Sing for the Earth!

A Canadian Choral Celebration

Honouring the 50^th Anniversary of the Canadian Music Centre

Sunday March 28, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Toronto

For Immediate Release ’Äì Toronto, March 3, 2010: Toronto’Äôs Elmer Iseler Singers and conductor Lydia Adams welcome spring with a rousing Canadian choral celebration honouring the 50^th Anniversary of the Canadian Music Centre. The concert - Sunday March 28^th at 7:00 p.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church - includes three world premieres: Ruth Watson Henderson’Äôs Paths of a Luminous Earth (libretto by Carole H. Leckner, commissioned by Ontario Arts Council); Hussein Janmohamed’Äôs N‰´run’Äô alŸÅ N‰´r/Light Upon Light! (commissioned by Canada Council for the Arts) and Jason Jestadt’Äôs Carol for the Night. Canadian works by Lydia Adams, Timothy Corlis, R. Murray Schafer and Peter-A. Togni are also featured.

Throughout the evening, Lydia Adams (a CMC ambassador) and her singers explore the ideas of light, unity, the sun’Äôs relationship with our planet and the spiritual and natural worlds and, ultimately, our quest for peace and harmony on this planet. Each composer delves deep into various ’Äúearth’Äù topics and visions, taking the listeners on a great choral journey.

In Paths of a Luminous Earth, Toronto composer Ruth W. Henderson uses the beautiful poetic text by Toronto visionary poet, Carole H. Leckner, in a three movement choral setting: 1. Fragrance of Life  2. Freely Given 3. The Truth, the Light and the Way. ’Äú’Ķand in that moment when heav’Äôn and earth meet in body and soul, the love of oneness is greeted and embraced in wombs of gold and wings of gossamer. We are the way.’Äù

Vancouver composer Hussein Janmohamed explores ’ÄòSurah An-Nur’Äô (The verse of Light) from the Qur’Äôan. N‰´run’Äô alŸÅ N‰´r/Light Upon Light! is an exploration, a coming in and out of clarity, in and out of understanding and in and out of unison with multiplicity. It is all about trying new things, expanding one’Äôs being and thought into the realm of the divine.

Jason Jestadt, a young Toronto emerging composer, explores the Christmas story in the context of the frozen Canadian northern landscape in Carol for the Night. The piece as a whole (a verse/chorus structured) represents the beginning of Jason’Äôs continued fascination with both the spiritual and natural worlds and the point at which they meet. The incorporation of the Huron language "Iesous Ahatonnia’Äù parallels the unsettled relationship the natives had with the missionaries with the "unsettled" or tension filled existence the phrase has within the work as a whole.  By the end, the words "Iesous Ahatonnia" literally and symbolically "break out" of the confines of the strict formal structure of the piece to find, at last, peaceful rest.

SING FOR THE EARTH!

Sunday March 28, 2010 7:00 p.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church

78 Clifton Road (at St. Clair), Toronto

Tickets: $35 Reg. $30 Sen. $10. Students w/ valid student I.D.

Group Rates also Available.

For tickets please call: 416-217-0537   http://www.elmeriselersingers.com/