music

The University of Waterloo Chamber Choir sings a varied program including works by Indigenous composer Andrew Balfour, Indian-American composer Reena Esmail and Haitian-American composer Sydney Guillaume.  Other composers whose works will be performed include Healey Willan, Rene Clausen, Benjamin Britten and Morton Lauridsen. 

Phases imageThe Happenstancers is the shared vision of co-directors Brad Cherwin and Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh. Described as “Toronto’s best young chamber musicians” (Bachtrack) and recipients of the 2019 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance of an Ensemble in an Opera, Cherwin and Hardy-Kavanagh helm a rotating cast of innovative voices on Toronto’s classical scene. Their daring concert program PHASES leaps between centuries and styles, moods and colours, as works by Augusta Reed Thomas, Bram Van Camp, Mozart, and Beethoven conjure vibrant and varied personalities. Learn more at thehappenstancers.com.

Shhh Ensemble

Spirits is piano/percussion duo SHHH!! Ensemble’s most ambitious project to date. Diversely inspired by composers reflections on the beyond, the nature of creativity, whiskey, and more, Spirits features the world premiere of a new work by John Gordon Armstrong. The programme also features pieces by Andy Akiho, Micheline Roi, Kevin Hanlon, Kelly-Marie Murphy, and John Beckwith.

Songs for my mother cover artWell known local composer and retired Grebel professor Carol Ann Weaver will launch her Songs for my Mother CD, playing a selection of songs along with soprano Mary Catherine Pazzano and Willem Moolenbeek on sax.

Carol Ann Weaver's website

Three saxophonesThe UWaterloo Jazz Ensemble consists of approximately 20 jazz aficionados playing standard and non-standard jazz instruments.  Directed by Michael Wood, this ensemble will play a wide selection of popular jazz music.  this concert will feature the music of Sonny Rollins, Ralph Towner, Joe Sealy, Leonard Bernstein and Rodgers & Hart.

Admission is $10/$5 students & seniors

Reception to follow. 

Founded by tenor Bud Roach in 2008, Capella Intima has carved out a niche for itself in the Toronto early music scene by presenting the vocal chamber music of the 17th century in exciting concerts of rarely-heard gems. With motets and cantatas for up to four voices interspersed with readings from composers, performers and critics of the period, audiences are given context to music that has only come to light in recent years, thanks to the renewed interest in historically informed performance. 

Composed by Carol Ann Weaver, "Songs for My Mother - from Appalachia to Africa" is a song cycle based on writings from her mother Miriam L. Weaver's pioneering life in Appalachian Kentucky in the 1940s (primitive house, flat iron, Hard Shell Baptists who met outside on the hillside), her travels to Africa, and her return to Virginia with poignant words about her sudden impending death in the 90s.

Pianist Anna Kokits
Anna Magdalena Kokits - Coast to Coast Tour

Award-winning Austrian pianist Anna Magdalena Kokits will play a selection of modern and classical pieces as part of her coast-to-coast tour during Canada 150.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

32 Variationen in c-moll, WoO 80 (1806)

Whether singing an intimate ballad, performing an intricate fugue, creating stirring world beats, or wailing on a powerful rock anthem, award-winning singer/multi-instrumentalist Kevin Ramessar has a history of moving audiences.  Kevin Ramessar regularly performs on Broadway, as well as being Grebel's guitar instructor.

Kevin Ramessar

See Kevin Ramessar's website.