OFF TO THE ROCK
Music
In this post-truth era of ours where up is down and down is up, you can be forgiven for doubting whether one of the sentences in the Ilumini Choir’s send-off concert booklet means exactly what it says.
The booklet’s “About Us” page touts that, “The Hamilton Children’s Choir enjoys its reputation for being one of the leading children’s choir programs in the world.”
Any doubts about that claim were vanquished in short order in Dundas’s St. James Anglican last Saturday night as HCC artistic director Zimfira Poloz took her 44-voice, teenage Ilumini Choir through a 70-minute program, sung from memory and with varying amounts of choreography to boot, that left the audience buzzing. “Tremendous” is how Howard Dyck, conductor emeritus of the Bach Elgar Choir and former host of CBC Radio’s “Choral Concert” and “Saturday Afternoon at the Opera,” summed up Ilumini’s performance when speaking to The Spectator afterward in the narthex.
Opening with Wehi Whanau’s “Kua Rongo,” a welcoming song from Ngati Whatua, a Maori tribe from New Zealand, Poloz and Ilumini continued to breeze through a musically and linguistically challenging program that included, among others, David Hamilton’s setting of “Ave Maris Stella,” Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s “Gamelan” and “Snowforms,” Hiroshi Ishimaru’s take on the Japanese folksong, “Aizu-Bandai-San,” HCC assistant conductor Tracy Wong’s arrangement of the Malaysian folksong “Wau Bulan,” and Finnish composer Suden Virkkala’s “Tuulet” (Winds). True, the program included a cache of Ilumini’s chestnuts such as Stephen Chatman’s “Train,” an arrangement of Rachmaninoff’s “Bogoroditse Devo” (Ave Maria) from the “All-Night Vigil,” HCC alumna and ex-staff conductor Meghan Quinlan’s “La belle se promène” as well as the concert closer, Joel Forth’s take on K’naan’s infectious “Wavin’ Flag.” But apart from a few hesitant sounding entries and their concomitant unsmooth vocal attacks, minor blemishes which Poloz can remedy with a different hand gesture to cue in her choristers, Ilumini proved that they’re pretty much ready for their tour to Newfoundland from June 29 to July 7.
For the second time in Poloz’s 15-year tenure at the HCC, Ilumini is off to Podium, a biennial Canadian choral conference and festival, the 2018 edition co-presented by Choral Canada, The Singing Network, and Memorial University. While in St. John’s for Podium, Ilumini will be the demonstration choir in Wong’s lecture-recital on Malaysian choral music on June 30, and will take the spotlight in an hour-long Spotlight Concert on July 2 in the Cochrane Centre. The following afternoon in the Basilica of St. John the Baptist,
Poloz and Ilumini will team with Elise Bradley’s Toronto Children’s Chorus and Aida Swenson’s Jakarta-based Indonesian Children and Youth Choir — Cordana for “The Ring of Fire Children’s Choir Project.” This Highlight Concert will feature works by composers from Pacific Rim countries.
HCC assistant artistic director Melanie Tellez will be one of three selected participants in a conducting master-class led by Nicholle Andrews with the University of Redlands Chapel Singers on July 3.
On two other local side notes to Podium, Glenda Crawford, who led the McMaster University Choir last year, will hold a participatory workshop on using Canadian folk songs to teach music literacy while Laurel Forshaw, who directs the Strata Vocal Ensemble, will present a paper on “how the choral community can respond to the Truth and Reconciliation of Canada’s Calls to Action.”
On July 4, Poloz, Ilumini, accompanist Laura Pin and percussionist Jamie Drake will take a seven-hour bus ride from St. John’s to Gros Morne Summer Music’s Graham Academy Choir Camp in Corner Brook where on July 5 and 6 they’ll concertize with the Toronto Children’s Chorus, the Oakville Children’s Chorus, and the Edmonton Youth Singers at St. John the Evangelist Church.
The HCC has received financial support from The City of Hamilton, the Ontario Arts Council, the Incite Foundation, and the Turkstra Foundation. However, as HCC executive director Tricia LeClair told the audience on Saturday, the choir was facing a $10,000 shortfall for the tour.
By Sunday evening, LeClair reported that amount had been halved thanks to ticket sales and donations. The HCC welcomes any further donations for their tour. Log on to www.canadahelps.org, search “Hamilton Children’s Choir” and click on “Helping Hand to Newfoundland” to donate.