Chandeliers shone down on empty tables. A handful of other early-admitted guests chatted next to the cash-only bar as RESOUND Choir warmed up. Many of the 60 singers wore a gold pin with the choir’s symbol: a phoenix. Their dress for the evening was otherwise business casual.
The singers filed off their risers and front-of-house opened the doors. Within ten minutes, an audience of almost 300 packed the room.
I’d gone to LVIV Pavilion Banquet Hall in Oshawa mid-October for a concert called Sips & Shanties. RESOUND Choir was celebrating its fifth anniversary with a program of Canadian folk music and works by contemporary Indigenous composers. I was particularly curious to hear how they’d handle songs popularized by the Rankin Family, who formed a big part of the soundtrack of my childhood in Nova Scotia.
Artistic director Thomas Burton walked to the podium in a sharp light-grey suit. He welcomed the sold-out crowd and offered a heartfelt land acknowledgement. “Our past defines our present,” he said. “But if we move forward as friends and allies, it does not have to define our future.” The first song of the evening, “Ambe”, was inspiring and stayed with me. By Cree composer Andrew Balfour, its Ojibway text translates as “Come in, two-legged beings. Come in all people. There is good life here.”
Collaborative pianist Cheryl Duvall joined the choir for the second song, as did assistant conductor Kai Leung. It was one of the tunes I’d come for: Fare Thee Well Love by Jimmy Rankin, and the choir did not disappoint. The next song was also an East Coast number, Watching the Apples Grow by Stan Rogers, about being in Ontario and wishing you were back in the Maritimes. Burton told the audience he could relate: like me, he grew up in Nova Scotia. (Rogers, who even has a Maritime folk festival named after him, actually grew up in Ontario!) At several points, the choir broke out into chatter, everyone turning to a neighbour to create the bubbly feeling of being in a friendly community. It was very effective.
Chat breaks: A chat break for the audience followed, so that the community gathered to hear the choir could also spend time together. Local councillor Rick Kerr presented a certificate acknowledging the impact the choir has had on Durham Region in only five years. Choir co-founder Michael Morgan gave the history of RESOUND, highlighting the efforts of co-founder Kim Alexander in setting the choir up for success. “It’s easy to dream up ideas and programs,” Morgan said. “Process, however, is a different beast.”
Alexander’s business acumen ensured the choir had non-profit status and an organized structure early on, enabling them to apply for substantial grants. They commissioned works and were even able to almost double their membership through the pandemic.
After the first chat break, the choir sang a Cree lullaby by singer-songwriter Sherryl Sewepagaham. Sleepy Song describes a mother rocking her baby. The sopranos soared beautifully above the lower harmonies and a baby cooed a couple tables over (there were several families with kids enjoying the concert). Then it was back to the East Coast again, this time all the way to Newfoundland for a version of a traditional sea shanty popularized by the Fables, Heave Away. Each time the choir sang “Heave-away-ya!,” the phrase snapped through the hall and in the brief punctuated silence after, I could hear the audience listening. The final song before a second chat break was Ian & Sylvia’s Four Strong Winds and Burton’s brief intro drew a knowing laugh. “We moved from Nova Scotia to Ontario and we were sad about it,” he joked. “Now we’re moving from Ontario to Alberta and we’re even sadder about that.”
The choir held the closing note of the song, for a touching, bittersweet finish to the set.
After the second break, the choir came back for Oscar Peterson’s Civil Rights anthem Hymn to Freedom, with lyrics by Harriet Hamilton. “When every heart joins every heart and together yearns for liberty,” the choir sang, “that’s when we’ll be free.” A message still painfully relevant.
The Love of the Sea by Nova Scotia music teacher Donna Rhodenizer Taylor followed – the first piece Burton ever sang in a choir, he told us. Choir member Jessica Black stepped down from the risers and picked up a clarinet to play along with collaborative pianist Duvall for the piece. The final song of the evening was Cape Breton’s unofficial anthem, We Rise Again by Leon Dobinski, one of the many East Coast songs I first learned via the Rankin Family. As Sarah Mole, one of a handful of young professionals in RESOUND’s Choral Scholar Program, stepped forward to sing a solo part, I thought of car rides as a kid from my hometown in mainland Nova Scotia across the Canso Causeway to my mother’s hometown in Cape Breton.
The flowers on the after-concert refreshment table at the back smelled wonderful. I picked up a piece of cake and a glass of bubbly. As I enjoyed them, I chatted with Burton. He emphasized how exciting it is that the choir is singing at a high level, with innovative projects as well as large classical works. And they don’t seem to have trouble selling concert tickets. “People kind of flock to us,” he said.
It doesn’t surprise me, if my own experience is anything to go by. After all, music, like many aspects of life, is ultimately rooted in the specificity of place, lived and remembered, both our own and that of other people. It was exciting to hear a concert based on this awareness, and an audience willing, in that particular moment, to embrace the idea.
Next up for RESOUND is Handel’s Messiah in December, followed by “In Queer Company” in March, and to close the season, a collaboration, Verdi’s Requiem, with Orpheus Choir – where Burton is also artistic director – in June. I recommend you get your tickets for that one soon.
And if you’d like to hear Thomas Burton’s work with other groups (and are quick off the mark), he joins the University of Toronto Faculty of Music for “Choral Concert” on December 1 at 2:30pm. Conductors Kathleen Allan, Jamie Hillman, and Maria Conkey will also lead pieces featuring U of T’s Chamber Chorus, the MacMillan Singers, and the U of T Soprano-Alto and Tenor-Bass choruses. Burton also takes the stage with his other main choir, Orpheus Choir of Toronto, on December 17 at 7:30pm for “A Ceremony of Carols,” which will feature Reena Esmail’s A Winter Breviary alongside Christmas and Hanukkah favourites.
And elsewhere
The Annex Singers have a promising program on December 7 at 7:30pm at Grace Church-on-the-Hill, called Stargazers. There will be works by Mendelssohn, Poulenc, Dove, Ešenvalds, and Cree Canadian composer Andrew Balfour, whose piece Ambe I recently so enjoyed at the RESOUND concert. There will be a pre-concert talk by astronomer Renée Hložek with guided outdoor stargazing (weather permitting).
Handel’s Messiah: Of course, as always, you have your choice of Messiah productions this holiday season – 22 performances by 15 presenters, by my count, involving 19 different choirs. (Visit “Just Ask” on The WholeNote website and type in “Messiah” as your keyword and you can see for yourself.)
A special shout-out, though, for “Messiah for the City,” at Knox Presbyterian Church on December 21, featuring Toronto Beach Chorale the Mississauga Chamber Singers, St. Anne’s Anglican Church Choir, and musicians from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
It was launched in the late 1990s as “Messiah for our City” by the late Jack Layton, because he believed music and art should be accessible to everyone. To this day, you still can’t buy a ticket to the performance. Instead, they are distributed by the United Way and its partner agencies to Torontonians who wouldn’t normally have access to such an event.
Peppy New Year: Finally, for another direction in the New Year, consider SoundCrowd’s performances of “Spice Girls vs Backstreet Boys” on January 25 at 3pm and 8pm at the Paradise Theatre. This auditioned acapella choir features peppy numbers with brilliant harmonies and choreography under the direction of artistic director Scott Pietrangelo and choreographer Ashley Medeiros-Felix.
Angus MacCaull is a Toronto-based journalist and poet. He is currently at work on a memoir about coming to terms with tinnitus as a promising young clarinetist.
