Quotes

"The Canadian chamber choir is a far too well kept secret. The blend and cohesiveness as well as the sheer musicality was at a level that I have not heard for some time. It is an incredible feeling to hear one of my own pieces performed with such purity and integrity."
- Jeff Enns, Composer

"What a revelation! A truly stunning performance!"
- Eric Robertson, Composer

"The Canadian Chamber Choir clearly understands how to work with singers at the grassroots level, as well as with experienced choristers. Their sensitivity and friendliness made everybody feel comfortable, while their teaching ability provided our singers with expert training. This same musical expertise and sensitivity makes their performances a truly inspiring experience."
- Tim Cross, Executive Director, Nova Scotia Choral Federation

"Let�s call the Canadian Chamber Choir a national treasure. Its 17 members � invest everything they sing with an unheard-of degree of excellence. The ensemble�s clear diction and polished blend were as exemplary as its extraordinary refinements of continual dynamic shading � they also impressed greatly with their flawless intonation."
- Ilse Zadrozny, Montreal Gazette

"Beyond brilliant � they brought a fiendishly challenging program of mostly Canadian music � I could go on about shivering pianissimos that defied being profaned by applause, phrasing that was fresh and thoughtful and a tone that called for accompaniment by angelic harps � Don�t miss this choir."
- Hugh Fraser, Hamilton Spectator

Beautiful blend of voices: Canadian Chamber Choir pulls off peerless performance

Ilse Zadrozny - The Gazette - Montr�al, PQ - March 31, 2003

Let's call the Canadian Chamber Choir a national treasure. Its 17 members - professionally trained musicians - come from across Canada, and they invest everything they sing with an unheard-of degree of excellence. Their conductor is Montreal's choral wizard, Iwan Edwards.

The CCC devotes itself to the performance of modern music, mostly that of Canadian composers. The choir and Edwards are also active in workshops across Canada, to teach other choirs and choral conductors.

Although the ensemble has since 2001 been performing four yearly concert programs in various Canadian cities, its appearance on Saturday at Redpath Hall was actually its first in Montreal. With Pamela Reimer as pianist, the program offered music by nine composers.

It began with Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia - patron saint of music. In this a cappella piece, the ensemble's clear diction and polished blend were as exemplary as its extraordinary refinements of continual dynamic shading - always smooth, even at triple pianissimo.

The singers maintained these qualities all evening. But they also impressed greatly with their flawless intonation in such forbidding works as In Honorem Vitae by Antonin Tucapsky, and in Stewart Grant's Love Songs - often hard to pitch despite its piano part. (The composer, from whom the choir had commissioned this work, was at the concert.)

The second half featured Andr� Pr�vost's Setting Suns, three blissful Elgar pieces, a melancholy anthem by Rodney Sharman - sung ever so quietly by the men alone. With piano followed Eleanor Daley's charming The Stars are with the Voyageur, and Lionel Daunais's settings of six very funny French Dada texts, which ended a fabulous concert with laughter.

Canadian Chamber Choir beyond brilliant

Hugh Fraser - Hamilton Spectator - Hamilton, ON - August 25, 2001

Life has a way of sending us messages. Mine keeps pointing out that what I should�ve done the last few decades was keep my mouth shut. Last week I said seven days was too short a time to combine five choirs into �a single silken choral fabric.� I said that kind of refinement wasn�t of the essence when rollicking through Carl Orff�s Carmina Burana and, despite rough edges, the choirs did a marvellous and very exciting job for a very satisfying performance.

This week I lent an ear to the Canadian Chamber Choir as it sang in St. Luke�s Anglican Church, Burlington under the guidance of Iwan Edwards. Edwards is the man who prepares choirs for the Montreal Symphony, so conductors can conduct their chosen symphonic works in the serene and certain knowledge that despite what the bassoons do, the choir will be fine.

He told us the 17 brilliant young singers from across Canada formed a choir and asked him to lead it, a privilege he gladly accepted: �Because they wanted to have a professional experience in representing their country at the highest artistic levels.�

They brought a fiendishly challenging program of mostly Canadian music. Eric Robertson�s Four Songs of Remembrance, settings of First World War poems by Siegfried Sasson and Wilfred Owens, Srul Irving Glick�s Triumph of the Spirit and also Glick�s In Memoriam to Leonard Bernstein, Ruth Watson Henderson�s Crazy Times and Welford Russell�s Who is at my Window.

The non-Canadian content was Britten�s Sacred and Profane, Faure�s Pavane, Brahms� Sechs Quartette op. 12 and Clement Janequin�s Le Chant des oyseaux - a wonderful two hours worth of the most difficult choral work you could wish for.

The singers began preparing this program just six days before, and single silken choral fabric doesn't begin to sum up their achievements. That was probably achieved in the first half hour of Rehearsal One. The rest of the time they must've spent making the most stunning anti-war statement out of Robertson's Dead Musicians, which needed soprano Julia Davids to step out and conduct half the choir as Edwards had the men rollicking through Another Little Drink Won't Hurt Us on the side. They completely undid me with the heartbreaking victory of Glick's Avinu Malkeinu, from Triumph of the Spirit.

Davids also conducted the Janequin and the choir's joyful bird songs were a stunning choral feat. But then so was the Britten and the incredible diction in the Watson Henderson. I could go on about shivering pianissimos that defied being profaned by applause, phrasing that was fresh and thoughtful and a tone that called for accompaniment by angelic harps.

Which brings us to St. Luke's piano - let's just say least said hopefully soonest re-voiced. Accompanist Dominique Roy was excellent with what he had. So much of the Canadian music had extensive, central piano passages, which he managed brilliantly.

Suffice it to say don't miss this choir if you ever get another chance.