Whitacre Archives - Toronto Mendelssohn Choir https://www.tmchoir.org/tag/whitacre/ Canada’s Choir for 130 Years Wed, 02 Jun 2021 21:17:07 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Spotlight on North America: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir FREE Community Concert and Webcast https://www.tmchoir.org/spotlight-on-north-america/ Thu, 10 Jan 2019 17:56:43 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=3322 Spotlight on North America. Saturday, January 26 at 3 pm EST.

Interim Conductor David Fallis has put together a program featuring works by Canadian and American choral composers for the TMC’s 2019 free community concert.  David notes

“We want to shine our spotlight on three key areas: the exciting new generation of Indigenous artists across Canada who are leading contributors to so many aspects of our cultural life, choral music included; local Toronto composers from Healey Willan to Stephanie Martin; and the fact that some of our most alluring melodies are folksongs whose origins are obscure but which live on in lively arrangements by important composers.”

This concert is a wonderful opportunity for people to hear the Grammy-nominated 120-voice Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and discover some stunning contemporary choral music, including two works by Andrew Balfour, the prominent Winnipeg composer of Cree descent.

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]]> Sacred Music for a Sacred Space: a special concert for a special day! https://www.tmchoir.org/sacred-music-for-a-sacred-space-a-special-concert-for-a-special-day/ Sat, 31 Mar 2018 14:30:40 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=3033 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.

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]]> Toronto Mendelssohn Choir Soars! https://www.tmchoir.org/toronto-mendelssohn-choir-soars/ Sat, 26 Mar 2016 19:57:36 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=2105 David Richards, Ontario Arts Review.

Good Friday at St. Paul’s Catholic Church was the perfect day and place for a concert by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. The choir made wonderful use of the church’s magnificent acoustics, not to mention the elaborately decorated sanctuary. The concert of sacred music in such beautiful surroundings, on this special day, made the spirits soar. If Good Friday was meant to send a message of peace, hope and love to mankind, then the Mendelssohn Choir was an inspirational messenger.

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]]> Sacred Music for a Sacred Space 2016 Program Notes https://www.tmchoir.org/sacred-music-2016-program-notes/ Tue, 01 Mar 2016 20:47:45 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=2039 Artistic Director Noel Edison has always enjoyed the combination of Renaissance with contemporary music in a concert program. For him, it’s the similarity between the openness and simplicity of the structure of these compositions that works so well together.

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]]> Classical musicians embrace public exhibitionism in search of new fans https://www.tmchoir.org/classical-musicians-embrace-public-exhibitionism-in-search-of-new-fans/ Tue, 19 May 2015 18:24:00 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=1432 Trish Crawford in the Toronto Star: On a recent spring evening, commuters on their way home were stopped in their tracks by the sound of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir singing in Brookfield Place’s Galleria.

Under the direction of conductor Noel Edison, 70 voices soared to the glass roof of the atrium as they serenaded the rush hour crowd of Bay Street office workers.

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]]> TMC announces 2015/16 season https://www.tmchoir.org/tmc-announces-201516-season/ Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:45:20 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=1355 The TMC’s 2015/16 season will build on the success of the 2014/15 season and create great musical experiences for audiences– from the drama of the story of creation captured in music by Haydn, to the romance of choral lieder by Brahms and Schubert, and the contemplative space created in the works of contemporary composers.

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]]> Festival of Carols 2014 Program Notes https://www.tmchoir.org/festival-of-carols-2014-program-notes/ Tue, 11 Nov 2014 20:37:09 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=1029 One of the joys of Christmas is its predictability. Every year, we associate the Christmas season with familiar images, tastes, activities, objects and sounds. Santa Claus and Ebenezer Scrooge, Handel’s Messiah and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, roast turkey and cranberry sauce, mistletoe and eggnog…….. brass instruments and choral voices. They all provide a joyous, festive and warm mood to which we enjoy returning year after year.

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]]> Mendelssohn Choir’s Carmina Burana Rocks Koerner Hall https://www.tmchoir.org/mendelssohn-choirs-carmina-burana-rocks-koerner-hall/ Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:07:14 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=281 The raw power of Karl Orff's popular masterpiece, Carmina Burana, made me ecstatic the first time I heard it on record quite a few years ago. Last night's performance at Koerner Hall by the Toronto Mendelssohn choir brought back that thrill and then some.

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]]> Carmina Burana Program Notes https://www.tmchoir.org/carmina-burana-program-notes/ Thu, 15 Nov 2012 02:56:21 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=903 The British composer Jonathan Dove (b. 1959) has composed in a variety of fields, including film scores, orchestral and chamber music and choral music, but he’s maybe best known for his operas and opera adaptations. As well as The Adventures of Pinocchio and Mansfield Park, based on the novel by Jane Austen, Dove has also created a two-evening chamber adaptation of The Ring of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner.

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]]> Preview: Carmina Burana makes for vivid night of Toronto Mendelssohn Choir song at Koerner Hall https://www.tmchoir.org/preview-carmina-burana-makes-for-vivid-night-of-toronto-mendelssohn-choir-song-at-koerner-hall/ Tue, 13 Nov 2012 19:17:10 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=286 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.

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