I’m back home after 50 days travelling in Malta, Italy, Switzerland and England. There’s so much to process, I think I could probably write a book, but for now I’ll let someone else do the writing. My cantata ‘Winter Nights’ was performed at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Conductor Dan Harding just posted his blog about the experience, so I will re-post his prose and pictures here for you to enjoy.
‘You can’t think that way’. Her words come back to me today as the big pot boils up pungent vinegar and spices – my forearms stickied with warm juicy bits of fruit peelings and tomato seeds. Rewind 25 years or so. Mary-Katherine Finch and I were preparing for an early music recording, sharing our various time-management woes, and how long it takes to prepare for a recording session. ‘I’ve been practicing 4 hours a day for weeks, and then the group rehearsals and the recording sessions. If I do the math I’m being paid well beneath minimum wage for this… Read More »The time required
This is the true story of a little piece of music called ‘Ave Verum Corpus’. If you are a fan of choral music, you’ll probably be familiar with the text ‘Ave Verum Corpus’. If you sing in a choir, you might have performed settings by Mozart, William Byrd, or Elgar. ‘Ave Verum Corpus’ was the first piece that I wrote for the Gallery Choir of the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene back in March 2007, and it’s a classic tale of ‘a cloud with a silver lining’. On a dark Thursday night, one of those monstrous March snowstorms descended on… Read More »Ave Verum Corpus: a silver lining story
How can I eulogize a sister, or sum up a lifetime in words? Memory doesn’t live in letters on a page, or in faded pictures in photo albums. It’s a sketchy patchwork – flashes of feelings, recollections of food and fragrance, snatches of action from decades of living and learning. To unravel the complexities of the Cori Martin who lived here on earth for 64 years is quite impossible in a blog. But here it is. Girls and women who have an older sister will understand it’s a very good thing. We have had someone to pave the way, to… Read More »Cori Martin
Today I am starting something new. I’m launching this new website! With the help of expert web designer Mary Bella the new site launches with current photos (of my mature self) , a refreshed blog where you can read and leave your own thoughts and comments, a complete catalogue of compositions with links to publishers, and a gallery of videos, recordings and photographs. You can check out Mary’s company Maestra Web Design on her website. I can highly recommend her work. She is thoroughly skilled in web design, and she’s also very patient with someone who is just learning :… Read More »Ma fin est mon commencement
It happened! Two years of imagining, researching, learning, writing, composing, and workshopping during the pandemic finally culminated in the full orchestral and choral première of our brand new choral and orchestral piece ‘WATER: an environmental oratorio’. Soloists Marion Newman, Jean-Phillipe Lazure, Phillip Addis and Katy Clark brought the characters of Helen the Mayor, her activist son, a shady businessman, and Water herself to life before a receptive audience. Mark Vuorinen conducted the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and the entire Grand Philharmonic family of choirs, including the adult choir, the youth and children’s choirs who brought so much to this performance. A special… Read More »Coming down from ‘WATER: an environmental oratorio’
Wednesday is World Water Day (March 22, 2023) and that’s a good reason to let you know about some new Canadian music that’s all about water. ‘WATER: an environmental oratorio’ imagines two different worlds. In a fantastical world, Water is personified, surrounded by singing spirits. In the everyday world, played out in a fictional Northern Ontario town, a beleaguered Mayor must decide whether to support a developer’s factory, or protect the purest water on the planet. Soloists Katy Clark, Marion Newman, Jean-Philippe Lazure, and Phillip Addis bring these roles to life on May 28, 2023, at 3pm with the Grand… Read More »WATER: an environmental oratorio
When Thomas Burton asked me to compose a new choral piece for ‘RESOUND’ on the theme of motherhood, it did not take me long to find the perfect text. My mum, Shirley Martin, turned 90 last April and my sister Cori Martin wrote a poem in her honour entitled ‘Mother’. That is the text and the resulting choral piece you will hear on Saturday March 25, 2023 in Port Perry, Ontario at the historic Town Hall Theatre. Thomas Burton, conductor and collaborative pianist Cheryl Duvall will premiere ‘Mother’ for SATB choir and piano. Two other new works will also premiere on… Read More »‘Songs My Mother Taught Me’
Here is all of the very most pressing seasonal news. I finished the epic task of baking a traditional, dark and fruity Christmas Cake on ‘Stir Up’ Sunday with an old friend who is luckily a much more experienced baker than I am. She put me right on several culinary details that averted small disasters. Who knew there were different ways of measuring dry and wet ingredients! I do now. The recipe is a special one, passed on to me by my dear friend Janet, who in turn received it from her Mother. Who knows how far back the recipe… Read More »Seasonal delights: Frost and fruitcake
Through a mask, darkly, cradling hand-written chant in one hand and a tapered candle in the other, I croak my way through the ancient service of Tenebrae. A ragtag crew of rusty, veteran singers returns to St. Mary Magdalene’s this week to sing the 8 choral services required during Holy Week, the slow and solemn march toward Easter Day. I am one of that old guard asked to brush up their vocal armour and return to the choir. After two years (or ten years) of non-singing, this Quixotic company of comrades requires courage, and a letting go of… Read More »Singing again