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Herbert Hortingswell

Tomorrow night (Friday, June 14) Andrew Adair is playing an organ recital at St. Mary Magdalene’s Church in Toronto. The theme of his programme is organ music written by past directors of music at SMM over the years. I think Healey Willan and Andrew Ager will be front and centre. A composer named Herbert Hortingswell will also appear, with his dissonant, spiky composition, based on the Gregorian chant “Lazare, veni foras” (used by Clemens non Papa in his polyphonic composition of the 16th century.) You may wonder why you don’t recall his tenure at SMM. So, what I’d like to… Read More »Herbert Hortingswell

Gardening

I find myself talking to the tiny seeds as I drop them into the dirt. “Good luck little seeds” I whisper as I bury them in the cool earth, and I remind myself that I am made of this rich, damp stuff. “Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return” I mutter as I tamp down the little garden grave that will soon come to life, if the sun shines and the rain falls, and I tend it well. Each plant I encounter today reminds me of someone – a friend, a colleague, a Toronto politician– a wild theatre… Read More »Gardening

Toronto concert scene

A friend asked me if the Toronto Symphony Orchestra was the only classical group performing a concert series in the GTA. They were surprised to learn about the rich underworld of strange and beautiful music thriving in every corner of our city. One of the chief joys of living in a noisy, diverse, odd smelling, crowded, untidy city is the abundance of imaginative and risk-taking musical activity practiced here, ranging from Palestrina to Poulenc, Schmelzer to Shostakovich, gamelan to Gregorian chant; lively concerts presented not by the five or six major groups, but by smaller organizations that just need a… Read More »Toronto concert scene

Edwardian Opulence

After Pax Christi Chorale’s mammoth performances of Handel’s SOLOMON, final juries and exams at York University, I thought I needed a little break. I stepped back from the routine of rehearsal, teaching, writing and performing to recharge my musical batteries. I spent four days with the Elgar Society, North American branch, at our annual conference in New Haven, Connecticut. That might seem like a potentially somber gathering, but it was an absolutely fabulous event. One of the best things about attending a musical conference is that you get to meet a whole lot of great people from far flung places… Read More »Edwardian Opulence

April update

Now that Easter is past I want to update you on some musical adventures in April. It’s a busy month, so if you’re interested in keeping in touch, here are some highlights for you. I’m always pleased to know when people are performing my music. I was particularly pleased to learn that St. Michael’s Choir school will be singing my little devotional anthem “Tantum Ergo” in Rome, and maybe even for the Pope if he isn’t too busy to hear the boys sing a concert for him in the Sistine chapel. My friend Teri Dunn conducts the choir and she’ll… Read More »April update

Remembering Bruce Hill

Pax Christi Chorale oversees the Bruce Kirkpatrick Hill Memorial Fund. This season the fund is being used to bring 50 high school students into our production of Handel’s SOLOMON. By facilitating this opportunity for young musicians to sing alongside trained adults, a professional orchestra and soloists, we hope we can pass on our love of great choral music to the next generation. I know Bruce would have been pleased as punch about this. It is simply incomprehensible that a year has passed since Bruce died. I figure pretty much everyone reading this blog was a friend of Bruce, so I… Read More »Remembering Bruce Hill

The Sunday Edition

If you listen to CBC radio on Sunday mornings, make sure to tune in to CBC 1 (99.1 on the FM dial) and listen to Michael Enright’s show The Sunday Edition and listen to his segment called “Sunday School.” In fact if you’ve just clicked on that link you can listen to it right now. The idea of this spot is that Michael is a life-long learner and is always asking questions and trying to take on something new. It was certainly fun to go down to the CBC Toronto studio and have a go at teaching this radio star!… Read More »The Sunday Edition

Free stuff

My website has something new. I’m featuring a score you can download for free. “The Glorious City” will be up on the site for about a month. Just go to the compositions page and click on the featured box and you’ll get a PDF of the score. This SSATB piece was commissioned in 2010 by the Association of Anglican Musicians in the USA, and it was sung at their annual convention that year. It is unpublished at the moment, so I thought I’d just share it with you as a gift. If you’d like to hear a recording of this… Read More »Free stuff

Schola goes modern

What do Emily Walker, Meghan Bunce, Maurice Durufle, Perotin and Hildegard have in common? Honestly I can not say for sure, but on February 7 and 8 we are going to perform works by these diverse composers that span a thousand years, thousands of miles and many generations of musical ideas and styles. It’s an interesting experiment, and it was Glen Buhr’s idea to bring us together with some young composers who would write new music for us. We (Schola Magdalena,that is) are a group of women who sing a lot of Gregorian chant, polyphonic music written in the middle… Read More »Schola goes modern

Thanks, Marta

I had an email from a colleague today. It was from Marta McCarthy, the amazing powerhouse behind choral activities at the University of Guelph. Our e-encounter was sort of arbitrary. I had sought out her advice about something far in the future. Well, I might as well tell you. She had just performed Healey Willan’s “Mystery of Bethlehem” this past December with her university choir, and I was seeking her advice about the piece, since I am planning to perform it with my own choir, Pax Christi Chorale next season. Willan’s “Mystery of Bethlehem” is a fairly large-scale Christmas cantata… Read More »Thanks, Marta