Volume 13 - Issue 2 - October 2007

18~~(?}'~Lydia Adams, Conductor 29th Season2007-2008 Concert SeriesSaturday, October 13, 2007 • 8:00 p.m.BYlANTINE CELEBRATIONSt. Anne's Anglican Church - 270 Gladstone AvenueIn collaboration with SoundStreams Canada"The Troparion of Kassiani" - Christos Hatzis"The World" and the Canadian Premiere of"The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete" - John Tavener"Come Holy Ghost" - Jonathan HarveySpecial Guest Artist: Patricia Rozario, SopranoFriday, December 7, 2007- 8:00 p.m.MESSIAH by G. F. HandelMetropolitan United Church - 56 Queen St. EastSpecial Guest Artists: The Amadeus ChoirSoloists - Meredith Hall, Anita Krause, Mark DuBois andAlexander DobsonPre-Messiah Dinner at the Albany Club - 91 King Street E.Saturday, February 16, 2008- 8:00 p.m.THE JOURNEYJane Mallet Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre - 27 Front St. E.In collaboration with Soundstreams Canada"Pimooteewin- The Journey"- Melissa Hui (World Premiere)Libretto by Tomson HighwayChoreography by Michael Greyeyeswith Narrator, Soprano and Tenor SoloistsFriday, March 7, 2008 - 8:00 p.m.CHORAL CELEBRATIONMetropolitan United Church - 56 Queen St. EastMusic by Whitacre and Willan and a World Premiere byChristos Hatzis.Special Guest Artists: Vancouver Chamber Choir,Jon Washburn, conductorFriday, May 30, 2008, 8:00 p.m.SONGS OF SPRINGTIMEMetropolitan United Church - 56 Queen St. EastThe Elmer lseler Singers' Educational Outreach InitiativeGET MUSIC! for participating school choirs resultsin its first concert. Join us for a gala performance celebration.All programmes and locations subject to changeSingle Tickets are $35 regular and $30 Seniors/Students,except for Messiah, for which tickets are $45 and $40.Pre-Messiah dinner at the Albany Club $402180 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3K7canadaCouncll ConseildesArts torontdartsbouncilf th A• d C d*Anerm'$ leng1hbodyollheCUyol TorontoQ::> or e " 5 u ana 8 ~ ONTARIO ARTS COUNCIL7-\ CONSBL DES ARTS DE t:ONTAR.10FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, TICKETS OR BROCHURECALL 416·217 ·0537 Monday to Friday 9 am • 5 pmBack to Ad IndexChoral Sceneby Allan Pu IkerSing we all together - hymn to gospelThe theme that emerges for me from reading the choral listings thismonth, is the hymn, and by extension choral music as a communalactivity . The English evangelist Charles Wesley ( 1707-88), cofounder(with his brother John) of Methodism, wrote over 5000hymns, including the very well-known "Hark the Herald AngelsSing." On October 21 Humbercrest United Church will present aconcert of Wesley's hymns. On October 27 the Church of the HolyTrinity presents "Sing a New Song," described in our listings as"hymn singing," which suggests at least some audience participation;and on November 4 the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir will fillYorkminster Park Baptist Church with the sounds of "Great Hymnsand Choruses."The present-day equivalent, I suppose, of the hymns of Wesleyand his contemporaries, is gospel music, "believed," according toWikipedia, "to have first come out of African-American churches inthe first quarter of the 20th century," and still going strong, to theextent that the university music schools these days all have gospelchoirs.A great opportunity to experience them is coming on October 20,when York University's music department hosts "Gospel Inter­Varsity Explosion," presenting its own gospel choir along withthose from U of T, Humber and McMaster. There's an interestingconnection, tenuous but also ironic, between gospel and CharlesWesley, in that both Charles and John Wesley went to the thenBritish colony of Georgia in the 1730s as missionaries, an initiativedescribed in one of the sources that I've looked at as a failure. Littledid they know with what energy the evangelical spirit, including thesinging of hymns, would take hold there two centuries later.Another hotbed of the evangelistic spirit was Northern Germanyduring the sixteenth century, when the teaching of Martin Lutherswept the country. The movement had a strong musical expression,the Lutheran chorale, thousands of which were composed or adaptedfrom secular songs of the time to sacred texts by Luther and hiscollaborator, Johann Walther. The harmonic potential of thesechorales, originally sung in unison, I believe, was explored acentury and more later by, among others, the composers DietrichBuxtehude, and J .S. Bach. The Pax Christi Chorale is presenting aconcert of Buxtehude's work on October 21, and on November lthe Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the U of T Festival Singersare performing Bach's St. John Passion, which, like the otherpassions and cantatas, is punctuated by his sophisticated choralearrangements.(Not a choral concert as such,but worthy of mention in thiscontext, is the St. Michael'sChoir School benefit concert atRoy Thomson Hall on October15. The performers in this eventare all St. Michael's ChoirSchool alumni - MichaelBurgess, John McDermott, MattDusk, Stewart Goodyear, andKevin Heam ( of BarenakedLadies fame) .Other choral concerts to makenote of are the Grand PhilharmonicChoir with the Kitchener-WaterlooSymphonyOrchestra on October 13, theTallis Choir on October 20 withmusic of the German renaissanceBOSLEYREAL ESTATEDOS LEY '.