True North
A celebration of Canada through its poets, painters and composers.
Tuesday and Wednesday, February 27 and 28, 2007 at 8PM
Trinity St. Paul's Centre
For Immediate Release - Toronto, January 25, 2007: Toronto’s Talisker Players celebrate the landscape and people of Canada in words and music with True North. The unusual and inspiring programme features the poetry of Anne Michaels, Lorna Crozier, Bliss Carman and other luminary Canadian poets in musical settings for an eclectic variety of instruments. Soprano Melanie Conly, mezzo soprano Vicki St. Pierre and baritone Giles Tomkins join the musicians of Talisker Players at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre on Tuesday, February 27 and Wednesday, February 28.
True North features the premiere of Reflective Pieces, a setting of five poems of Anne Michaels. Originally for mezzo soprano and piano, this new arrangement for strings and piano was commissioned by Talisker Players from Stephanie Moore, a rising star of a younger generation of Canadian composers.
Another highlight is The Rising Fire by the acclaimed young composer Erik Ross, a mezmerizing setting of poems by Gwendolyn MacEwen, for baritone and marimba. And The Eye of the Seasons by Roberta Stephen is a simple and charming suite of poems by Lorna Crozier, for soprano, clarinet and piano (both poet and composer hail from Saskatchewan).
True North also includes settings of some of the earliest Canadian poetry in English. Zhawaninodin by Mary Gardiner, for mezzo soprano and baritone, piano and percussion, is a poem by Valancy Crawford, who emigrated as a child from Ireland in the 1850s and who responded passionately to the Canadian landscape. Shadow River by Vancouver composer Stephen Chatman, for soprano and wind quintet, is a poem by Pauline Johnson, the famous Métis poet and entertainer of the early 20th-century. Winter by John Burge, for soprano, flute and piano, is a sonnet by the lyric poet and journalist Bliss Carman, born in New Brunswick in 1861.
The concert also features Alexander Rapoport’s Northscapes, a setting of Barker Fairley poetry for mezzo soprano and string quartet, originally commissioned for Talisker Players in its first season by a private donor, as an anniversary gift for his wife. Fairley, a Toronto-born contemporary of the Group of Seven, is best known as a landscape and portrait painter, but his poetry is as lyrical and distinctive as his painting.
As always, this Talisker Players production includes the spoken word. The evening’s readings will be a taken from the memoirs, diaries and letters of some of Canada’s greatest painters of the landscape – Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Emily Carr and others – read by the distinguished actor and director Stewart Arnott.
Soprano Melanie Conly has been praised for her “passion and charm” (Now Magazine) and for her “sweet voice delivery” (Toronto Star). She has performed across Canada and the United States in a diverse repertoire of opera, oratorio, new music, recital and musical theatre. She is rapidly emerging in chamber music circles, having spent the summer of 2006 performing at the Kairos Chamber Music Festival in Washington State, the Malibu Coast Chamber Music Festival in California, and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival. Recent engagements include Patience with the Toronto Operetta Theatre, Mozart’s Coronation Mass and the premiere of David Fawcett’s Magnificat, both in Hamilton, as well as a performance of Messiah with Toronto Classical Singers.
Vicki St. Pierre’s lush voice is both dark and brilliant, an unusual combination. She has distinguished herself in a wide variety of styles and genres. She has appeared several times with Opera Atelier (most recently in Charpentier’s Actéon), in Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea for Cleveland Opera and for Early Music Vancouver’s production at Festival Vancouver. Vicki is equally acclaimed in concert; she has recently been heard in Bach’s Mass in B Minor with London Baroque Orchestra, Handel’s Coronation Anthems with Bell’Arte Singers of Toronto, Honneger’s King David with the Fanshawe Symphonic Chorus) the Stanford Requiem with the Orpheus Choir of Toronto and a programme of Bach cantatas with the Toronto Chamber Choir.
Giles Tomkins is fast becoming one of Canada’s leading vocal artists, widely recognized for his virtuosity and lyricism. His concert career in Canada has included performances with the Canadian Opera Company, the Aldeburgh Connection, Opera in Concert, the St. Lawrence String Quartet and the Canadian Brass. In Britain, he has performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, with the Scottish National Opera in a touring production of Puccini's La Boheme (performing the role of Colline), and in the June 2006 European premiere of the Canadian opera The Midnight Court, in the Linbury Theatre of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He has also appeared on four international Naxos recordings with Aradia Ensemble and has been heard frequently on CBC Radio. His recently released solo album, And So It Goes, (Opening Day Recordings /. Universal), has been met with critical acclaim.
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Media Contact: Francine Labelle/flINK
416-654-4406
labellefrancine@rogers.com
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