This year’s West End Micro Music Festival opened on Friday night at Redeemer Lutheran with a programme titled Ecstatic Voices. It was a mix of works for eight part a cappella vocal ensemble and a couple of solo tuned percussion pieces.
There’s something a bit special about unaccompanied polyphony.that has fascinated composers ever since the (probably apocryphal) debate on the subject at the Council of Trent. I think a good chunk of it is the sheer versatility of the human voice which can do so much more than sing a tone. It can laugh, whistle, speak, grunt, chatter and all manner of other things and if the composers of the Renaissance were happy to stick to tonal singing more recent composers certainly haven’t been. Both were in evidence n Friday.
The ensemble was made up of eight singers (Sydney Baedke, Reilly Nelson, Danika Lorén, Whitney O’Hearn, Marcel d’Entremont, Elias Theocharidis, Bruno Roy and Graham Robinson with Simon Rivard conducting) all well capable of singing major solo roles. This was no semi-pro SATB group!
Photo: Bruce Zinger
Opera Revue teamed up with Opera Atelier for a show called Trills, Chills and Thrills at the Redwood Theatre on Sunday evening. The usual gang of Danie Friesen, Alex Hajek and Claire Harris were joined by tenor Ben Done and mezzo Kathryn Rose Johnston for a programme of opera arias and musical theatre numbers that (sort of) turned the plot of Handel’s Acis and Galatea (OA’s upcoming show) into a murder mystery.
The Happenstancers ended their 2023/24 season last night at 918 Bathurst with a concert called Babes in Toyland. It consisted of mainly late 20th and 21st century chamber works with one unusual Mozart piece (K617 for glass harmonica (Kevin Ahfat), viola (Hee-Soo Yoon( ,cello (Peter Eom), oboe (Aleh Remezau) and flute (Tristan Durie) to spice things up.
operaramblings 