Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

Sing with Sandra Horst
2021-05-01 10:30 - 11:30 (America/Toronto) | Zoom
Join Sandra Horst for a lively hour of music (repertoire to be announced later). We welcome back Sandra who led a popular opera choruses Singsation in 2015. She will share audio and video of selected works along with scores so you can enjoy singing along (muted) at home.
Sandra Horst is Chorus Master of the Canadian Opera Company, Director of Musical Studies for the Opera Division of the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, and Audition Consultant for Opera Theatre of St Louis. Recognized by Wilfrid Laurier University as “100 Alumni of Achievement”, she also serves as a judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
10:30 am to 11:30 am ONLINE.

Sacred Music for a Sacred Space
2021-04-02 20:00 - 21:00 | Livestream
Enjoy this webcast on-demand

Join us online for the music of Bach, Schubert, and Brahms
TMC’s annual Good Friday concert has become a cherished moment of calm and reflection for many. And this year, that is needed by so many. We hope you enjoy the experience of stunning choral music. Simon Rivard has chosen music from Holy Week in the Christian tradition while we explore some broader themes of grief and sacred space. The music will be accompanied by images, dance, and a stroll through a forest.
Concert repertoire
Franz Schubert: Stabat Mater in G minor
Johann Sebastian Bach: Christ lag in Todesbanden, Cantata #4
Johannes Brahms: How lovely is Thy Dwelling Place, from A German Requiem

Sing with Nathaniel Dett Chorale conductor and founder Brainerd Blyden-Taylor
2021-02-20 10:30 - 11:30 | Zoom
Brainerd will lead participants through a reading session, with contextualization, of choral works drawn from The Nathaniel Dett Chorale’s repertoire. He will share audio and video of selected pieces along with scores so you can enjoy singing along (muted) at home.
Brainerd Blyden-Taylor is the Founder, Artistic Director and conductor of The Nathaniel Dett Chorale, Canada’s first professional chamber choir dedicated to the creation and performance of Afrocentric music of all styles. He has conducted and guest conducted for a number of choirs across the country and taught at the University of Toronto and the Queen’s University faculties of Music. He has served as a Master Teacher with the Toronto Board of Education, coaching teachers and students in conducting and choral technique, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from York University for his contribution to education.

Festival of Carols
2020-12-16 20:00 - 21:00 | Livestream
Enjoy this webcast on-demand

Enjoy TMC’s annual joyous celebration of music for the season.
During this season where we are looking to find joy during a difficult time with the pandemic, the TMC is putting together a program that brings together virtual performances of new works, sing-along favourites from last year, and some Christmas stories and memories.
New works you’ll discover in this concert include Hannah Kendall’s Nativity, and the TMC Choral Composition Competition winner, A Hymn on the Nativity by Alastair Boyd.
Plan to add your voice to the sing-along of popular carols from last year’s Festival of Carols with the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, – with on-screen lyrics to make it easy for all to join in.
Program
Nativity, by Hannah Kendall
Coventry Carol, arranged by Richard Allain
A Hymn on the Nativity, by Alastair Boyd (winner of the 2020 TMC Choral Composition Competition)
Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah, by George Frideric Handel
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, by Felix Mendelssohn
Away in a Manger, arranged by Reginald Jacques and David Willcocks
The First Nowell, arranged by David Willcocks
O Come, All Ye Faithful, arranged by David Willcocks

Notinikew (Going to War) - A Program of Remembrance
2020-11-11 20:00 - 21:00 | Livestream
Enjoy this webcast on-demand

A Choral Perspective of Canada’s Indigenous Veterans

TMC welcomes guest curator Andrew Balfour for this program. Andrew, TMC conductor Simon Rivard, and Elder Dr. Duke Redbird will present a program that reflects on Indigenous experience through music and poetry.
The centre piece of the program is Andrew Balfour’s Notinikew. Movements of the work will be sung by Andrew’s Winnipeg-based Camerata Nova and by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
Andrew says of this choral drama:
Notinikew is an anti-war piece, an indigenous identity piece – a tragedy that speaks not just about World War I, but all wars and all indigenous soldiers. Why did these Indigenous warriors leave our forests and plains to enter a totally foreign military world and end up fighting in the midst of a true hell on earth?
The concert will open with the TMC performance of Andrew Balfour’s Ambe (Come in). Listen in the video section below.
Of Cree descent, Winnipeg-based composer Andrew Balfour is an innovative composer, conductor, singer, and sound designer with a large body of choral, instrumental, and orchestral works, including Mamachimowin, commissioned by the TMC for its 125th anniversary gala.
Dr. Duke Redbird is an elder, poet, activist, educator, and artist. With a legacy stretching back to the 1960s, he is a pillar of First Nations literature in Canada, and has practiced a number of art disciplines including poetry, painting, theatre, and film.
PROGRAM
A Dish with One Spoon, Duke Redbird
Ambe (Come In), Andrew Balfour
Notinikew (Going to War), Andrew Balfour
– Calling All Okicitawak (Warriors)
– Anthem for a Doomed Youth
– I Went to War
– Kookum (Grandmother) – Help me
Stolen Child, Duke Redbird
How they so softly rest, Healey Willan
In paradisum from Requiem, Gabriel Fauré

<

Kannamma - A concert of Thanksgiving
2020-10-10 20:00 - 21:00 | Livestream
Enjoy this webcast on-demand

From Bach to the Beatles, from visual arts to dance to drumming to singing
TMC’s concert of thanksgiving brings together an amazing group of artists in a program of choral music and more that evocatively expresses gratitude. Enjoy songs of thanks, gratitude, and love, spanning several centuries, multiple genres, and disciplines that cross cultures. This hopeful feast for the senses ranges from European classical to jazz to pop to South Indian Carnatic music, to refreshing original compositions, complemented by visual arts and dance performance. This concert was generously supported by Marilyn Isaac Stewart.
Repertoire
Cantata BWV 29, VIII. “Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren”, by Johann Sebastian Bach
What Does Gratitude Inspire? to the tune of J.S. Bach’s “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” (arr. Suba Sankaran)
Kyrie based on the Adagio of the “Moonlight Sonata”, by Ludwig van Beethoven (arr. G. B. Bierey)
Because, by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Gracias a la vida, by Violeta Parra
Purvi Tillana, by T. S. Bhagavatar
Kannamma, by Suba Sankaran
Dona nobis pacem, by Dylan Bell
Cantata BWV 29, II. “Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir”, by Johann Sebastian Bach
“This fully virtual concert has a beautiful arc that takes us on a journey that reminds us that – first and foremost – though we are apart, we find our voices and our identities through the coming together of community and the nexus of artistic minds and creativity. With all of this in mind, we give thanks by way of our Thanksgiving concert.”
