So LIBLAB is back and the pick of the fruits of the latest version form Tapestry Briefs: Under Where? currently playing at the Nancy and Ed Jackman Performance Centre. There are eleven sketches involving four composers, three librettists, three singers plus Keith Klassen who does all three. Also two pianists and two directors.
The Happenstancers latest gig; Broken, played on Friday evening at Redeemer Lutheran. Getting back to their core mission, this concert explored the relationships between baroque music and contemporary repertoire and the plusses and minusses of combining music, instruments and techniques from both. So, interspersed between sonatas by Johann Rosenmüller; originally scored for strings and continuo but played here by various combinations of oboe/cor anglais, regular and bass clarinet, strings and accordion, we got contemporary pieces.
Saturday night’s concert by the Cantabile Chamber Singers, with their conductor Cheryll J. Chung, at Church of the Redeemer; entitled A Prism of Sound, was the last of their 2023/24 season and, I think, the first time I’ve seen this particular choir. It was an all Canadian programme. The first part consisted of works by various choral composers like Matthew Emery and Peter Togni and it was all tonal works for unaccompanied choir on, basically, liturgical texts. It was pleasant enough but, for me at least, after a while one Ave Verum Corpus sounds much like the rest. I surprised myself by really quite liking Emery’s Sweetest Love which was quite complex and rather overturned my previous impressions of his music. I also enjoyed Eleanor Daley’s setting of an extract from the Song of Solomon; Upon Your Heart. But maybe that’s because the text has special resonance for me. No complaints about the performance though. They are a very good choir.
operaramblings 