Sixty years ago, Vesnivka Choir stepped onto the Toronto music scene – young girls whose voices were uncertain but full of promise. Their conductor, Halyna Kvitka Kondracki, wasn’t much older but had clarity of vision and purpose – to share her passion for Ukrainian choral music and culture.
I didn’t want this to be the story, but it is the story. Jazz, segregation, the Musicians’ Union and why jazz and Black musicians at the Pilot (and other venues) are still a big deal.
This past summer, an early music band was asked for a promotional group photo and a name for a concert at Toronto Harbourfront’s Music Garden. They realized they had neither, so they searched for a Renaissance painting to capture their spirit. The image they chose, by a follower of imaginative painter Hieronymus Bosch, shows a group inside a giant egg gathered around a book of music, singing and playing – and so they dubbed themselves The Musicians of the Egg.
Afrokando, an ode to the Cuban big band, is a searing, scorching album with the deepest groove. With it, bandleader, composer, arranger and Cuban trumpet player Alexis Baro is continuing to build his discography, documenting and sharing important aspects of Afro-Cuban music. Baro travelled to Toronto from Cuba in 2001. The young player was quickly snapped up by Archie Alleyne and his group Kollage. Since then, Baro has written and recorded many of his own albums, all rooted in Afro-Cuban jazz.
The Coalition for Music Education in Canada has announced that Adrian Sutherland is the featured artist for this year’s “Ancestors Voices: Music and Learning for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation” and that his all-Cree song Kiyash will be shared coast to coast to coast, inviting students to learn about truth, reconciliation, and the power of music as storytelling.
