Last Wednesday’s noon hour concert in the RBA was a collaboration between the Canadian Art Song Project and the UoT Faculty of Music.  It was an all Canadian programme; mostly living composers and mostly in a lighter vein; hence the title Songs of Whimsy and Humour.

Soprano Katie Kirkpatrick and pianist Kyeongok Kim kicked things off with a set that included a rather weird John Beckwith song about a flutist turning into a tree, an unsettling Norbert Paley number from his Cloud Light and a completely mad song by Jocelyn Mortlock about Galina Vishnevskaya’s wig catching fire during a performance of Tosca.  It was all nicely done with some excellent comedy on the last one.

Mezzo Grace Ronan with Narek Abrahamian at the keyboard did a set of David McIntyre songs.  There was the amusing Lost about a pair of missing shoes and then three “settings”of nursery rhymes that are really more sardonic commentary on the content.  Grace showed that she has an excellent speaking voice as well as a very personable touch to comedy.  Narek was excellent in some far from straightforward piano work.

Then came the serious bit; bass Owen Philipson with Rebecca Lluveras Matos on piano in Colin Eaock’s Three Songs from Blake’s “America”.  Yes, a real bass folks and rather a promising one!  The texts, of course, are really weird and the settings quite dramatic though with a more elegiac quality to the last; “The morning comes, the night decays”.  All three songs have quite demanding piano parts and are not exactly an easy sing.  They were very well done and it made a change from the lighter material.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous… soprano Aemilia Moser and Johann Derecho with two very silly nursery rhyme settings by Peter Tiefenbach and then two completely mad John Greer songs; Elegy to a Calf (Lament patorello) featuring a dead bovine and Hi Sooky, Ho, Sooky (Valse serenata) which featured a great deal of oinking.  Aemilia really threw herself into these and was very funny and even sty-lish.  Great fun!

We got what it said on the tin so no complaints about this show.

Photo credits: Chris Hutcheson