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Dialogues of Maximus and Stephanus

Maximus: Ho there, Stephanus. Halt your hasty steps for an old colleague. Isn’t the campus pleasant on this fine Autumnal day? Stephanus: Yes my dear Maximus. The term begins, and once again my students plunge into their assignments and exams and prepare for juries. Maximus: Juries? Stephanus: I forget you are a scientist! In Music our students are subjected to a final performance, judged by a panel of faculty members. It will be the first time for some of them, so they are nervous, and the sight of some of our professors frightens them. Maximus: You must remind your students… Read More »Dialogues of Maximus and Stephanus

The Parry Diaries

Jan. 2013 A choir member lends me some old scores bound in red leather – two oratorios by a major composer – King Saul and Judith by C. H. H. Parry. March 2013 Had my family around me for Easter thank goodness. After dinner show my Dad the score of Judith and sing through the big tune. Tough going without his reading glasses, but still beautiful. April 2013 Pax Christi performs Handel’s Solomon with orchestra, soloists, off book and dramatized, high school students from Fr John Redmond. Excitement palpable! Oct. 2013 Great Canadian Hymn contest brings together composers from across… Read More »The Parry Diaries

Happy Easter

Just in time for Easter, here is our Pax Christi video. Two previous blogs refer to this, so I am very pleased to present it to you, hot off the press, with best wishes for a happy and healthy Eastertide. Now the Queen of Seasons

500,000 hits

When your blog ticker says you’ve reached 500,000 hits, is it appropriate to open a bottle of bubbly? Pax Christi Chorale and Laura Adlers set me up on my blog back in September 2010 when I left the choir for a Sabbatical break. Back then I wrote “I blog, therefore I am.” The blog really was a lifeline whilst travelling alone in Europe; a place to sort out my own experiences and record events and impressions of things I saw and people I met. It was a great comfort in my dark time of grief and provided a venue for… Read More »500,000 hits

The Beggar’s Opera at York University

About two years ago Gwen Dobie, Catherine Robbin and I had lunch on a patio under a tree, sipping white wine and evaluating our production of Dido and Aeneas at York University. We were exhausted but happy after our initial collaboration, and keen to sink our teeth into something even bigger. That’s when the idea was hatched to produce The Beggar’s Opera at York. We open next week after a year of planning, designing and rehearsing. The production is high energy, imaginative, and a little off the wall. Gwen presents the opera as a “play within a play” set in a… Read More »The Beggar’s Opera at York University

blessing the door 2013

Adieu 2013

2013 was a step up from annus horribilis 2012. My annual New Year’s Eve party usually involves Haggis and pagan rituals: a dark stranger, coins, whisky and coal. This year Fr Tay Moss blessed my house with the works, holy water and all. During the infamous Toronto ice storm I lost power for two days. Thank goodness for Bruce Hill’s stubbornness! He insisted on installing a gas stove when we moved here in 1998, not for heating mind you, but for efficient cooking. Boiling up cinnamon spiced water filled the house with Christmas fragrance throughout the dark and chilly episode,… Read More »Adieu 2013

Thomas Morley treatise

Plaine and Easie Introduction to Modern Learning

Maximus: Ho there, Stephanus! Why run you so fast from your smart classroom? Stephanus: Oh, my dear Maximus, I’ve just lectured to my students and now I’m late for my Tenure and Promotions committee meeting. But I always have a moment to talk with you, my wise colleague. How are you? Maximus: I am in good health, but exhausted. So much to do this time of year! Stephanus: I should say so, what with exams in a month, end of term concerts and the lengthening darkness of the Autumnal season. My students are stressed out. And I am frustrated because… Read More »Plaine and Easie Introduction to Modern Learning

Recipe for collaboration

Up here at York University we are exploring undiscovered territory. In a truly daring and innovative experiment, all of the various departments in our Fine Arts Faculty are collaborating on a production of a theatre piece written three centuries ago – a work so important, so controversial, so wildly popular that it toppled the London theatre giants of the time, bringing the musical genius Georg Frederic Handel to his knees financially and artistically. The work is John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera and it is going to be a wild and wacky show. Our Beggar’s Opera production culminates in a week long… Read More »Recipe for collaboration

Composer’s craft

Voces Capituli, a men’s choir in Antwerp, have been singing my music for a while in their beautiful church in Belgium. They took some of my liturgical music on tour to Rome this summer. I have never met any of them, but I correspond with their conductor, Dirk Maes, and he sent me this photo of St. Laurence church where they sing regularly, on the other side of the world. Many of the men in the choir are former choirboys at the cathedral in Antwerp. Needless to say they are all grown up now and have their own website. Click… Read More »Composer’s craft

How it used to be

I had some fun today teaching my music history students at York University how to dance a Pavan, and explaining how a renaissance person was expected to know how to dance, sing, play an instrument, recite poetry in Latin and hold their own in a polite debate. I asked them for their thoughts about what social skills were essential today. They said it is essential to read (English) and to be able to text quickly. Clearly, I set them up for that response. I know full well that texting on a cell phone is a priority for them. If I… Read More »How it used to be