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November 14, 2012
The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir vividly reminded its Koerner Hall audience on Tuesday night why Carmina Burana is one of the hits of 20th century music.
2012-13 Season
Artistic director and conductor Noel Edison led a performance of Orff’s arrangement for two pianos and percussion, providing all the rhythmic force this composition needs, while softening the sound a bit at times with the rich harmonies of two concert grand pianos in their full glory.
November 13, 2012
Preview: Carmina Burana makes for vivid night of Toronto Mendelssohn Choir song at Koerner Hall
2012-13 Season
If Tuesday night’s dress rehearsal is any indication, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s Wednesday performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana should make for a powerful evening of music.
The music from the most popular piece ever written by German composer Carl Orff (1895-1982) has been used in film and television and all sorts of advertising because of its raw power. Today, 75 years after its premiere in Frankfurt, Orff’s collection of 24 songs and poems found in a Benedictine abbey still packs a visceral punch.
The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s performance, the latest of many over its long history, added the beauty of three excellent soloists, some wonderfully subtle shaping by conductor and artistic director Noel Edison, and a nicely executed accompaniment by pianists James Bourne and Michel Ross as well as the TorQ Percussion Quartet.
November 2, 2012
TSO polishes Spanish Operatic Gem to perfection
2012-13 Season
Through all the conventions of the modern symphony-going experience – the frantic drive through downtown traffic, the last-minute rush to the washrooms, the musicians filing on stage dressed for a funeral, the rustling, coughing cacophony – through all this, art broke through. The real thing. Like a brilliant burst of the sun – warm, bright, exhilarating. Doesn’t happen all the time.
November 2, 2012
La vida breve review: Opera packs a lot of red-blooded emotion
2012-13 Season
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra was on fire — as were its many guests, including a substantial contingent from the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.
November 1, 2012
Concert review: Toronto Symphony makes fiery work of Manuel de Falla’s opera La vida breve
2012-13 Season
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra was on fire — as were its many guests, including a substantial contingent from the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.
October 23, 2012
Toronto Choir sings with Streisand
2012-13 Season
CTV News story about Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s singing back-up vocals for the Barbra Streisand concert at the Air Canada Centre.
May 23, 2012
Belshazzar’s Feast Program Notes
2011-12 Season
The Gloria by Francis Poulenc (1899 -1963) was commissioned by the Koussevitsky Music Foundation and first performed in 1961 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch. It was dedicated to the memory of Nathalie and Serge Koussevitsky, a former Music Director of the BSO. To many, the work seemed irreverent – this ancient sacred text from the Mass being treated frivolously with wit and humour. But what they failed to catch was Poulenc’s interpretation of liturgical joy as a swirl of musical colour and dancing rhythms.
April 6, 2012
Sacred Music for a Sacred Space 2012 Program Notes
2011-12 Season
“If men take great pains to compose beautiful music for profane songs, they should devote at least as much thought to sacred song, nay, even more than to more worldly matters.” – Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, 156
November 28, 2011
Festival of Carols Program Notes
2011-12 Season
Program Notes by Rick Phillips for Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s Festival of Carols concert