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Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

Composer-in-residence, TMChoir 2025-26

This season I’m delighted to be serving the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir as their composer-in-residence. Several people have asked me: ‘Just exactly what does this mean? Do you live at Koerner Hall? Is it a full-time job? Do you sing in the choir?’ Fortunately, I don’t have to live in the basement of the concert hall, nor is this a full-time job, and I don’t know that I’d pass the gruelling audition for TMChoir! My actual role is to compose three new pieces for this season, to head a mentorship program for composers, and to present a lecture. I am privileged… Read More »Composer-in-residence, TMChoir 2025-26

Reconciling with Brahms

My complex relationship with Johannes Brahms goes all the way back to my childhood, and now, after half a century of memories, we come full circle. ‘Behold, all flesh is as the grass…’ My first serious encounter with Brahms remains a sublime mix of elation and trauma.  In 1976 I was one small chorister in a huge performance of Brahms’ German Requiem organized and conducted by my father. Fortunately, for 14-year-old me, the German Requiem was sung in English translation, so those Biblical passages come back to me, even now. That project took months of rehearsals led by my Dad… Read More »Reconciling with Brahms

What the rose foretold

I don’t consider myself particularly superstitious, but maybe I should reëvaluate that assessment. I do hold to certain ritual acts, especially on New Year’s Eve, when coins must be tossed out the front door, and a dark stranger is admitted bearing gifts of coal, gold and whiskey to bring warmth, good fortune, and happiness for the new year. These rituals are ‘performed’ annually, more to amuse guests than to appease the Fates. But listen. Growing in my garden is something peculiar, almost preternatural –  a plant that has become a mysterious oracle – a rose that is seemingly able to… Read More »What the rose foretold