The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir announced its 2013-14 season this morning. As usual, it features a set of standalone concerts alongside collaborations with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
The Toronto Symphony concerts include the obligatory performance of Messiah (for five performances, starting Dec. 17) as well as a modern favourite, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.
The choir is also being pressed into service for the orchestra’s concert presentation of Porgy and Bess on June 20 & 21, 2014, and for a two-night pops tribute to Broadway kings Lerner and Loewe exactly one month earlier.
The Mendelssohn Choir kicks off its own season of concerts, most of them at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, with a programme that celebrates the centenary of Benjamin Britten on Nov. 20 with the cantatas St Nicolas and The Company of Heaven.
Ben Heppner has been invited as the special guest for the festival of carols on Dec. 11.
The choir moves to Koerner Hall on March 26, 2014 for a performance of J.S. Bach’s monumental Mass in B minor and to St Paul’s Basilica for the annual Good Friday concert, next year featuring the glories of French composers Maurice Duruflé (his great Requiem) and Louis Vierne (the Messe Solenelle).
The details are posted on the Mendelssohn Choir’s website here.
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The Mendelssohn Singers, the larger choir’s core group, perform at a free lunchtime concert at Roy Thomson Hall at noon on Monday, April 8, with organist Rachel Mahon. The programme will open with the Kyrie from Duruflé’s Requiem.
John Terauds