Tag Archives: vallee

Verdi Requiem with The TMC

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I caught the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s second performance of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at Koerner Hall on Tuesday evening. It’s a piece that’s deservedly famous but I think that this was my first time seeing it live.  It’s an interesting piece.  It’s not a conventional requiem but nor would I call it “operatic”.  It’s far more dramatic than any other mass setting I can think of (even Britten’s War Requiem) but in its own way.  Part of it is structural.  Verdi keeps bringing back the “Dies Irae” text and music; even right down to. the final “Libera Me”.  As his setting for the “Dies Irae” is extremely dramatic (I want to say gonzo but that doesn’t seem very ecclesiastical!) it injects a degree of drama where the core text doesn’t really call for it.  FWIW the setting is very loud with choir and orchestra going full out and the timpani being almost scary.  It’s particularly so first up where it segues straight into the “Tuba Mirum” with trumpets up on either side of the choir loft.

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Winterreise with the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers

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I’ve seen Schubert’s Winterreise done many ways.  There’s the classic one with baritone and piano and more rarely soprano (including a memorable performance by Adrienne Pieczonka as a passing cold front battered the hall!).  I’ve seen it done with projections and three singers and I’ve seen made into a film.  So there’s nothing particularly outré about arranging it to add a choir to baritone and piano.  The choir can function as Greek chorus or alter ego or whatever.  Any way that’s what Gregor Meyer did and what the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers conducted by Jean-Sébastian Vallée performed when they joined forces with Brett Polegato and Philip Chiu at Trinity St. Paul’s on Saturday night.

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O Fortuna

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I attended the second of two performances of their season opener by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir at Roy Thomson Hall last night.  It was an enjoyable and well constructed programme.  It opened with two pieces by composer in residence Tracy Wong.  Patah – Tumbuh (Broken – Renewed), for choir and children’s choir (Toronto Children’s Chorus) riffs off Malaysian proverbs and gamelan.  It’s an upbeat, rhythmic piece that got a really nice performance, especially from the children.  Then they got their own place in the sun for a medley of Malaysian folksongs; which was also fun.  Was this the first time Malaysian music has been performed at Roy Thomson?

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In Time

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Friday night saw the first concert of the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers’ 2023/24 season at Jeanne Lamon Hall.  It was an intriguing programme both in the choice of music and in the use of dance in the presentation.  The bookends were two works written in 1707 by two 22 year olds; JS Bach and GF Händel.  The sandwich filling, as it were, was To the Hands by Caroline Shaw.

Bach’s Christ lag in Todesbanden BWV 4 takes us on a journey from dark to light with each movement or verse being a variation on the basic Lutheran hymn from which the text is taken.  It uses choir, strings, harpsichord and rgan to good effect.  The bonus here was a black clad Laurence Lemieux dancing an expressive, if somewhat lugubrious, choreography on the stage behind the musicians.

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Toronto Mendelssohn Choir 2023/24

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Here’s what’s coming up at Toronto Mendelssohn Choir/Singers next season.

There are a couple of shows for the TM Singers; the professional core of the TMC:

  • September 22nd/23rd 2023 at trinity St. Paul’s there’s a multidisciplinary show featuring dance by Compagnie de la Citadelle.  The works on offer are Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Bach’s Christ Lag in Todesbanden.
  • March 16th 2024, also at Trinity St. Paul’s, it’s Schubert’s Winterreise in an arrangement for choir, baritone and piano featuring Brett Polegato and Philip Chiu.  The programme also includes works by Fanny Hersel and CClara Schumann.

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Little Match Girl Passion

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On Saturday evening the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers gave a very beautiful, carefully constructed and thought provoking concert. To start with it was at the Church of the Holy Trinity which, as most Torontonians will know, is a sort of social hub servicing the spiritual and material needs of Toronto’s homeless as best they can. All the more ironic as it sits in the shadow of that iconic temple of consumer capitalism the Eaton Centre.

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The Pilgrim’s Way

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Saturday night saw the inaugural concert of the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers; the professional core of the much larger Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, at Trinity St. Paul’s with Jean-Sébastien Vallée conducting.  There were four pieces on the programme; one very substantial and three shorter works.  Things kicked off with a pleasant but essentially conventional arrangement by Dierdre Robinson of Steal Away. This was followed by an Arabic piece by composer-in-residence Shireen Abu-Khader called I Forgive where the choir was joined by soloist Raneem Barakat.  This dealt with the short life and death of Egyptian LGBTQ activist Sarah Hegazi and was rather beautiful with intriguing Arab influences especially in the solo part.  Then came Elgar’s Lux Aeterna arranged for choir by John Cameron.

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Remembering Terezin

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Rather short notice I’m afraid but McGill’s Schulich Singers and others have a Holocaust remembrance concert on Monday night (November 4th) at Trinity St. Paul’s at 7.30pm featuring Ittai Shapira’s The Ethics in the original choral version. The same programme will be presented in Ottawa on the 10th and Montreal on the 12th.

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