Where Words and Music Meet - Talisker Players at Massey College

Upcoming concerts: To the Sea in Ships, February 9 & 10 at Trinity St. Paul’Äôs Centre in Toronto. See the attached press release for details.

CD RELEASE

Toronto, January 25, 2010: Toronto’Äôs Talisker Players, currently celebrating their tenth anniversary season, proudly announce the release of their new CD, Where Words and Music Meet - Talisker Players at Massey College. The recording includes some of the loveliest and most popular music from the first ten years of Talisker Players’Äô innovative concert series. The disc features core members of the ensemble in many combinations, along with some of Canada's most splendid young singers.

The album comprises several premiere recordings: the luminous Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov; Andrew Ager’Äôs Ellis Portal, with its raucous and moving songs about the city of Toronto at night; Stephanie Moore's evocative setting of In Flanders Fields; and Alexander Rapoport’Äôs Chicago Portraits, based on the famous series of poems by Carl Sandburg.

Also included are selections from Beethoven's settings of Scottish Folk Songs, the enchanting Le Bestiaire by Francis Poulenc (poetry by Guillaume Apollinaire) and the richly romantic Four Poems of Rabindranath Tagore by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov. The instrumentalists of Talisker Players are joined by guest singers Teri Dunn, Norine Burgess, Vicki St. Pierre, Krisztina Szabˆ„, Geoffrey Butler, Alexander Dobson and Doug MacNaughton.

Talisker Players (Mary McGeer, Artistic Director) is a unique ensemble of instrumentalists dedicated to collaborating with singers. The original ensemble, a flexible-sized orchestra dedicated to accompanying choirs, was founded in 1995 and has since created an adventurous concert series that transfers their skills in vocal/instrumental collaboration to the more intimate realm of chamber music. Combining music and the spoken word in performances that are as dramatic as they are lyrical, Talisker Players offer one of the most dynamic concert series on the Toronto scene. Their programmes are an eclectic mix of works by composers of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, as well as forgotten gems, both ancient and modern. The ensemble has played a key role in developing the repertoire for vocal chamber music, actively researching and reviving little-known music from Canada and around the world, and also commissioning new work from distinguished and emerging Canadian composers.

In addition to their own concert series, the Talisker Players are heard frequently at Massey College, University of Toronto, where they are Musicians in Residence. ’ÄòWhether it is a big or a small event, our experience at Massey College is that music is our boon companion, for it eases the transition from stuffy to great fun, from solemn to joyous, from soulless to the stuff of life itself. I nearly wrote the ’Äúsnuff’Äù of life, and wisely or not we do that too! As you will hear, all the Talisker Players, and the singers who join them as guest artists, are hugely talented. At Massey College, we count ourselves lucky to be able to call them our own.’Äô - John Fraser, Master

Where Words and Music Meet is a celebration of the Talisker Players, of the music they perform, and of the role they have played, and continue to play, in the rich musical life of this country.

Available at L’ÄôAtelier Grigorian (www.grigorian.com)

For more information, visit www.taliskerplayers.ca