Category: Awards

The Elmer Iseler Singers’ Board of Directors and Administration are proud and pleased to announce that Lydia Adams of Caledon, ON, Conductor and Artistic Director, is a recipient of the DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD from Choral Canada, July 2018, presented at the Bi-Annual Podium National Conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

According to Choral Canada’s website “the Choral Canada Distinguished Service Award” is given in recognition of long-term service to choral music in Canada. Awards are based on the significance and extent of transformative service in building, nurturing or promoting the Canadian choral community through a primary career in Canada. The individual’s contributions may have been made through teaching, conducting, or leadership.”

The Lirit Women’s Chamber Choir is very pleased to announce the result of the first Lirit New Composition Award. This award will be given annually to a Canadian composer for an unpublished work for women’s voices.

Lirit received 10 submissions from Canadian composers across the country and abroad. We extend warm congratulations to Prince Edward Island resident F. Jane Naylor for her winning composition, “After Mountains”. This is a dramatic choral setting of a poem by the late Joseph H. Sherman of Sydney, Nova Scotia. It is notable for its feminine sensibility that evokes the strength of the Biblical matriarchs, its contrasting vocal sections, and its rich harmonic language. The composer will receive $1,500 and the piece will be premiered by the Lirit Women’s Chamber Choir in the spring of 2019.

Naylor is an Associate Composer with the Canadian Music Centre. Her works have been commissioned by eklektikos with funding from SOCAN, and commissioned and broadcast by the CBC. She has also received grants from the PEI Council of the Arts.

This composition is especially relevant to 2018, the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel: the ‘wanderer’ in the poem is the Jewish people, and the ‘woman’ is the land of Israel. Lirit Women’s Chamber Choir is a Toronto-based group of experienced choral singers. They are committed to exploring the joy and vast range of Jewish music, whether through Jewish texts, themes or composers. Lirit wishes to thank the Judy Dan Fund for Arts and Education for generously supporting this award.

Further information about Lirit and the award is available at www.lirit.ca
Further information about F. Jane Naylor

The requirement of this year’s NewWorks competition was that submissions relate to the idea of new home, suitable for inclusion as part of our season 18/19 theme of “resettlement”.

Laughter and Light by Douglas Price was selected as this year’s winner and reflects the perspective of a refugee arriving on a new shore. Jurors praised how its “harmonic and rhythmic language fit beautifully with the text”.

Originally from London, Ontario, Douglas is currently the inaugural Head of Music at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montréal. His most current composition project is a piece of musical theatre based on the true story of ‘Kitsault’, the most well-preserved ghost town in the world, located in the mountains of northern British Columbia.

Director Leonard Enns calls Laughter & Light (with text written by its composer) “a lovely musical “essay” that expands on the question lying at the heart of its text, “will this be where I call home?”…the music is questioning, yet hopeful, beginning as though tentatively testing a new ground to see if it will hold, and progressing gently but engagingly to a final and fresh harmonic universe, to a grateful arrival “Here in this new land. A new life, with laughter and light.”

DaCapo will premiere Laughter & Light at our May 2019 concert, with Douglas joining us for the concert.

For more information about Douglas and his winning composition, please visit our web site!