Diasporic Bridges

Diasporic Bridges, at Trinity St. Paul’s on Sunday afternoon, was the Amici Chamber Ensemble’s final concert of the season.  It celebrated the way that music binds emigrant communities together and provides a link to “home”.  Most, though not all, of the pieces performed were by composers of diverse styles and backgrounds living and working in Canada and the live music was preceded by an excerpt from Amici’s upcoming film on the same topic.  I’ll save writing about that until I’ve seen the whole thing.

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Tears of Exile

Last night’s Toronto Summer Music Festival offering was Tears of Exile; a series of settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, sung by  the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal.  There were excerpts from Renaissance era settings by Tallis, Lassus and Morales together with VaughanWilliam’s O vos Omnes and Mauersberger’s Wie liegt die Stadt du wüst; the last two riffing off the ancient theme to “lament” respectively the Great War and the destruction of Dresden in 1945.

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