ELORA – Like most cultural organizations, the pandemic hit the Elora Singers hard, as live concerts were cancelled and it was difficult to get together even just to practice.
But both the Singers and the Elora Festival, held over several weekends in the summer, have managed not only to keep going but to flourish during this challenging time.
Most notably, the Elora Singers have been nominated for a Juno award for their CD Radiant Dawn: Music for Advent and Christmas – a second nomination for the choir and first for Mark Vuorinen, who came on board in 2019 as the new artistic director after Noel Edison left the organization in 2018.
“That was a nice surprise,” said Vuorinen, who is also an associate professor of music at the University of Waterloo, and artistic director of the KW Grand Philharmonic Choir.
He will be in Edmonton for the Juno Awards on March 13. The CD is nominated for Classical Album of the Year: Large Ensemble.
The Advertiser had a Zoom interview with Vuorinen, board chair Peter Barr and executive director Laura Adlers, who talked about the nomination, the sweeping changes everyone had to adapt to during COVID, and a view to the future of the organization.
If there’s a silver lining to the pandemic and cancelling live performances, it’s the creation of the Singers’ online subscription series, said Barr.
“A number of people bought subscriptions to the (online) performances, and we got subscribers from all over the world,” Barr said.
“I think that’s something we’ll keep doing.”
The lack of live performances for almost two years has made people ready to return to the concert hall, he added. There’s some pent-up desire and he hopes that will translate to strong ticket sales this year for the 2023 edition of the Elora Festival.
The Singers are also working on a film project, Vuorinen said, with a working title To Belong.
“This arose from the pandemic too,” he said.
The film asks what it means to belong, and the choir acts as a metaphor for life.
Vuorinen predicted there will be more migration in the future because of war and climate change, so figuring out how to belong in a new scenario will be even more important, he said.
“The music is centred on that theme,” he said. “How do we as Canadians help in ways that are constructive? It’s a heavy topic but also quite current. Music has a role to ask and answer these questions.”
The film includes footage of the choir, woven with other performers as they grapple with these questions. It is to be released in the fall.
The Singers have three more concerts in their winter series:
- on March 5 they’ll be at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Kitchener for Baroque Meditations;
- on April 2 they’ll be at St. George’s Anglican Church in Guelph for Arvo Pärt’s Passio; and
- on June 21 they’ll be in Toronto for a repeat performance of Considering Matthew Shepard at the Metropolitan United Church.
But even as the winter season is wrapping up, the Singers are well into the repertoire for the Elora Festival this summer.
And they have another CD coming out – this one with the Elora Singers performing with TorQ, a percussion quartet.
They performed with TorQ in July of 2022, “and went directly to the Glen Gould Studio to record with them,” Vuorinen said.
And finally, Adlers recently announced that she is leaving the Singers and the Festival to run her own consulting firm.
‘All consuming’
Adlers came to Elora from Ottawa in 2020 to be the executive director of the Elora Festival and the Elora Singers and encountered the pandemic almost immediately.
“The last three years have been such a ride,” she said. “This has been a wonderful, intense, all-consuming three years. We’ve learned so much, accomplished so much and found ways to ensure the singers could work.
“But for me, this is a good time to take a breath and hand the reigns to someone else.
“I won’t be far, and I’ll always be a fan,” she said.
Vuorinen said the Elora Festival will announce the summer line-up in the next month.
To keep up to date on the Elora Singers and the Elora Festival, visit elorasingers.ca and elorafestival.ca.
