THE JEAN-SÉBASTIEN VALLÉE SERIES

by Joannie Ing

SATB with organ or piano – CP 2066 – 5:05

Dear friend, I’ve news with you to share
Reason for hope, reason to care
When you feel down, deep in despair
He sees you cry and hears your prayer

by Alastair Boyd

SATB a cappella – CP 1906 – duration 4:05

A Hymn on the Nativity is an a cappella SATB setting of words by English poet and playwright Ben Jonson. It won the 2020 Debbie Fleming Prize in Choral Composition awarded by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. In announcing the winning entry TMC associate conductor Simon Rivard, who led the three-member competition jury, mentioned the work’s “interesting choice of lyrics; richness of the harmony; and a good balance between variety and unity between verses.”

by Zachary Windus

SATB a cappella – CP 2070 – duration 3:55

The fifth annual TMC Choral Composition Competition asked emerging composers to submit a sacred or secular a cappella work for the Christmas season. The 2019 winner was this spirited carol by Zachary Windus.

by Andrew Balfour

SATB with piano, organ, or strings – CP 2069   – duration 5:55
String parts are available with two options:
a) violas, cello and double bass
b) string quintet (2 violins, viola, cello and double bass)
“Mamachimowin (The act of singing praises) is a choral work that explores the difficult relationship between Indigenous spirituality and the impact of the Christian culture on First Nations people.  Translating Psalm 67 into Cree, I wanted to add a musical perspective that added a dimension of fragmentation into the structure of the work.  Also I wanted to utilize the instrumentation of violas, cellos and double basses to give the idea of the strings representing a foundation of the ground, or Mother Earth.  I wanted to present the idea of musical tension and musical phrases along with the choir whispering some of the text to add an element of uncertainty.  (Andrew Balfour)

by William Kraushaar

SATB a cappella with fugue – CP 2059 – duration 5:55
SATB a cappella without fugue – CP 2060 – duration 3:05

In memory of the victims of the Québec City Mosque Shooting, 2017.

“Neither from the east, nor from the west,
Neither creed, nor culture,
Neither from the ocean, nor from the earth,
We are all members of one another,
And created from the same matter,
If a member is suffering,
Others will not know happiness.

by Benjamin Sigerson

SATB a cappella – CP 2058 – duration 4:35

Winner of the Debbie Fleming Prize hosted by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, this piece is a gentle song of comfort. Written also as a song of hope towards the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and as a song to remind of the importance of rest, and that rest is sometimes what we need more than we know. Setting the painterly poetry of j.h. Lee, the piece is part-impressionist, part-jazz, part-lullaby.