The City is of Night

Celebrating the city at night.

Tuesday, February 12, 2002 at 8PM
Trinity St. Paul's Centre

For Immediate Release - Toronto, January 8, 2002: Toronto's own Talisker Players present an intriguing program of new music and jazz titled THE CITY IS OF NIGHT. This evening of music and poetry takes place at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre on Tuesday, February 12, 2002 at 8PM.

Celebrating the city at night (and Toronto in particular), THE CITY IS OF NIGHT features Ellis Portal, a major new work by composer Andrew Ager and poet/playwright Rex Deverell. The song cycle takes its title, somewhat whimsically, from the nameplate over a subway tunnel entrance on the Yonge Line. The poems depict a sense of place about various landscapes and atmospheres in Toronto at night (for example the Queen Street car, life on the street, the David Dunlop observatory - and of course, the subway). Ellis Portal is a cycle of nine songs for two voices with string quartet and clarinet. It was commissioned by the Talisker Players and will be performed by mezzo-soprano Linda Maguire, baritone Gregory Dahl and the Talisker Players.

Ellis Portal will be paired with a set of arrangements of classics from the early jazz and big-band eras by renowned arranger/composer John MacLeod. Titled 'Round Midnight, this work includes songs by Duke Ellington, Rogers & Hart, Thelonius Monk and others, all alluding to the city and/or night. Jazz clarinetist Bob DeAngelis joins the Talisker Players as a special guest artist for this half of the program, along with Linda Maguire and Gregory Dahl. As in all Talisker Players' concerts, the spoken word links ideas and enhances imagery to create a coherent and dramatic structure. The program will include poems by W.H. Auden, A.M. Klein, Sappho and William Wordsworth.

Mezzo soprano Linda Maguire is one of Canada's most outstanding vocal artists, distinguished in a wide variety of musical idioms. In addition to a voice of great range and flexibility, she brings a compelling stage presence to all her performances. Born in Virginia (in the hometown of both Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey) she is a long-time resident of Toronto.

Baritone Gregory Dahl is one of the rising stars of a new generation of Canadian singers. He is equally at home as a recitalist, in opera, oratorio and chamber music.

Renowned jazz clarinetist Bob DeAngelis will bring his compelling talent to the special arrangements by John MacLeod.

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Media Contact: Francine Labelle/flINK
416-654-4406
labellefrancine@rogers.com

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