The Elora Festival Singers pay tribute to the spirit of mankind on Remembrance Day on Nov. 11, at 3pm in St. John’s Church.
Through the music of Vaughan Williams, Fauré, Robert Evans, and many others, the Singers use music to evoke memory and commemorate our fallen. In a program of individual gems, here are some of the contributors.
Eleanor Daley’s Requiem was named outstanding new choral composition by the Canadian Choral Conductors in 1994.
Daley worked an inventive mix of texts into her Requiem, including poetry, the Latin Mass for the Dead, a Russian benediction, the Book of Common Prayer and Psalm 130. Her flexible, deceptively simple writing style generates considerable emotion, but leaves the listener feeling absolutely at peace. The Festival Singers’ offering is the fourth movement, In Remembrance.
Eric Robertson’s choral work Four Songs of Remembrance was commissioned and recorded in 1983 and follows in the tradition that reaches back to Ralph Vaughan Williams and Charles Wood.
A naturalized Canadian, Robertson studied organ, piano and theory in Edinburgh before moving to Toronto in 1963. As a teen, he was music director at St John’s Lutheran Church in Toronto and organist with a local R&B band.
He has subsequently written scores for 60 films and numerous TV movies, the CBC TV series Street Legal, the BBC and CTV series OWL TV and for Christmas TV specials starring the Muppets.
Gabriel Fauré was a part of a renaissance of religious music in France in the mid 1800s. Fauré’s best known choral work is the Messe de Requiem, written between 1887 and 1890 as an experiment in his quest to write music that was new and different.
As part of their Remembrance Day program, the Festival Singers present the final movement, In Paradisum, which is the prayer spoken at the moment of burial.
Elora’s own Robert Evans is also represented on the program through his Kyrie for 9/11.
Evans is a highly respected composer and conductor within the choral community, writing in an accessible yet challenging style for a wide variety of performers ranging from children to his fellow professionals.
A passionate supporter of the Elora Festival, the Singers are honoured to include Evan’s tribute for those lost in the Twin Towers.
Tickets are available through the Elora Festival box office at 519-846-0331 or 1-888-747-7550 or online at www.elorafestival.com.Tickets are $35 for adults and $10 for students.
