 | | KEITH BEATY/TORONTO STAR | | Some faces of the Elmer Iseler Singers, who will be performing at Canadian Voices, a mini-festival involving the country’s six professional choirs. |
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Golden harmony
Professional choral singing in Canada marks 50 years with a concert festivalWILLIAM LITTLER
Symbolically at least, professional choral singing in Canada was born in 1954, when Elmer Iseler founded the Festival Singers in Toronto. That's why Soundstreams Canada is mounting a three-concert golden anniversary celebration next weekend, involving Canada's six (yes, we now have six) professional choirs. In addition to the Elmer Iseler Singers, the successor ensemble to the now defunct Festival Singers, they include the Elora Festival Singers, Pro Coro Canada, Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal, Tafelmusik Chamber Choir and the Vancouver Chamber Choir. Called Canadian Voices, the mini-festival begins with Saturday afternoon and evening concerts at Metropolitan United Church, in which the choirs can be heard individually. Then at a gala Sunday evening concert in the Barbara Frum Atrium of the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, the choirs will team up under Tonu Kaljuste's direction, along with the Canadian Children's Opera Chorus, to premiere The Fall Into Light by arguably Canada's leading composer of choral music, R. Murray Schafer, himself celebrating his 70th birthday. Why all the fuss about choral music? For all the developments in symphonic and operatic music in recent decades, choral singing remains the most pervasive musical activity in the country, whether in churches, schools or concert halls. So to mark the anniversary of its rise to professional status, I interviewed a number of those taking part in next weekend's concerts, to learn their views on the continuing popularity of one of the most basic of musical activities. Here are some of their thoughts:
LYDIA ADAMS
(Elmer Iseler's successor as conductor of the Elmer Iseler Singers) "Choral singers come from all walks of life. I even had a policeman in one of my choirs. He sometimes came to rehearsal in full police gear, while his partner sat out in the patrol car. If they had a call, he'd have to leave immediately. "Whatever happens in people's lives, within five minutes of starting to sing, all that goes away. The voice can be a very powerful thing. When I was 6, my parents took me to Baddeck (N.S.) High School to hear a very young Maureen Forrester sing in the gym. That night I decided to be a musician. "Years later the Festival Singers came to do a workshop when I was studying at Mount Allison (University). Elmer Iseler conducted Murray Schafer's Epitaph For Moonlight. My spine tingled and I thought to myself, that's what I want to do. "It was Elmer's dream to have a group of singers who could make a living as members of his choir. We are in residence at the University of Toronto five or six months a year now and tour internationally, but it's still a dream."
NOEL EDISON (Founding conductor of the Elora Festival Singers and Elmer Iseler's successor as conductor of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir) "The human connection is very important in singing. Singing is direct, with no instrument in between. And it is therapeutic. Many of my singers have been helped through major handicaps, such as cancer, and have been rejuvenated through singing in a choir. "It was Elmer (Iseler) who championed the idea that choral singing should also be a realm of excellence. I was inspired by him in founding the Elora Festival Singers. We're going into our 25th season now and the whole choral scene in Canada has changed over those years. "Choral singing used to be dominated by the English tradition, led by people such as Healey Willan and (Sir Ernest) MacMillan. They were after the purity of sound of those English boy sopranos. When I grew up that was still the sound championed in churches. "More recently there has been a German influence, led by conductors such as Helmuth Rilling. I studied with Rilling myself. And then there is also the Swedish influence. The first conductor of Pro Coro Canada (of Edmonton) was Swedish. "We now have a wide mix of choral styles in this country. And a huge upsurge of children's choirs. The school systems have fallen on bad times, so it is especially good that children have these choirs as a musical outlet."
JON WASHBURN (Founding conductor of the Vancouver Chamber Choir) "Choral singing is a team sport. You do it with other people and enjoy a collective satisfaction when it works. By way of contrast, the life of a soloist is rather lonely. "The singers I hire now are two generations removed from me (Washburn is 62) and I don't always understand what motivates them, but I notice they are really good people. People who become involved in choral music tend to have a good set of values. They are thoughtful and responsible. "Maybe it has something to do with the texts. Texts give us a better clue into what was in the composer's mind when he chose those sounds than we can find in abstract instrumental music and they often have to do with spiritual things. "When I came to Canada over 30 years ago there were still quite a few strong choral programs in high schools. By the '80s and '90s there was an environment of show choirs. They were even more saccharine than jazz choirs, but our city schools are so multi-ethnic now that there is more of a world music approach, which is very enriching."
IVARS TAURINS (Founding conductor of the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir) "I didn't appreciate what power there was in choral music until I attended the Podium 2000 conference in Edmonton and listened to a whole series of choirs. Every concert hit something deep inside me. I realized there is something almost primeval about singing. Just think about it. At almost any important occasion in one's life there is singing, all the way back to a mother's singing to her child. Singing is the closest thing to the heart in expressing one's soul. "This is obvious from the amount of choral singing around the world and especially in Ontario. Being a violist (as Taurins initially was with Tafelmusik), one gets used to experiencing the innards of music, the harmony, and that's what choral singing is all about. "Unfortunately, everyone thinks singers will participate just for the love of the music. The average payment for (professional) choral singers is only $25 per hour. They still need their day jobs."
FRANCINE LABELLE (Arts publicist and long time choral singer) "Certain singers are meant to be choral singers. You have to be willing and able to control your vibrato and blend your voice with others. It's like sharing a meal. Besides, I get stage fright, so I don't want to be a soloist. "A lot of singing teachers will tell you not to sing in a choir because you lose freedom of voice. But I don't believe it. I think choral singing is very liberating. And it's good mental exercise. You have to be on your toes to create something with others. "I like singing with the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir because Baroque music suits my personality. I like opera, but I don't have a huge voice and the flexibility and agility required in Baroque music suit me. The music is often based on religious texts. It is my way of praying. "Singing Murray Schafer's music is a real challenge. It has high Cs at modern pitch and with Tafelmusik I have never before had to hit a high C at modern pitch."
R. MURRAY SCHAFER (Composer of The Fall Into Light) "Choral music used to be considered poor man's music, but as orchestras are disintegrating we are coming back to choral singing, to the human voice, the original instrument. I was a boy soprano and sang in choirs until I was 19 or 20. The experience gave me an understanding of what voices can do. "I don't know why I began experimenting with notation but in working with children I found that young people found it easier to work with something graphic to get a certain sound. Some of the techniques I used had not been used before. In Miniwanka I had the singers start out imitating rain drops, then a stream, then a waterfall. "Today, orchestras are becoming more conservative and choirs more experimental. And I like the way you can bring people from all walks of life together in a choir. It's a beautiful thing when people, rich and poor, young and old, educated and uneducated, come together to make music."
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