Montréal & Toronto

Marvellous times in Canada...

Firstly in Québec, just across the water from Montréal in St Lambert at the Centre Multifonctionnel; as ever in francophone Canada, we were greeted with great enthusiasm & the audience were excellent.
Great to exercise our French material again - Priez pour Paix (Poulenc) from our new CD, Songs of Love and War especially moving.

Then we chased over to Toronto, where we took part in SING! - The Toronto Vocal Arts Festival... delightful to meet (and hear) the excellent Aaron Jensen & his vocal tremendous group Countermeasure.
Aaron a great leading light in vocal music worldwide (composing, arranging, workshopping and singing) - very good to know him now.
Splendid to see Pat Silver too, whose idea SING! was (now in its third year), having met her in various events around Canada before - excellent to work for her!

Members of Countermeasure were kind enough to come to our workshop on Saturday afternoon, and join in with gusto, as well as some individuals & also an octet, Maple Jam from Vermont, who sang a glorious rendition of a piece by Piazzolla - great to hear them too!

We very much enjoyed our workshop, listening to great singing & sharing some knowledge.

Pity we were only in Toronto for 23 hours - there was so much of SING! to enjoy... a feast of vocal music...

The Little Trinity Church was truly wonderful to sing in, it was like having another two members with us! Great acoustic...
The audience were equally delighted by the classical and the pure, and by the jazzy and funny...

All in all, a quick but rewarding trip to Canada - we're back in Ontario and Québec in October...

Altafulla

Great evening in Church Square, Altafulla... a perfect acoustic with the stage set up in the corner; our voices bouncing off the walls.
The audience are well used to a great range of music for their Festival as David van Asch has given them lots of treats as Festival Director. Having had a few years off, he is back this year, and the vocal music came back...
A French choir gave a programme of Francis Poulenc and Eric Whitacre last month and much else besides - and then there was us...

Everyone seemed jolly about our speaking to them in Catalan [es mol bé], and the promised storm and wind stayed in Barcelona, and did not bother us during our gig.
The man in charge of Culture from the Town Hall was also happy - which was nice!
...and once more we sold Cricket CDs to an unsuspecting country!

The post-concert refreshments at Faristol [Music stand in Catalan] were very Spanish, and thus splendid...