2022–23: A Season of Musical Vision

In the late 1960s, the TCC’s founder, Annegret Wright, had the musical vision to form a new choir that would sing early music with a particular speciality in interpreting music of the German Baroque. The TCC’s first audiences were treated to performances of not only the music of J.S. Bach but also that of seventeenth-century German masters upon whose shoulders Bach stood. This season we’ll focus on three of these composers and their brilliant visions of how elements of the new Italian style could be used in composing music that nonetheless sounds unmistakably German. We’ll top off this German seventeenth-century intensive with a program featuring musicians who would not allow their physical blindness to obscure their musical vision.

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"The Kapellmeister of Dresden" (Kaffeemusik) in collaboration with SchützFest 350
Sunday, November 13 @ 3:30 pm, at Church of the Redeemer (map).
Featuring Peter Tiefenbach, actor

More than half a century after the TCC’s first performances of the music of Heinrich Schütz, the choir is proud to partner with SchützFest350 in presenting a new Kaffeemusik that takes a bird’s-eye view of Schütz’s life and career. We’re especially pleased to announce that, by special arrangement, the Kapellmeister himself will be making a special appearance! The elderly Schütz will regale us with tales from his long and storied life while the TCC sings works from across his vast oeuvre, from the Italian madrigals of his student days in Venice to profound unpublished works from his final years.

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"Praetorius Christmas Vespers" in collaboration with the Toronto Consort.
Friday, December 9 @ 8:00 pm, Saturday, December 10 @ 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm, at Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity-St. Paul's Centre.

Inspired by hearing Schütz’s Italian-influenced music in Dresden, Michael Praetorius went on to compose more than a thousand chorale settings in both simple and polychoral Venetian styles. He also spread encyclopedic knowledge of then-current musical practices and instruments through his multi-volume Syntagma musicum. This delightful holiday concert, conducted by former TCC director David Fallis, features all the musical elements of a Christmas Day vespers service as it would have been heard in Praetorius’s church. The TCC is proud to play the role of the singing German congregation!

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"The Return of Rosenmüller"
Sunday, March 5, 2023 @ 8:00 pm, at Calvin Presbyterian Church

On March 13, 2020,  just hours before the dress rehearsal, the TCC made the heart-rending decision to cancel one of the most ambitious programs we’ve ever dared. But the TCC singers have kept their marked scores, and we are thrilled to present this remount! This program showcases the stunning yet little-known choral music of Johann Rosenmüller, who was next in line to become the Leipzig Thomaskantor (the position later held by J.S. Bach) when he was accused of homosexual activities and imprisoned. Rosenmüller somehow escaped his confinement and fled to Venice, where he would stay for two decades. There he found work as a sackbut player at St. Mark’s Basilica, taught at the Ospedale della Pietà (of Vivaldian fame), and composed glorious sacred concertos in the Italian style. Only at the end of his life did he finally dare return to Germany. This program showcases Rosenmüller’s mastery of both Protestant and Catholic sacred music as well as virtuoso instrumental music in the latest Italian style. Featuring a glittering ensemble of strings and sackbuts!

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"Musical Vision: A Brief History of Music and Blindness" (Kaffeemusik) in collaboration with Balance for Blind Adults
Sunday, May 7, 2023 @ 3:30 pm, at Calvin Presbyterian Church

Michelle McQuigge, narrator
Michael Arnowitt, piano
Julia Seager Scott, historical harps

From Homer to Stevie Wonder, Western music history is filled with brilliant musicians who were blind or visually impaired. In this new Kaffeemusik, the TCC and friends feature music by these gifted artists who did not let their lack of sight cloud their musical vision. We’re pleased to welcome some special guests, including distinguished CBC journalist Michelle McQuigge. Alongside her guide dog Lucy, Michelle will surprise us with true tales about blind harpers in Ireland and Wales, the blind pianist Maria Theresia von Paradis (for whom Mozart may have written a piano concerto), the charlatan surgeon who botched cataract surgery on both Bach and Handel, Louis Braille’s adaptation of his writing system to music notation, and much more. Featuring a new commission by pianist Michael Arnowitt.

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"The Muse of Novara — Cantatas of Isabella Leonarda": Fundraiser in support of the Toronto Chamber Consort
April or May 2023. Date, time, and venue to be determined

Held to support the Toronto Chamber Consort, the TCC’s section lead program for emerging singers with a special interest in early music, this intimate evening will feature the artists in a program of solo voice motets by the brilliant Isabella Leonarda (1620–1704), whose 400th anniversary year in 2020 was unjustly clouded by the pandemic.

Following on our Consort recitals of music by Barbara Strozzi in 2019 and Chiara Margarita Cozzolani in 2022, this event will allow our brilliant Consort singers a further opportunity to explore the work of another monumental Baroque woman composer.

Leonarda was a prolific composer, publishing some 200 works. Unlike other women musicians of the 17th century whose careers flourished in their youths, Leonarda seems to have flourished in her later life: nearly all her work appeared when she was between the ages of 50 and 80.

There are no tickets for this event, but guests must RSVP and will be asked to make a donation in support of the Toronto Chamber Consort program.

We look forward to having you join us!