On Friday evening Toronto’s Diapente Renaissance Quintet [1] combined with Montreal based medieval music ensemble Comtessa [2] to create an intriguing programme at St. Thomas’ Anglican. The concert was titled Across the Channel : English and French Music of the Hundred Years War; which was more or less accurate! The works; vocal and instrumental, actually spanned from the 13th century to the latter half of the 15th; so a rather longer span than the war, but the “English and French” bit was true enough. Unlike the war, Scots and Gascons were notably absent!
The final programme of Confluence Concerts season took place at Heliconian Hall on Wednesday night. It was billed as The Confluence Songbook and, if there was a theme, it was about doing live versions of music that had been streamed during the Plague. But really by the time we saw it it had outgrown that. For, in addition to the full line up of Confluence artistic associates there was a raft of guests which resulted in a fairly lengthy and very eclectic programme. 
operaramblings 