You might think that, because we spend our days at the Halls, we are chock-full of all manner of musical insight. Often, this is true. But faced with a long holiday shopping list, a year’s-worth of new album releases, and general seasonal chaos, we can be quite as much at a loss when it comes to musical gift-giving as everyone else. Fortunately, we have resident experts who can help. And so, in need of some last-minute stockingstuffers, we trekked upstairs to chat with John Slavik, the Music Store manager here at Roy Thomson Hall, for some sage advice.
We’ve got quite a few goodies here in the store, but I would say that my favourite is the new Magdalena Kozena release of the Ryba Czech Christmas Mass. Kozena has a wonderfully silken voice which really shows off in the “3 Pastorellas” that open the CD. Another great recording is John Rutter’s A Christmas Festival. It’s a big seller, and it has quite a beautiful cover too! (Not that that affects the sound, but it’s always a nice touch.) Rounding out the holiday-themed choices would have to be Chet Baker’s Have Yourself a Jazzy Little Christmas: it’s very fun and smoothly jazzy. (And a bargain at $9.95!) CONTINUE READING >
