Volume 23 Issue 7 - April 2018

her mother, Margaret Stilwell. Jean was 18 years old at the time. “I’d
had approximately ten voice lessons. I sang for Elmer with a mind
to sing in the Mendelssohn Choir. Instead he invited me to sing
with the Festival Singers, which was the professional nucleus of the
Mendelssohn Choir,” Jean says. “It was a great honour for me. The
greatest joy was sitting beside my mother making beautiful music
together for seven years. We made up the second alto section. She
taught me so much. I expect Elmer knew she would make sure I was
well prepared for rehearsals and concerts. The first piece we worked
on was Bach’s cantata Lobet den Herrn. Elmer did a fabulous job
preparing us to perform it. His attention to detail and musical expression
was such a joy of which to be a part.”
Conductor David Christiani was artistic director and choirmaster
of the St.-Lambert Choral Society in Quebec for 35 years and remembers
[Iseler] talking a bit about airplane travel. “[It] surprised me,
knowing how nervous it made him to travel that way,” Christiani
recalls. “He told us that when the planes are thundering down the
runway for takeoff, at one point the pilot tells the control tower, ‘We
are committed’ when the wheels are about to leave the ground and
the plane enters into full flight. He said that was the kind of singing he
wanted to hear in the music we performed. It is that kind of commitment
that has always marked our performances, be it by the Festival
Singers or the Iseler Singers and it is that committed singing that …o,
Lydia [Adams] and Jessie [Iseler], are keeping alive today.
“I remember all too clearly that, when he passed into heaven far too
soon 20 years ago, that great man’s spirit renewed that flame in me
as a conductor. Suddenly everything that I did in music became that
much more in earnest and that much more committed. Long may it
inflame the singers and conductors of tomorrow to remember and
preserve his legacy.”
“Everything was always connected to the
text and the music reflecting that text.
Nothing was ever sung in an ordinary manner.
Every musical moment had a purpose and a
musical and emotional intent. Elmer lived in a
rarified space of creating magic with sound.”
And finally, Carol and Brad Ratzlaff both sang for Iseler, and both
also became choral conductors. Carol Ratzlaff remembers: “Brad and
I spent the first years of our marriage in EIS with Elmer conducting,
1985 to 1988. These years were a gift which we still treasure. They
were busy touring years and offered rich musical experiences which
were diverse and challenging. Elmer has had a profound effect on our
music-making at every level. His steadfast commitment to and belief
in the choral art as an essential part of life has unceasingly inspired
my work. I would say that my own sense of calling and unswerving
commitment is, in part, due to my musical roots as a very young
singer and conductor with Elmer. He had a singularity of purpose, was
passionate and stubborn beyond anyone I had met. That awakened
something in me, perhaps a sense of calling. I know that Elmer would
be proud of our work in VIVA! Youth Singers. He was so supportive
of my teaching career, and always interested in what Brad and I were
creating. We miss him.”
In addition to the new Raminsh work, “Joyful Sounds, a Tribute to
Elmer Iseler, 1927–1998” also includes music by Canadian composers
Srul Irving Glick, Ruth Watson Henderson and Healey Willan, and
Elmer Iseler’s own adaptation of the plainchant, King of Glory. The
J.S. Bach motet, Lobet den Herrn completes the program, which also
features a video presentation of highlights from Elmer Iseler’s career,
assembled by Edward Mock.
David Jaeger is a composer, producer and broadcaster
based in Toronto.
FEATURE
BITCHES
BREW
ANEW
A conversation with
Aline Homzy
SARA CONSTANT
In the United States in the 1970s, the concept of the
musical bitch was big. There was the Rolling Stones’
recording Bitch from 1971; David Bowie’s Queen Bitch
from later that year; and Elton John’s The Bitch Is Back
in 1974. And, perhaps most importantly, there was the
precursor to them all: Miles Davis’ 1970 release Bitches
Brew, a jazz-rock album that would eventually garner
seminal status in the world of improvised music.
According to musicologist Gary Tomlinson, Davis’ album title referred
to the skill of the musicians themselves – best-of-the-best improvisers,
brought together for the recording. And though 1970 was coincidentally
the same year that Jo Freeman published her feminist BITCH Manifesto
(seminal itself, in other circles), the album’s connection to “bitch” as a
gendered term was supposedly just that – coincidental.
These words have weight, though – and as they go in and out
of vogue, the connotations they carry change in the process. So
when violinist Aline Homzy submitted an application to this year’s
TD Toronto Jazz Festival Discovery Series for a project called “The
Smith Sessions presents: Bitches Brew,” she had a lot of musical and
linguistic history to reckon with. And when her application was
selected, with a concert of the same name slotted for this April 28 at
the Canadian Music Centre’s Chalmers House in Toronto, she knew it
would be a starting point for something new.
“Bitches Brew” is a quadruple-bill show, featuring four different
women-led ensembles. With groups fronted by Homzy, flutist Anh
Phung, bassist Emma Smith and drummer/percussionist Magdelys
Savigne, the concert is Homzy’s 21st-century take on what it means
to equate “bitch” with musical talent, and on how our community
thinks about musical artistry today. Same name, new vibe – in a
very good way.
16 | April 2018 thewholenote.com