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Water

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

Resound choir

‘Songs My Mother Taught Me’

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’

Xmas cake

Seasonal delights: Frost and fruitcake

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

Tenebrae

Singing again

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

P.S. A Frost Sequence video (with subtitles)

As a quick follow up to my last blog, I am pleased to be able to publish this link to the video of ‘A Frost Sequence’ performed by The Elora Singers under the direction of Mark Vuorinen as part of the Elora Festival Online last summer. Thanks to all who worked so hard in August 2021, under strict COVID regulations, to make this music come to life against all odds : ) Watch on YouTube: ‘A Frost Sequence’ The three pieces are now published as a trilogy by Renforth Music in New Brunswick. You can find all the information here:… Read More »P.S. A Frost Sequence video (with subtitles)

Road Not taken

A Frost Sequence

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…  I can’t count the times those words have gone through my head when walking in the woods, or faced with a tough decision. Robert Frost’s poems have been in my brain since I studied them in high school English class, and sang Randall Thompson’s Frostiana in LDSS choir so many years ago. This Saturday I have the wildly great privilege of hearing my own musical settings of three Frost poems premiered by the Elora Singers for the closing concert of the Elora Festival 2021. Complete information about the concert and tickets is found… Read More »A Frost Sequence

Ink Sticks & Stones

Unusual Times.04: Ink Sticks & Stones

During our COVID19 isolation I’m trying to support emerging artists making music in this very difficult global pandemic. This series ‘Unusual Times’ features some of my own students, but also young musicians whom I have never met in person, but whose music should be heard by you. If you are able, please support them in your own way. Ink Sticks & Stones, aka Ai Rei Dooh-Tousignant, ‘cold-called’ me with her new composition released on Friday. I listened to it first thing, with my morning coffee, and the music left me refreshed and ready for my day. Since I teach music… Read More »Unusual Times.04: Ink Sticks & Stones

Winter Walk

The Year Without Music

When the German critic Oscar Schmitz called England ‘das Land ohne Musik’ that was not true. My blog headline is similarly inaccurate. Yes, 2020-21 has been a year without live music and it’s been devastating. But there has been innovation and creativity bubbling away under the surface. Conductors, patrons, performers, researchers, composers and technicians have been working on projects with confidence that live music will come back into our lives once this blasted pandemic has passed. Solitude does have its advantages. For some people, isolation is fuel for creative fire. I’m one of those for whom hacking out music alone… Read More »The Year Without Music

Tate Pumfrey

Unusual Times.03: Tate Pumfrey

We all know that young musicians have been struggling to have their voices heard this year. But undaunted Tate Pumfrey, a York University graduate student in composition, has been busily creating new music, and has found some excellent collaborators across the globe to perform and disseminate his work.  Tate composes for many genres, but extensively for the organ. What better instrument to perform, record and post on social media during a worldwide pandemic? There are no complicated COVID protocols to implement since one, solitary performer executes all the complex counterpoint and harmony all by themselves, in a large, well-ventilated church… Read More »Unusual Times.03: Tate Pumfrey

Miracle tree

The Miracle Tree: a harrowing tale for All Hallows’ Eve

It began so innocently. Just snap, edit, post. It was back in 2020 in the COVID times, the last weekend of Autumn when it seemed the whole city was out for one last walk on the Cemetery Path: women jogging, kids on scooters, men biking, dogs straining on their leads, panting and sniffing every last bit of decaying matter on the trail, oblivious to the graves deep beneath their greedy paws. The virus had made us humans wary of each other. But here on the trail, in the safety of the outdoor air, citizens gathered to exchange the news, express… Read More »The Miracle Tree: a harrowing tale for All Hallows’ Eve