Ivars Taurins as Herr Handel. Photo by Johnnie Eisen and courtesy of Tafelmusik.
The first time I heard about Tafelmusik‘s Sing-Along Messiah was last year when I was on the subway and I noticed a poster. I thought “hmmm, sounds interesting,” but the holidays swept me up and I never made it to the concert.
The world is a funny place, and this year I found myself in the position where I was the one ordering those same posters for Tafelmusik, and negotiating the signage for the subway ad campaign as Tafelmusik’s Marketing Coordinator. From the day I started working here I’ve been Messiah crazed, in fact, coordinating the advertising campaign for a Toronto tradition that I have yet to see!
Tafelmusik’s Messiah concerts and Sing-Along Messiah are the heart of Tafelmusik’s Toronto performance season. We have an audience of dedicated Sing-Alongers who have been coming annually for as many as eighteen years. These dedicated followers stand in line outside Massey Hall in the cold, sometimes for hours, to ensure that they get the seats they want with their friends and family. We handed out flyers recently at Union Station, and had people thank us for reminding them to buy a ticket. That’s what really convinced me there has to be something magical about this – being thanked for a flyer! CONTINUE READING >
Photo courtesy of: John Beebe of John Beebe Photography
There’s definitely no place like home for holiday music. Home to Toronto are an array of Christmas concerts — some are new, but others, such as Nathaniel Dett Chorale’s “An Indigo Christmas…,” return every year.
As is tradition with this holiday concert, now in its 11th year, the chorale performs at the Glenn Gould Studio.
The 21-member chorale will perform a blend of contemporary and traditional compositions, featuring carols, spirituals and folk songs.
While the concert retains its main “An Indigo Christmas…” concept every year, its theme, repertoire and guest performers are different. For example, in 2008, the concert’s theme was ‘great joy.’
The founder and artistic director of the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, Brainerd Blyden-Taylor, founded the chorale in 1998, naming it after acclaimed African-Canadian composer R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943). CONTINUE READING >
Matthew Good is as Canadian as Hockey Night in Canada — though,the fact that I just compared him to a commercial enterprise owned by a media conglomerate would make his head spin. Yes, Matthew Good is as much a political activist and engaged human being as he is a musician. There is not a lot that he does not discuss on his official website. From the Iraq war to global warming to the Middle East and the war in Afghanistan, Matthew has something to say.
And his fans love it.
Here is a musician who has embraced changing technologies instead of challenging them. He has his own YouTube channel, MySpace and Facebook pages, and tweets regularly. Matthew uses all of these outlets to share his take on everything from politics, activism, celebrity, his disdain for the media, and everything in between. Love him or hate him, give him your ear and he will challenge you to think, to speak up and to be heard.
Matthew Good is playing two shows at Massey Hall, on December 18 and 19. His fans know what to expect…the unexpected. A stage-diving Panda, an expletive-driven rant on the evils of capitalism, perhaps a burning teddy bear. The world is strange indeed.
Caroline Hall is the Marketing Coordinator for Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall.
Sir Colin Davis, who was a conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra for fifty years, discusses Handel’s Messiah.
There’s an excellent chance at this time of year of seeing people on the subway or in your local coffee shop with bright orange (usually tattered) choir books tucked under their arms. What are those books? If you have ever sung in a choir, you know – it’s time for Handel’s Messiah and across the land thousands of choral enthusiasts are dusting off their scores for the annual Christmas rite. I admit it. I am an unabashed Messiah enthusiast. I have been singing it (badly) since I was a 12-year-old church chorister and Christmas just isn’t Christmas without it.
What gives Messiah its enduring popular appeal at Christmastime? Well, the first thing you should know – it wasn’t written for Christmas. Handel wrote it for Lent, but because the story includes the advent and birth of Christ (Part 1 of 3), over the years choirs, especially in North America, have adopted it as the choral work at Christmas. In continental Europe you are more likely to hear Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at this time of year and Messiah at Easter. Handel probably doesn’t mind either way. He was a masterful marketer in his day. When he conducted the premiere in Dublin on April 3, 1742, he cannily arranged for a public rehearsal to take place the day before. It caused a sensation. As a result, hundreds of eager listeners had to be turned away from the official performance. CONTINUE READING >
Being a St. Michael’s Choir School graduate, I have been eagerly looking forward to the Choir School’s annual Christmas concerts, coming up this Friday and Saturday at Massey Hall. These performances are dedicated to the late Msgr. Armstrong – he happened to have been my very first teacher at the school, which I attended from grade three through grade thirteen. In those eleven phenomenal years I grew as a musician, a scholar, and dare I say, as a gentleman.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been one of those who walked through the school’s sacred halls. To this day many church musicians, orchestral musicians, choir conductors, opera singers (Michael Colvin, Michael Schade, Robert Pomakov), quartets (the Four Lads), and even some pop stars and crooners (Matt Dusk and Michael Burgess, to name but two) are proud to call St. Michael’s Choir School their first home. CONTINUE READING >
Il Divo performs “White Christmas” on Good Morning America.
I don’t know about you, but I LOVE the holidays – there is always something magical about this time of the year. It may not be snowing just yet, but the lights are up, the ice rinks are freezing over, and I am anxiously waiting for Rudolph to make his highly anticipated appearance on my television. And what better way to get into the Christmas spirit than to spend a chilly winter’s night with four handsome men and some classic holiday songs? Throw in an orchestra and special guest artists and you have Christmas with Il Divo. CONTINUE READING >
We are thrilled to announce that Norah Jones, Pat Metheny, and Our Lady Peace will be making stops at Massey Hall in the new year!
Norah Jones brings her North American tour to Massey Hall on Tuesday March 23. Tickets go on sale to FriendsFirst members on Thursday December 10 at 10 a.m., and to the general public on Monday December 14 at 12 p.m. With her latest release, The Fall, Norah is pushing her musical boundaries. Teaming up with producer Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Tom Waits, and Modest Mouse) and alt-country songwriters Ryan Adams and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, Norah has expanded her trademark soft jazz-pop sound. The result is a rich soulful record that has Norah stretching her blues wings. As Spin Magazine wrote, the result is “a hot-blooded soul record from the queen of the even keel.” Norah’s sensual, country-tinged voice is so perfectly suited to the bolder, more mature songwriting – the album is a coming of age of sorts. She’s a woman who, at thirty and after thirty-six million albums sold, is learning to move to her own beat. CONTINUE READING >
We are now into the first week of December and that means only one thing: fabulous holiday-themed movies that are fun for the whole family! One such fantastic film is the newer but destined-to-be-canonized Elf. Why, you might ask, would you bring up such a thing on this, the Soundboard blog? Why because one of our favourite comedians plays a very important role in the film: Papa Elf is played by none other than Bob Newhart, who will be performing his signature stand-up material right here at Roy Thomson Hall on Friday.
While we don’t anticipate that Papa Elf will be making an appearance on Friday, it’s interesting to note Newhart’s versatility. I won’t bother you with the premise of the film (if you don’t already know it and therefore love it to pieces) – instead I’ll let Papa Elf himself provide a little exposition:
Since 1993, the Yamato Master Drummers of Japan have been mesmerizing audiences worldwide with their inimitable blend of athleticism, symmetry, and subtlety. In preparing for their December 2 Massey Hall concert, I have been watching and re-watching the videos on their website. I urge you to do the same.
Warning: they are addictive. I’m totally hooked.
Precision like this comes at a high physical cost. For four months, they rehearse together in the historic city of Asuka in preparation for a touring schedule than can only be described as relentless. On tour there is little time, if any, to see the sights: they are constantly maintaining both themselves and their instruments. In their own words:
We make it a rule to start a day with a morning run. After running and eating breakfast, it’s time for training until we enter the theatre. We swing thick drum sticks in the air, do sit-ups, train our back, do squat exercise and do any other kind of exercise. The muscles which we train are inevitable to express ourselves on stages. It has already been three months since we began the 2009 Yamato EU Tour. As we repeatedly unpack and repack all of our equipment, wear and tear begins to show. If we don’t perform a little maintenance every day, it becomes overwhelming. Today we are fixing up the cover for our four shaku (121.2 cm) Odaiko. We have to sew up all the little holes and tears. This cover is very important because it has to protect our “guardian angel” Odaiko. CONTINUE READING >
Were you listening to CBC Radio 2 yesterday afternoon?
No?
Why ever not?
The Great Canadian Song Quest debuted at 3:30 p.m. on the afternoon show Drive, introducing a new set of Canada-themed songs into our collective musical landscape. The concept is this: Radio 2 listeners were invited to select, through a nomination and voting process, some of their favourite places throughout Canada, and some singer-songwriters to create timeless classics about those places. One locale – sometimes as specific as the Black Sheep Inn (Wakefield, Quebec) and sometimes as broad and large as Algonquin Park (Ontario) – was selected from each of the provinces and territories, and matched with one of the nominated artists, who was asked to write, record, and perform a soon to be epic tune about it. CONTINUE READING >
Soundboard is the official community of musicians, music fans, and friends of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Canada. It’s your behind-the-scenes source for related music news, recommendations, and rewards.
Were you listening to CBC Radio 2 yesterday afternoon?
