The Elora Singers, with Creative Director Mark Vuorinen, have launched a brand new album titled In Magnificence Could I Stroll. The theme underlying the works on the album is revelation, in its sense of unveiling truths and what was beforehand hidden.
It’s the fourth album from The Elora Singers with Vuorinen because the inventive director. The items meditate on non secular connections, the passage of time, and our relationship to the pure world, amongst others. The composers represented on the album embody Ēriks Ešenvalds, Jake Runestad, Jonathan Dove, Dan Forrest, Stephanie Martin, Gary Kulesha, Frank Martin, Andrew Balfour, and Pēteris Vasks.
The Elora Singers
The Elora Singers’ final launch, Radiant Daybreak, was nominated for a JUNO Award within the class of Classical Album of the Yr (Giant Ensemble).
The Elora Singers had been based in 1980 because the ensemble-in-residence of the Elora Pageant, which takes locations over three weeks every summer time. The remainder of the years, the ensemble affords a live performance collection, and has toured each nationally and internationally.
Mark Vuorinen, DMA
Mark Vuorinen is an Affiliate Professor & Chair of Music on the Conrad Grebel College Faculty/College of Waterloo. He’s additionally the Director, of the College of Waterloo Chamber Choir, and Conductor of the Grand Philharmonic Choir & The Elora Singers.
Mark can also be President of Choirs Ontario.
After incomes a BMus at Wilfrid Laurier College, he adopted it with an MM at Yale College, and a Physician of Musical Arts from the College of Toronto. On the UofT, his areas of analysis included choral music, pedagogy, the music of Arvo Pärt, and the choral music of Baltic nations.
He’s been the Creative Director of The Elora Singers for 4 years. We requested him just a few questions on his experiences, and the brand new album.
Mark Vuorinen: The Q&A
You might have made some vital initiatives with the Elora Singers over the past 4 years. Are you the place you thought you could be at this level, whenever you began out?
The pandemic, after all, interrupted so many issues, when it comes to planning and beginning new initiatives. However, it compelled us to contemplate attempting issues we wouldn’t have in any other case been in a position to do, like providing live shows, and in reality, complete festivals on-line.
With that stated, I’ve been actually happy to have taken on some main tasks together with premiering a number of new works by Peter-Anthony Togni, Stephanie Martin, Carmen Braden, Melody McKiver, and Annika Sokolofsky, all because the pandemic. We additionally recorded a Juno-nominated Christmas album, and collaborated with TorQ Percussion Quartet on a brand new album with three of the commissions featured.
We’re completely happy to have the pandemic behind us and now transferring towards new tasks.
How did you come across the theme for In Magnificence Could I Stroll?
The concept for this album truly got here from marrying collectively music from two live performance tasks which have turn into a part of the material of the Elora Pageant.
A number of years in the past, I started programming a Twilight live performance that takes place at 9 p.m., as soon as the solar has set. It’s sung by candlelight. It usually accommodates mirrored and mediative a cappella works, appropriate for the top of the day.
A number of of the tracks on this new album have been a part of these live shows over time. Extra just lately, I’ve programmed an occasion we name “Music within the Woods.” It takes place on the Sandy Hills Regional Forest, early within the morning, the place the viewers strikes via a guided stroll, and encounters the members of the Elora Singers alongside the best way.
Each experiences evoke a type of reflective and quiet listening, that I believed could be fantastic to seize in a recorded setting.
How did you come to decide on the particular items?
The items, as talked about, largely got here from the live performance experiences from our pageant live shows. I additionally wished to incorporate the Frosts Sequence which is a fee from Stephanie Martin. This three motion suite was composed throughout the pandemic and we premiered it in considered one of our digital live shows in 2021. They’re stunning settings of Robert Frost poems.
A few of the music was chosen for its suitability to be sung in an early morning forest, and a few for its serene magnificence on the finish of the day and to be sung in a candlelit sacred house; I feel they items work collectively superbly.
How lengthy did the challenge take to place collectively? I might think about the planning, curation, rehearsals and so forth took fairly a little bit of time.
The summer time is an excellent prolonged time for the choir. We’re collectively and dealing lots daily for about three weeks, so it’s an excellent time to come back collectively to report on the finish of the pageant. So, we recorded the album in July. In January, I had a sabbatical from my college work, which gave me the house to work on the publish manufacturing with our engineer, Ray Dillard.
Does the choir itself, i.e. their particular voices and talents, have an effect on the way you curate the live shows?
One of many issues that I discover most astonishing about The Elora Singers as people and as an ensemble is their versatility. Throughout the pageant we bounce between so many various genres singing an oratorio like Haydn’s The Creation one evening, after which singing with jazzer singer Laila Biali the subsequent.
One second they are often singing as a superbly cohesive ensemble, and the subsequent singers can step out to carry out as soloists. This versatility opens up such potentialities for us to discover in repertoire from a cappella Renaissance music to difficult modern scores.
- Their new CD In Magnificence Could I Stroll is obtainable [HERE], and by way of streaming companies [HERE].
The Elora Singers: Holidays 2024
Along with the brand new recording, there are two methods to benefit from the harmonies of The Elora Singers for the 2024 vacation season.
London Symphonia and The Elora Singers will workforce up for a full and superb model of Handel’s Messiah on November 30.
“It has been just a few years since we have now carried out Handel’s Messiah and we’re excited to accomplice with The Elora Singers to as soon as once more current this well-loved masterpiece,” stated Andrew Chung, Creative Producer London Symphonia in a press release.
“The best way The Elora Singers carry out Messiah is actually particular,” stated Chung. “Theirs is an interpretation stuffed with beautiful element and nuance and the solo arias are carried out superbly by the members of this implausible ensemble. Bringing collectively our two organizations to carry out this work is mostly a dream situation. We are able to’t wait to fill the rafters of Metropolitan United Church with the wonderful sound of Messiah.”
Tickets obtainable for each the in-person model, or via top quality 4K HDR Video On Demand, obtainable to view as typically as you want for a 21-day interval.
- Discover extra particulars about Handel’s Messiah with The Elora Singers and London Symphonia [HERE].
The Elora Singers’ annual Pageant of Carols takes place December 17 and 18 (varied occasions) has turn into a Christmas staple within the space.
- Discover extra particulars concerning the performances [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.
