Ludwig van Toronto

Tonight: York University student’s winning choral mass in recital at St Mary Magdalene

Jared Tomlinsin (ironically at the East River, not Lake Ontario).
Jared Tomlinson (ironically at the East River, not Lake Ontario).

Jared Tomlinson, a 22-year-old BFA music student at York University has won a competition to write a new choral mass, hosted by Toronto Church of St Mary Magdalene in honour of its 125th anniversary. That work is part of a recital at the church tonight at 8.

The legacy of Canadian church music to come from within that church’s doors in the 20th century is significant, thanks to composer Healey Willan, who was music director there from 1921 until his death in 1968.

As is so often the case in Toronto, we don’t appreciate the wider impact and significance of our local artists. Glenn Gould is revered elsewhere in the world far more than in his hometown. The same is true for Willan, who is still regarded in his adopted home as a retrograde composer because he valued communication over experimentation.

So while Tomlinson’s achievement may not whip up whitecaps in Toronto’s musical waters, let it be known that the church received submissions of new mass settings from composers of all ages around the world, including Germany, Poland and Australia.

Besides getting to hear his five-movement mass setting in concert tonight, Tomlinson gets a $5,000 cheque. A $1,000 second prize was awarded to Australian Brent McCord.

Rather than ride on past glories, the church is determined to keep fostering church music relevant to today’s worshippers, but still anchored in its high-ritual tradition. The competition, which closed on Oct. 15, laid out which sections of the mass where to be set. It also provided the texts and the required length (you can read the guidelines here).

St Mary Magdalene’s previous music director Stephanie Martin (who, coincidentally, teaches at York and was not on the competition jury) wrote several new settings of the mass for the church, as well.

Tonight’s concert by the gallery choir features the premiere of Tomlinson’s mass as well as other works written for and at St Mary Magdalene over its 125-year-history. I can’t find any mention of an admission charge, so let’s assume it’s a freewill offering. You’ll find directions at the bottom of its homepage, here.

John Terauds