Renowned Berkshire Choral Festival seeks Montreal singers for weeklong choral festival

Renowned Berkshire Choral Festival seeks Montreal singers for weeklong choral festival

Montreal, QC – The internationally renowned Berkshire Choral Festival is seeking applications from Montreal singers, ages 18 and up, for the prestigious weeklong singing festival, June 26 to July 4, 2009.

With a handful of spots set aside for local talent, successful applicants will join singers from around the world and be immersed in an intense learning experience under the direction of distinguished composer and conductor Julian Wachner, former music director for Bach-Academie de Montreal and current director for the Grammy award-winning Washington Chorus.

The weeklong choral festival will culminate with a performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio Paulus (St. Paul) sung in German and accompanied by Orchestre Metropolitain du Grand Montreal at the Eglise Saint-Jean-Baptiste on July 3.

“We are extremely excited for our inaugural visit to Montreal,” says Trudy Weaver Miller, President and CEO, Berkshire Choral Festival. “Montreal’s rich cultural heritage, old-world architectural charm, and world class amenities make it an ideal city in which to host the Berkshire Choral Festival. We look forward to an artistically stimulating summer.”

The 2009 season marks the Berkshire Choral Festival’s first visit to Montreal, which joins the internationally recognized list of Berkshire Choral Festival venues along with Sheffield, Massachusetts, and Prague, Czech Republic in providing choral singers from around the globe with the opportunity to rehearse and perform masterpieces of the choral repertoire in a weeklong singing intensive.

More than 180 singers will not only rehearse, but also live on the sprawling campus of McGill University for the entire week. It is a musically and physically demanding program designed for singers who want to reach more deeply into the choral music experience.

Berkshire Choral Festival will begin accepting on-line registrations October 29, 2008. For further information, or to apply online, visit the Berkshire Choral Festival website at: www.choralfest.org.


About Berkshire Choral Festival
The Berkshire Choral Festival was founded in 1982. It was a new idea about a unique way of learning and singing choral music in a rich and artistically stimulating setting.
Twenty-eight years later, the Berkshire Choral Festival still holds to this philosophy – that choral music is best when it is studied, absorbed, discussed and mulled over by choristers and conductors together – in total immersion – until it makes sense as a genuine revelation and expression of the human spirit.

Nathaniel Dett Chorale's 10th anniversary

A NEW HOME, NEW TOURS, MORE CONCERTS, MORE OUTREACH!

THE NATHANIEL DETT CHORALE'S 10TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON

Founder, Artistic Director Brainerd Blyden-Taylor

The 2008-2009 season gives Canada's acclaimed Nathaniel Dett Chorale more reason than ever to sing! The Chorale presents its 10th anniversary season from a new home in downtown Toronto with more concerts, old friends, two tours, and a new program to cultivate the next generation of Chorale vocalists.

Through a partnership with the Corporation of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall, the Nathaniel Dett Chorale moves to the acoustically dazzling Glenn Gould Studio in the Canadian Broadcasting Centre. The ever-popular concerts will once again be centred around the themes of "An Indigo Christmas" as the holiday offering; "Voices of the Diaspora" will be performed in February, and "And Still We Sing" in May. The February concert will also feature famous Chorale alumni. Throughout the season, the Chorale will give two performances of each program, with concerts on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.

Two major tours also highlight the 2008-2009 season. From the end of September through October, the Nathaniel Dett Chorale tours the United States with stops in Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Tennessee. In February 2009, the Chorale heads out west for concerts in Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon.

This season, the Chorale also launches its first training choir for senior high school students. Working in cooperation with the Toronto District School Board, the Chorale will select talented students of African Heritage from across the Greater Toronto Area to participate in this initiative, which includes vocal coaching, sight singing and ear training instruction, mentoring in choral technique, and immersion in Afrocentric repertoire, history, and philosophy. Participating students will be given the opportunity to interact and perform with the professional singers of The Nathaniel Dett Chorale, and will be encouraged to demonstrate leadership and mentorship in their home schools. This pilot project is made possible through the generous support of The Bennett Family Foundation (Toronto) and the RBC Foundation.

The Nathaniel Dett Chorale is Canada's first professional choral group dedicated to Afrocentric music of all styles, including classical, spiritual, gospel, jazz, folk and blues. These 21 classically-trained, outstanding vocalists have shared the stage with internationally recognized artists such as Juno Award-winning jazz pianist Joe Sealy, opera star Kathleen Battle, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The Nathaniel Dett Chorale's vision is to build bridges of understanding, appreciation, and acceptance between communities of people, both Afrocentric and other, through the medium of music. They seek to dissolve the barriers of stereotype, to empower humans in general, and those of African descent in particular.

The Nathaniel Dett Chorale's 2008.09 Concert Season in Toronto

An Indigo Christmas Great Joy!: Wednesday, December 17, and Saturday, December 20, 2008, at 8pm

Voices of the Diaspora Dett to Africa: Wednesday, February 25, and Saturday, February 28, 2009, at 8pm

And Still We Sing All o' We Is One: Wednesday, May 27, and Saturday, May 30, 2009, at 8pm

Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front Street West, Toronto

Subscribe to all 3 concerts for $99; individual tickets $39.50, students/seniors $35

Tickets available in person at the Roy Thomson Hall box office, 60 Simcoe St.,

by calling 416.872.4255 or online at www.roythomson.com

www.nathanieldettchroale.org

The Waterloo Region Composers Choral Song Circle

The Waterloo Region Composers Choral Song Circle will feature the choral music of Glenn Buhr, Barrie Cabena, Leonard Enns, Jeff Enns, Michael Purves-Smith and Carol Ann Weaver.

Where: Kitchener City Hall Rotunda, 200 King Street West, Kitchener, Ontario

Date: Saturday, September 27, 2008

Time: 7:00 pm

Admission: Free

Information: 519 894-5308, or www.chestnuthallmusic.com/choral

Overview

A unique event patterned on the popular singer songwriter circles, the Waterloo Region Composers Choral Song Circle features the choral music of Glenn Buhr, Barrie Cabena, Leonard Enns, Jeff Enns, Michael Purves-Smith and Carol Ann Weaver.

The Event

The Waterloo Region Composers Choral Song Circle is a unique concert event, patterned after the Songwriter Circles that have become popular in the pop world. Audiences attend the events and have an opportunity to interact with the songwriters, who often introduce works that are new or unique, and perform them by themselves or with participation from other songwriters who are all present on stage.

The Choral Song Circle will be similar to this pattern, except choral classical composers are not obviously able to accompany themselves SATB on stage. With the help of a Waterloo Region Arts Fund grant, we have formed a professional core choir reinforced with the best singers from the region's two university music schools.

The choir conducted by Wilfrid Laurier University's Dr Lee Willingham will perform choral music of the composers who make their homes or places of work in the Waterloo region, with the six composers present on stage.

Hosted by Jurgen Petrenko, there will be opportunities to hear the composers talk about their music, and for audiences to meet with them and become familiar with who they are and to develop awareness of their craft and their sound, and how they are a vital part of the cultural fabric of the Waterloo region, Canada and abroad. Jurgen will moderate interaction between the composers and the audience as we talk about the music and the compositional process.

The Participants

• Six Waterloo region composers, including Glenn Buhr, Barrie Cabena, Leonard Enns, Jeff Enns, Michael Purves-Smith and Carol Ann Weaver.
• A newly formed professional choir joined by the Laurier Singers will be conducted by Dr Lee Willingham, who is an Associate Professor at WLU where he leads the Laurier Singers and is Director for the new Laurier Centre for Music in the Community.
• Jurgen Petrenko, former producer of CBC's Music and Company, will be acting as host for the event.

The Venue

The event is being held at the city of Kitchener's unique Rotunda, situated on ground floor of the building. The hall is very open and accessible to the public, and the choir, composers and audience will be arranged so that there is a close sense of interaction and community. The acoustics are amazing and the hall is four stories high, with a circular floor layout... perfect for a choral song circle.

Elmer Iseler, Choral Visionary

“VISIONARY” Concert & Book Launch

Celebrating 30^th Anniversary Season

Sunday, September 21 at 7:00 p.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church

Toronto, September 10, 2008: The Elmer Iseler Singers and conductor Lydia Adams launch their 30^th anniversary season with a performance featuring the glorious music of Canadian composers John Beckwith, Ruth Watson Henderson and Imant Raminsh. The evening also includes the moving mystical works of Maurice Duruflé, Henryk Gorecki and Eric Whitacre. This concert is the perfect occasion to launch Walter Pitman’s new book, “Elmer Iseler, Choral Visionary”, a biography that outlines the spectacular career (spanning five decades) of the legendary Elmer Iseler. The event takes place on Sunday, September 21 at 7PM at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church (78 Clifton Road) in Toronto.

In addition to celebrating the Elmer Iseler Singers’ 30^th anniversary season, this concert marks the 10^th anniversary of Lydia Adams as Artistic Director and Conductor. Special guest Walter Pitman (O. C., O. On.) joins Canada’s foremost vocal ensemble to introduce “Elmer Iseler, Choral Visionary” (Dundurn Press 2008) - the first-ever biography of the choir’s founder. With a personalized forward written by Jessie Iseler and over 50 black & white photos, the Iseler story belongs to the thousands of singers and hundreds of conductors that have ever sung and worked with Elmer Iseler. All proceeds of sales through the Elmer Iseler Singers go towards the work of the Elmer Iseler Singers.

Elmer Iseler was pivotal to the development of choral music in Canada. Though he passed away on April 3, 1998, his impact will continue undiminished through his many recordings, the work of the Elmer Iseler Singers, through The Elmer Iseler Chair in Conducting, the Elmer Iseler National Graduate Fellowships in Choral Conducting at the University of Toronto and through this biography.

The September 21 performance features John Beckwith’s Sharon Fragments; Imant Raminsh’s Ave Verum Corpus; Ruth Watson Henderson’s Missa Brevis; Maurice Duruflé’s Quatre Motets (Ubi caritas, Tota pulchra es, Tu es Petrus and Tantum ergo); Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s Totus Tuus, Op. 60; and Eric Whitacre’s When David Heard.

The Elmer Iseler Singers Board of Directors is pleased to announce that this 2008/2009 Toronto 30^th Anniversary Series is very generously sponsored by Hooey Remus LLP – a premier law firm based in Toronto.

“VISIONARY” Concert and Book Launch: Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church – 78 Clifton Road at St. Clair, Toronto (West of Mt. Pleasant)

Special Guest: WALTER PITMAN, O.C., O. On.

Author of “Elmer Iseler, Choral Visionary” (Dundurn Press)

Tickets: $35/ regular - $30/Seniors - $10/Students (with valid student i.d.)

Please call Janet Johnson at 416-217-0537 for tickets and information.

Waterloo Region Composers Choral Song Circle

Waterloo Region Composers Choral Song Circle

The Waterloo Region Composers Choral Song Circle will feature the choral music of Glenn Buhr, Barrie Cabena, Richard Cunningham, Leonard Enns, Jeff Enns, Michael Purves-Smith and Carol Ann Weaver.

Where: Kitchener City Hall Rotunda, 200 King Street West, Kitchener, Ontario

Date: Saturday, September 27, 2008

Time: 7:00 pm

Admission: Free

Information: www.chestnuthallmusic.com/choral

Overview

A unique event patterned on the popular singer songwriter circles, the Waterloo Region Composers Choral Song Circle features the choral music of Glenn Buhr, Barrie Cabena, Richard Cunningham, Leonard Enns, Jeff Enns, Michael Purves-Smith and Carol Ann Weaver.

The Event

The Waterloo Region Composers Choral Song Circle is a unique concert event, patterned after the Songwriter Circles that have become popular in the pop world. Audiences attend the events and have an opportunity to interact with the songwriters, who often introduce works that are new or unique, and perform them by themselves or with participation from other songwriters who are all present on stage.

The Choral Song Circle will be similar to this pattern, except choral classical composers are not obviously able to accompany themselves SATB on stage. With the help of a Region of Waterloo Arts Fund grant, we have formed a professional core choir reinforced with the best singers from the region's two university music schools.

The choir conducted by Wilfrid Laurier University's Dr Lee Willingham will perform choral music of the composers who make their homes or places of work in the Waterloo region, with the seven composers present on stage.

Hosted by Jurgen Petrenko, there will be opportunities to hear the composers talk about their music, and for audiences to meet with them and become familiar with who they are and to develop awareness of their craft and their sound, and how they are a vital part of the cultural fabric of the Waterloo region, Canada and abroad. Jurgen will moderate interaction between the composers and the audience as we talk about the music and the compositional process.

The Participants

• Seven Waterloo region composers, including Glenn Buhr, Barrie Cabena, Richard Cunningham, Leonard Enns, Jeff Enns, Michael Purves-Smith and Carol Ann Weaver.
• A newly formed professional choir will be conducted by Dr Lee Willingham, who is an Associate Professor at WLU where he leads the Laurier Singers and is Director for the new Laurier Centre for Music in the Community.
• Jurgen Petrenko, former producer of CBC's Music and Company, will be acting as host for the event.

The Venue

The event is being held at the city of Kitchener's unique Rotunda, situated on ground floor of the building. The hall is very open and accessable to the public, and the choir, composers and audience will be arranged so that there is a close sense of interaction and community. The acoustics are amazing and the hall is four stories high, with a circular floor layout... perfect for a choral song circle.

C4: the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective Concert Press Release

For Immediate Release
May 13, 2008
Contact: Jonathan David, (917) 596-9931
info@c4ensemble.org

C4 Presents Hit It!
New York’s Premier New Music Chorus Offers up Voices + Crotales, Lion’s Roar, Tam-tam, Spatulae, Marimba, Coffee Grinders, and a Plethora of Other Percussion

Saturday, June 7, 2008
St. Joseph’s Church
404 East 87^th Street between 1st and York Avenues, NYC
8 PM
$10
Closest Subway: 4, 5 or 6 to 86^th St. Station

C4: the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective will present the third concert of its season on Saturday, June 7, offering a wide range of music by living composers in collaboration with percussionists Levy Lorenzo and Dennis Sullivan.

The concert will include five world premieres, by C4 composers Jonathan David, Asia Mei, Ian Moss, Malina Rauschenfels, and Karen Siegel. David’s Kallyope Yell sets the ecstaticly deranged words of eccentric Amercian poet Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, complete with a whip-snapping reciter/ringmaster and a battery of circus percussion. Eine kleine morning music captures Rauschenfels’s morning routine, from that first cup of coffee to her daily fried eggs. Siegel’s Hellgate Beach, a mini-concerto for two percussionists and choral obbligato, is inspired by a moment in time at the deserted Queens beach. In Remember Eternity, Mei offers a sumptuous treatment of a mystical poem by Andres D.S. Wilson. Moss’s She Didn’t Mean To Do It represents a departure from his usual intricate and thickly-textured style, racing through a tale of deception with a cynical, hard-edged sheen.

The evening will also feature the East Coast premiere and second performance of Lisa Bielawa’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In this multi-movement work for chorus and percussion, commissioned and premiered by the Dale Warland Singers, Bielawa sets excerpts from William Blake’s monumental, Dante-inspired guidebook to Hell. She draws on musical techniques from the ancient to the modern to illuminate the texts that Blake himself illustrated with his remarkable copper-plate etchings. The concert will also include favorite choral works by Veljo Tormis and Eric Whitacre, both of which include prominent roles for percussion.

C4 is a unique chorus that is directed and operated collectively by its singing members, functioning not only as a presenting ensemble in its own right but also as an ongoing workshop and recital chorus for the emerging composers and conductors who form the core of the group. The ensemble exists in both 16-voice chamber choir and larger symphonic chorus formats, allowing for flexibility in presentation depending on the needs of each work. It is the first organization of its kind and one of the few choral groups in the nation to focus exclusively on the music of our time.

For booking, interviews and complimentary tickets for reviews, please contact:
Jonathan David, (917) 596-9931
info@c4ensemble.org
www.c4ensemble.org

Samuel D. McCoy
Litigation Paralegal
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
590 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10022
212-407-3142

Choral Art Society to Present Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil

PORTLAND, Maine – The Choral Art Society (CAS) singers will present Sergei Rachmaninoff's beautiful a cappella All-Night Vigil on Sunday, May 4 at 3:00 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, located at 307 Congress Street in Portland. All advance tickets are $15, admission at the door will be $20. All-Night Vigil is an a cappella choral composition written and originally premiered in 1915. It is one of Rachmaninoff's most admired works, as well as one of his personal favorites. The piece is comprised of the settings of texts taken from the Russian Orthodox liturgical services, and is widely considered "the greatest musical achievement of the Russian Orthodox Church." The a cappella chorus is so richly textured that the blending of singers' voices evokes the sound of an orchestra. Sunday's performance at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is sponsored by the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Portland . Tickets are available through CAS and all CAS ticket outlets, call 207-828-0043 or visit www.choralart.org for more information. In addition to Sunday's performance, CAS will also perform All-Night Vigil on Saturday, May 3 at 8:00 p.m. at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, 27 Bartlett Street in Lewiston , Maine . Suggested donations at the door will benefit the Basilica's organ restoration fund. There is a third performance planned for Saturday, May 10th at 7:30 p.m. at the St. Vasilios Greek Orthodox Church, 5 Paleologos Street in Peabody, Massachusetts. About The Choral Art Society: The Society has more than 150 members who perform in three distinct ensembles: the symphonic Masterworks Chorus, the mid-sized Choral Art Singers, and the intimate a cappella Camerata. All singers are skilled amateurs, selected by audition. The Society offers an annual concert series and appears regularly as guests of the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Robert Russell, professor of music at the University of Southern Maine , is the conductor and artistic director of The Choral Art Society.

[Vancouver] Choral Tapestry: Laudate Singers, March 8

For Immediate Release – February 11, 2008

LAUDATE SINGERS present

CHORAL TAPESTRY

Saturday March 8, 2008 – 8:00 pm

St. Andrew’s United Church

10^th & St. Georges, North Vancouver

Tickets ($25/$20) & Information: 604-831-3158

www.laudatesingers.com

In their first concert of 2008, Laudate Singers and conductor Lars Kaario weave a rich and lively Choral Tapestry out of music from across centuries and world cultures. The radiant sounds of the North Shore’s premier chamber choir will be accompanied by a colourful display of scarves, dresses, tapestries, dolls, kelp baskets and other art pieces by members of the Vancouver Guild of Fibre Arts.

The musical programme will feature the world premiere of a new work by Laudate Singers’ award-winning young composer-in-residence Bruce Sled, as well as Gregorio Allegri’s glorious medieval Miserere, Mei Deus, Samuel Barber’s moving Agnus Dei, a trio of sacred pieces by 19^th-century German composer Josef Rheinberger, Claude Debussy’s Trois Chansons, and newer works by Einojuhani Rautavaara, Juhani Komulainen (both from Finland) and Vancouver’s own Moshe Denburg.

Laudate Singers are pleased to join with local artists in creating this Choral Tapestry, full of vibrant textures both aural and visual…a warm, bright blanket of sounds and colours.

Music to make your ears sing!

www.laudatesingers.com

Media Contact: Melanie Thompson, 604-224-6201 or melaniethompson@shaw.ca

North York Concert Orchestra's unites with Jubiliate Singers and Coro Vivo for Brahms' Requiem

Media Release

Nora Mular-Richards-416-628-9195 For Immediate Release

Fax: 416-467-8688 January 3, 2008

North York Concert Orchestra's unites with Jubiliate Singers and Coro Vivo for Brahms' Requiem

The North York Concert Orchestra with music director and conductor, David Bowser and the Jubilate Singers and Coro Vivo of Ottawa opus 45 unite for Brahms Requiem, on Saturday April 5, 8 p.m. and Sunday April 6 at 3 p.m.. at Grace Church-on-the-Hill

For tickets or information: 416-628-9195 or info@nyco.on.ca.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 seniors and students.

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