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Alix Goolden Performance Hall
June 4, 2006
One of the nice things about MiV is that it makes it possible to provide some public acknowledgement (which they were not always receiving) of the many fine musicians in Victoria. This review provides the opportunity to recognise the talents Elizabeth MacIsaac.
Raised in Victoria, it has now been several years since MacIsaac returned to the island after several years of study and performance in Europe. Since her return to the island she has been active as a soloist, teacher and (as this evening) choir leader. MacIsaac is a good example of the sort of fine musician who enriches the cultural life of Victoria.
For seven years, MacIsaac has been directing Ensemble Laude, a woman's choir specialising in music of the middle ages. Laude is a community choir of about twenty amateur singers that meets once a week to rehearse. Described in this way, one might not expect much from the choir, but MacIsaac gets remarkable results. She coaxes from the choir interpretations that are imaginative, richly-detailed (dynamically and rhythmically) and highly musical. The choir has a transparency, innocence, and freshness that reminds one of a very good children's choir.
This evening's programme was entitled "Tapestry", but the title "Patchwork Quilt" would have been much more descriptive. Only three of the selections were from the ensemble's core repertoire: a pair of pieces from 14th and 15th century Italy and one of the Cantigas de Sancta Maria, the 13th century collection assembled by Alfonso X. The bulk of the programme was made up of folk melodies and traditional tunes from Norway, Wales, Scotland, China, South Africa, Hungary, Macedonia, Syria and the Cherokee First Nation. Admittedly, some of these traditional pieces have their origins in the middle ages or renaissance.
There was a theatricality to many of the performances. In a Washing Song from China, the choir used their music books as washboards. In this piece Paulette Wilkins took the lead and proved a thorough entertainer. The performance of the Cantinga de Sancta Maria (which tells the story of a monk who swallows a spider with the communion wine) was genuinely funny.
Five professional musicians joined the choir for this performance. Tony Booker and Ian Bullen added some variety to the singing and contributed to two of the most memorable moments of the evening. In the first piece of the evening, MacIsaac had the male singers first provide a drone over which the women chanted. Then she reversed the voices and the women sang the drone. Booker, with a fine, resonant bass voice, also contributed a great deal to the success of the Cantiga de Sancta Maria in the role of the monk. Booker also played piano accordion in the last few (Balkan and Middle Eastern) tunes.
Patricia Unruh (a well-known figure on the Vancouver early music scene), Doug Hensley and Babak Rahim added a great deal to the evening. All are fine musicians. For the record: neither the oud, gittern, vielle nor rebec stands up well to a modern accordion. Still, this was probably the only chance I will have to hear this particular combination of instruments.
Despite the amateur singers, the astonishing variety of peasant costumes in which the singers were attired, the theatrical performances and the smorgasbord of folk tunes, the evening did not have in the least the feel of amateur theatricals - at least, not until the folk dancers showed up for the last few numbers. Then we had a whiff of Monty Python. The audience, however, seemed to greatly appreciate the contribution of Kariatis.
The programme also included two pieces of new music. The first was Cantus Omnibus by the contemporary Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. It was composed as the theme song of the Seventh World Symposium on Choral Music and MacIsaac felt it deserved another outing. I resolved to hate this piece from the second that I heard that it was on the programme - I am not MiV's early music critic for nothing - but I was quite pleasantly surprised. It is an eminently listenable piece and the singers gave it a committed and uplifting performance.
The second new piece was a song by Hossein Omoumi, one of Douglas Hensley's former teachers. It is based on an old Persian melody. For much of the evening Hensley was part of a group of instrumentalists who lent support to the choir, but this piece enabled him to step out of the shadow of the singers and show his stuff. Hensley is a proficient on an amazing array of instruments. In this piece he bid fair to establish himself as the Jimi Hendrix of the oud (the Arabic ancestor of the European lute) as he tossed off the solo part and then (together with Babak Rahim) accompanied MacIsaac, who showed that she can sing as well as she can direct.
The sort of patchwork quilt programme we heard this evening has all the advantages of a buffet. The disadvantage was that we never stayed anywhere long enough to feel transported to another place or time (so I look forward to future programmes in which Laude returns to its medieval roots). Still, this was a thoroughly entertaining evening of enthusiastic and creative music making.
MiV HomeLast modified: Mon Jun 5 11:40:38 PDT 2006