Friday evening at Heliconian Hall saw the second of two performances of Confluence Concerts’ Sighs Too Deep For Words: A Canadian Valentine.  It was an all Canadian concert featuring songs and spoken word including two world premieres and a performance of Omar Daniel’s 2005 piece Neruda Canzones.

The spoken word pieces, read beautifully by Alison Beckwith, ranged from Lucy Maud Montgomery to Margaret Atwood.  Some pieces straightforwardly celebrated romantic love and others came at it a bit sideways!  Songs by Canadian composers were well represented With Derek Holman, Jeffrey Ryan and John Beckwith all represented.  Anaïs Kelsey-Verdecchia performed (with Christopher Bagan) her own setting of “The Lark in the Clear Air” and Patricia O’Callaghan gave us her setting of “Some by Fire” with Chris again at the pianio, Andrew Downing on bass and a backing group.  So many styles!  No-one could say that Canadian music is samey or boring. Continue reading →