Repentigny, Québec and coming home...

Delightful end to tour in a beautiful church in Repentigny...with an excellent acoustic.
11 years ago, we were here too... such bravery to have us back so soon!

All went well, but especially wonderful to sing our classical repertoire in the church... Comment Amour, Bist du bei Mir, Priez pour paix and Oblivion each feeling very good from up at the front.

Everyone there very happy and jolly and so keen to help and be kind.
Thank you to all.

Also they had a veracious appetite for CDs & songbooks; lots of smiling faces after the show.
Relief, I expect.

So another great tour of Canada is over; such a splendid territory for us for the last eleven years... long may it continue.

We chased off after the concert for Ottawa (& an airport hotel), so we were "ready" to get up at 3.45 for the silly o'clock to Toronto so we could get home in one day.... and thus here we are!

Glad to be home; and good to be able to go to David Rayvern Allen's funeral tomorrow.

breaking and entering in Montréal, & St-Jean-sur-Richelieu

We found another hall in which to sing in Montréal.... I do not think we have to come to the end of our search to perform in every possible place here!
This time it was Patro Le Prévost auditorium... perhaps our sixth venue after TV, radio, Jazz Festival (open air), Juste pour Rire, Pierre Peladeau & Chapelle Historique...

A fine lunchtime (vibrant) audience greeted us for two hours of jollity... & they bought songbooks and CDs too... how splendid.

At the end of our show, especially complicated as we were needing to rush on to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu for an evening performance, we found ourselves locked out of the dressing room:- here is what they did to their door (it wasn't us, guv!)...

Then we did get to go to SJR, although the traffic issues which plague Montréal at peak time did make us sit about in traffic all the way to Pont Jacques-Cartier, and after... but we managed to get there in time to perform... sound check, who needs 'em.... The tech staff & everyone else at Cabaret-Théâtre Vieux St-Jean were terrific & the audience lapped up everything we offered with great enthusiasm... All done and dusted by 7.20... a busy day!!

Thank you to all at l'Agence Station Bleue for their hard work on our behalf...

The pleasure of Ontario

Four excellent places to stop and enjoy autumnal Ontario...

Deep River, Orillia, Burlington & Lakefield.

In Deep River, we started with a lunchtime performance to lots of schoolchildren, before the evening show... they were clearly very excited... I suspect they may have decided before we showed up that we might be boring... we showed them! 
Lots of hilarity...

There was a 15-minute Q&A after this; one question was how old we are (clearly... very!); Richard asked them to guess our combined age... 736 was the loudest and first guess!  How very Old Testament.

We saw this wonderful sign in a shop-window... presumably it's all about Thanksgiving (which has just happened over here) excess... funny ol' habits here in Canada!

Splendid day here, and Jim, the light and sound man made everything sound wonderful!



Then on to Orillia & the excellent Orillia Opera House - gloriously shortened to (you guessed it!):

OOH

Another excellent place in which to sing and with the Jazz Festival over three days when we are here, awash with music in every bar, café and spare space in the town... great.  We heard a super trio over lunch (with real espresso). Great bookshops too...
The fantastic autumnal colours are all over the place too - our hotel was here on a lake by a park - from deep reds through orange and brown to yellow... excellent.

Then two gigs on one day, a lunchtime at Burlington Arts Centre, followed by an interview onstage by Barbara Budd - esteemed Canadian actress and CBC presenter... she was very professional of course and teased out all our secrets!  The audience tittered...

...and quickly on to Lakefield - return visit after almost exactly 4 years...last time we got a puncture here and then had our internal flight cancelled because of fog & had to drive for miles & miles the next day.... no such problems this time!  Lovely to be back (and they said this almost never happens)... We were looked after as before, in grand style and enjoyed Lakeside's cuisine and wine.  The Hall was wonderful to sing in too...  Some members of the audience cheated and already knew all the words to The Lambeth Walk... I still made them have a practice, of course.

Mike stopped off for a bit of electioneering (I don't know where he finds the time)...

We then found out on the way to Québec what Bob was going to do in January....
Following Mike's lead, here he is canvassing for office:- to be Mayor of Kingston [ON] - outside the beautifully apportioned Wendy's car park-cum-rubbish tip.... All the Best, mate!

So here we are in Montréal, one of our favourite cities... three concerts to come here at St Jean sur Richelieu, Montréal itself & Repentigny...[October 23rd - 25th]... bring it on!
Details of gigs HERE

Christmas orchestral concert - Roberval

Brilliant times...
Lovely evening in Roberval in the Église Notre-Dame with full symphony orchestra & chorus, Jacques Clément at the helm, and TLQ.

Wonderful.
The massive, modern, church (built in the 1970s) is a huge round thing (well possibly octagonal) - a bit like a U.F.O. from the outside... and very striking both inside and out - huge modern stained glass windows all around on every side.

Plenty of room for l'Orchestre Symphonique du Saguenay - Lac-Saint-Jean, and a 50-strong chorus...
So much joy - the chorus sang a sweet French song Pour Noël, as well as some splendid Rutter... King Jesus Had a Garden and Donkey Carol.... we all performed Rutter's Sans Day Carol together... and the climax of the concert, The Lion King classic, Can You Feel the Love Tonight? was superb with the chorus creating the African backing vocals excellently... (a première for this bigger orchestration!)
The orchestra performed two exquisite medleys of carols (particularly impressed with the very romantic take on Quelle est cette odeur...? in one).

We performed some a cappella favourites, but it was mainly a delight to work with all the musicians in the building, and to perform pieces we know well, on a larger canvas.  Sleigh Ride, Wexford Carol, Tua Bethlem dref, Winter Wonderland, White Christmas, Schlafendes Jesuskind, Süßer die Glocken nie klingen... & Pie Jesu (from Lloyd-Webber's Requiem)... all wonderfully accompanied by Jacques and the musicians...

What a joy!

Talking of joy, one of the orchestra told us she was particularly pleased to see us, as she had been in the OSQ (l'Orchestre Symphonique de Québec) when we did some snowy concerts with them (one February!), and she had appeared at the front of the stage when the leader needed a new string... and was espied by her husband-to-be; thus she felt we had contributed to this flourishing union... (they have two children too!) - very heart-warming...

Even better, we can do it all again in Chicoutimi tomorrow today!


 

Val-d'Or show

Fantastic evening at a fantastic Festival (Festival classique de l'Abitibi-Témiscamingue - artistic director: Donald Ferland).

There were speeches galore every evening! Donald spoke of course, but we also heard from Raymond Cloutier, Actor & Director of the Conservatoire of Dramatic Art, Montréál, who is Honorary President of the Festival, as well as Marie St-Germain (President of same) & Jean St-Jules, Director of the Conservatoire of Music in Val-d'Or...
This is all taken very seriously; and it shows -the attention to detail is splendid, and the Festival atmosphere compelling...

We were very well looked after at our hotel - Auberge Harricana - Martin, Marie-Annick and their family were terrific (wonderful children), also Mary Lou ran errands for us tirelessly...

Three evening shows and lots of smaller concerts throughout a busy three days up here in Val-d'Or...

There was firstly Les Boréades, a baroque ensemble who have been doing The Beatles in this style for a few years now... amazing...
Then there was Marie-Josée Lord - a phenomenal Opera singer, accompanied beautifully by violin and piano...
All the evening acts share our Canadian agent - L'Agence Station Bleue - a good weekend for them too!

The audience were brimming over with excitement for all the concerts, and it took us a long time to exit the building... more CDs sold... once more - including selling out of cricket ones! One gets the impression from Cricket Canada's site that the francophones aren't quite so hot on this sport, but who knows in the future.... & I see we have beaten India by an innings again... what larks... [We did get a CD to the great Sachin Tendulkar, I do hope he does not take his non-century frustration out on it!]

And a great new idea... all involved were given a painting to take home (and we all fitted our individual ones in our cases) - created by local artist Lee Lovsin... cool!

...and here we are back at Montréal, awaiting our connection, so as to get home... just in time for a lie down, then Spain at the end of the week...