{"id":14302,"date":"2013-08-06T08:09:35","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T13:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=14302"},"modified":"2013-08-06T09:22:53","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T14:22:53","slug":"album-review-hope-and-harmony-from-the-toronto-childrens-chorus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/08\/06\/album-review-hope-and-harmony-from-the-toronto-childrens-chorus\/","title":{"rendered":"Album review: Hope and harmony from the Toronto Children’s Chorus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Artistic<\/a>
Artistic director Elise Bradley marshalls members of her Toronto Children’s Chorus on a tour of Sweden last year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wrote last week<\/a> about Canada’s choral ambassadors, spreading the word as they travel in the summertime. The Toronto Children’s Chorus did it in July, traveling to South Africa — and releasing a charming new album, Sounzscapes From Our Lands<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My favourite song on the album is “Child with the Starry Crayon,” which Toronto composer Eleanor Daley has set to a poem written by a then-Grade 5 student Dinushi Munasinghe:<\/p>\n

The sun slowly sets,
\nGoes down for the night.
\nAll the little children are sleeping.
\nAll except for one,
\nThe child with the starry crayon.
\nAs the sun sets he slowly
\nYawns, stretches, and gets out of bed.
\nHe floats up to sit on the moon,
\nTo draw on the fresh piece of black paper.
\nHe doodles all night,
\nSome earth people watch him
\nAs he draws the constellations.<\/p>\n

The musical setting is as simple — and simply evocative — as the text. The Toronto Children’s Chorus sub-group Chamber Choir sings the harmonies with perfect balance and neat phrasing. Kathryn Tremills accompanies sensitively at the piano.<\/p>\n

This is but one of 15 treats that reflect the Toronto Children’s Chorus’s last five years under artistic director Elise Bradley. Since she originally hails from New Zealand, she has been her native country’s own ambassador, supplementing Canadian content with music from the other side of the globe.<\/p>\n

It makes for a nice cross-section of contemporary sacred and secular pieces, as well as some Canadian favourites, such as a nice arrangement by Stuart Calvert of Song for the Mira<\/em>, which gets an added boost from Toronto Symphony Orchestra principal oboe Sarah Jeffrey.<\/p>\n

Children’s choral music is not only alive and well but growing and thriving in Toronto, and this album is the latest bit of proof. A lot of albums recorded by children and things only a mother (and father, and grandparents) could love. This is much better than that.<\/p>\n

You can find all more details here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote last week about Canada’s choral ambassadors, spreading the word as they travel in the summertime. The Toronto Children’s Chorus did it in July, traveling to South Africa — and releasing a charming new album, Sounzscapes From Our Lands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,11,77,14,36,39,51,52,63,64],"tags":[6451,206,3801,6471,3800,3342,3368],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/08\/tcc.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-3IG","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14302"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14312,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14302\/revisions\/14312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14302"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}