Choral Scene

Community Through Song: Elaine Choi’s Choral Journey

One day in the golden late ’80s in Hong Kong, almost past the reaches of Elaine Choi's memory, she balanced on her mother's piano bench. She was about three years old. Her mother helped one of her small fingers find middle C. The note resonated through the black upright Yamaha, as it did for the many piano students who filled Choi’s childhood home. Choi's own lessons with her mother turned out to be the beginning of an impressive international music career bridging East and West. But not as a performance soloist. Instead, Choi found success in one of music's most collaborative genres – as a conductor for choral music.

Vocal Music and Community Building

For those of you who haven’t tried it yet, the “Just Ask” feature under the Listings tab on our website is a handy way of filtering our daily event listings to show only the types of music that you are interested in. For example, select “choral” for the February 1 to April 7 date range covered in this issue’s listings, and you get details of 72 events – far and away the largest single category we list.

The 6.47% Solution - Handel’s Messiah still holds its own

For a classical work that features in only 19 of the 123 concerts in this issue’s listings that involve a choir (or choirs), Handel’s Messiah still commands a lot of Christmas concert attention. (I think the rule is I am allowed to say “Christmas” if I use “Messiah” in the same sentence.)

NAGAMO: Andrew Balfour & musica intima

The 20th century term “postmodern” is often uncritically applied to a whole range of artistic expressions that are not easily compartmentalizable – wherever influences and traditions whose conceits lie on a continuum somewhere between antithetical and oppositional are blended together. Sometimes, though, it is entirely appropriate, as was the case with Andrew Balfour’s beautiful and important piece, NAGAMO (Ojibway for “sing”), recently presented on a coast-to-coast tour by Balfour and musica intima.

Singing For More Than Just Their Supper!

Here’s some good news for a change: there’s a new professional chamber choir in Toronto, the city that barely has any, and none independent from larger arts organizations. Meet the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, the new 24-member chamber choir within the larger Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, now forging its own path, mostly by way of contemporary music and commissions.