “We are thrilled to work under the leadership of such an accomplished musician over the next two seasons while the TMC carries out an international search for our new artistic director.”  

The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s 2018/19 season starts with performances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in the Fall, including Benjamin Britten’s compelling War Requiem in a concert that commemorates 100 years since the conclusion of the First World War. The TMC’s own concert season begins in early December with Festival of Carols, the Choir’s annual joyous welcome to the season.  Then in January, a Free Community Concert will focus on the music of great composers from Canada and the United States. In February the TMC, with orchestra, will perform two great 18th century choral-orchestral masterpieces by Handel and Haydn. The season concludes with Sacred Music for a Sacred Space in April with a program that brings together two rich choral traditions: the French subtlety of Messiaen, Poulenc and Martin, and the mystical traditions of Eastern Europe and Russia.

April 30, 2018

CANDIDE at TSO Gives You Permission to Laugh

2017-18 Season

Taylor Long, Broadway World.

Conductor Bramwell Tovey began the evening by saying, “in light of the way things are… I want to give you permission to laugh.” It didn’t take very long before the audience was in stitches with laughter. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra performed Leonard Bernstein’s CANDIDE last weekend, accompanied by some of the country’s greatest classical voices – Judith Forst and Tracy Dahl – and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. The evening was a spectacular display of fine music, drama, and comedy.

April 27, 2018

Candide with the Toronto Symphony: using our imaginations

2017-18 Season

Leslie Barcza, barczablog. This felt like a very authentic performance to me, Bramwell Tovey kicking the TSO, chorus & soloists along at a wonderful pace.  Tovey even got into the act, singing & dancing himself, but he was having a great time.

April 27, 2018

TSO’s Candide Pushes Bernstein’s Wordplay A Little Too Far

2017-18 Season

Arthur Kaptainis, Ludwig Van Toronto. While the score brims with good tunes and snappy rhythms, Candide’s travels never really acquire anything like dramatic momentum. Characters inexplicably return to life (as the duet “You Were Dead, You Know” explicitly acknowledges) and the unpleasant misadventures are essentially random.

April 23, 2018

Noel Edison resigns as artistic director of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

2017-18 Season

The Board of Directors of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (TMC) has received and accepted the resignation of artistic director Noel Edison,

April 20, 2018

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir Board reviewing results of investigation into complaints against Noel Edison

2017-18 Season

In February of this year, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (TMC) Board of Directors, along with the Board of Directors of the Elora Festival and The Elora Singers, retained an independent…

March 31, 2018

Sacred Music for a Sacred Space: a special concert for a special day!

2017-18 Season

David Richards, Toronto Concert Reviews. The lights dimmed at St. Paul’s Basilica bringing a hush over the capacity audience and suddenly heavenly a cappella sounds began wafting down from the balcony in the rear of the church. Since 2007, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir has made it a tradition to present a concert of music appropriate for Holy Week in one of the most beautiful churches in Toronto on one of the Christian church’s holiest days, Good Friday. As the choir began to sing, I squelched the temptation to look back; looking upward at the colourful ceiling paintings of the life of Paul was as far as I dared turn my head. I was transfixed in the moment. The words of Behold the Tabernacle of God reinforced the feeling that I was in a ‘sacred’ space.

March 2, 2018

TMC announces critically-acclaimed conductor David Fallis will conduct Choir in March Sacred Music concerts

2017-18 Season

The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir is pleased to announce that renowned Canadian conductor and music director David Fallis will be guest conductor for the TMC’s annual Sacred Music for a Sacred Space concerts on March 28 and Good Friday, March 30 at St. Paul’s Basilica.

David Fallis is a Canadian conductor and music director renowned for his work in many genres of music. As Music Director of Toronto’s Opera Atelier he has led critically acclaimed productions of major operatic works. As Artistic Director of the Toronto Consort, Canada’s leading ensemble specializing in the music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and early Baroque, David has toured extensively in Canada, the US and Europe, and has led the ensemble in their numerous recordings.  He also directs Soundstreams Choir 21, a vocal ensemble specializing in contemporary choral music.

March 1, 2018

A letter to the TMC community

2017-18 Season

To the TMC community —

Last night, we became aware of a media report that makes reference to allegations of sexual misconduct against Noel Edison.

News of these allegations may have elicited in you, as it has in us, feelings of shock and sadness.

Faced with this situation, we must make tough decisions, balancing the obligations we have to all parties involved. These parties include Noel and the complainants, and very importantly, they include choristers and all other members of the TMC and Elora Singers community.