Double Duty: CRSP Artistic Directors as Composers
At our May 7th, 2023 concert, we are delighted to be performing 5 original compositions by 4 of our current and past Artistic Directors! Here is more details on each of the pieces:
Jane Perry, Artistic Director of CRSP, currently on leave
The whole score of "All Shall Be Well" arrived in my imagination one day as a complete thought. All I had to do was write it down. Where it came from exactly....
Julian of Norwich's text is simple and powerful: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well... for there is a force of love moving through the universe that holds us fast and will never let us go." In my experience, that love is woven fine through the richly hued fabric that is my community of CRSP choristers.
I've been a reticent composer for most of my life. Improvising at the keyboard comes quite naturally to me, as does improvising vocal harmonies. The downside of improvising, of course, is that once the final note has died away, the improvisation is lost forever. However, the task of sitting down to commit music to the physical page has always felt daunting to me. It's not as quick a process as improvisation, and not as instantly gratifying!
That said, on those occasions where I have made the decision to write out the music that constantly floats through my imagination, it has always been rewarding in the end, because I generally write for choirs or individuals whom I know and love. To hear them perform my music is a true delight - I have a big smile on my face every time, understanding that now everyone can hear what I hear in my head every day of my life. It becomes a conversation with performers and audience, rather than a silent monologue in my head. It's also a way to show more of myself, and leave pieces of my imagination in the imaginations of others. That's a big act of trust, to allow someone else's music into your head and heart. I'm grateful for that trust.
Paul Grindlay, Acting Artistic Director
I have been enamored by the sound of male voices since I was a small boy soprano. There was one singer in my childhood church choir who had a lovely baritone voice and got to sing quite a few solos. I was always mesmerized. This love of that sound is certainly one of the inspirations that encouraged me to develop my own voice, to work with men's choirs and with the Calgary Boys' Choir.
"God be in my Head" is my setting of a devotional text that I have always appreciated. It was written for my SuperSonic Men's Choir, probably in 2009. The piece’s premiere performance was significantly marketed as a selling point, which was a bit cheeky, given that it is such a short piece of music. I recall that our very own Nicholas Zekulin [a bass in our choir: ed]. requested an encore performance at the end of the concert, because the piece was just so brief and he wanted his money's worth! Haha!
"Alive" was written for the Calgary Boys’ Choir. We needed a third piece for our application to the City of Lincoln male voice ensemble class, and I made the risky decision to come up with the title for a piece that I would have to compose and rehearse in a two-month period. It could have been disastrous, but we ended up winning locally, being advanced to provincials and eventually taking second or third place nationally (or something like that)
Like "God be in my Head," it is short. I have often thought of writing a contrasting "B-section" for it but have yet to do so. Writing is a slow process for me. I hope these two pieces can be enjoyed as colourful miniatures at this concert, shining a spotlight on both our treble voices and our tenors-and-basses.
Peter-Anthony Togni, Artistic Director of CRSP from 1985 to 1987
Peter tells us that his first introduction to music was when his father, a Swiss-Canadian organist, composer, improviser, and teacher, placed the infant Peter in his basket on the organ. Peter took piano lessons as a child, but always preferred improvising to what was written on the page. At age 15, he announced to his family that he was going to be a composer! He went on to study music at university and has indeed become a composer of both choral and instrumental works as well as a broadcaster, educator, pianist, and organist. He currently lives in Nova Scotia.
Peter’s music is spiritually rooted and contemplative. “Totus Tuus” was written in 1999 as a commission from Our Lady of Sorrows Church Choir in Etobicoke, Ontario. The choir was invited to sing at the Vatican for St. John Paul II who was the Pope at the time. The piece was based on the Pope’s favourite prayer to the Virgin Mary. Intended to run for 1 minute 3 seconds, the piece clocked in at almost 3 minutes. Regardless, the Pope loved it so much he asked the choir to sing it again! A picture of the choir with the Pope after performing Totus Tuus now hangs on Peter’s living room wall.
Peter has written a great deal of choral (and other) music over the decades since. Several of his works have been performed by Calgary’s Luminous Voices. CRSP is very fond of an early Ave Maria and we also commissioned a Magnificat for our 50th Anniversary Concert which unfortunately was cancelled because of the pandemic. Something to look forward to performing in future, we hope!
Current projects include an as-yet-unnamed setting of an Orthodox mass, and Voice of the Weaver, for bass clarinet and choir, with texts by Mi’kmaq poet Mary Louise Martin.
Anthony Petti, Founder and First Artistic Director of CRSP from 1970 to 1985
The founder of CRSP, Anthony Petti (1932-1985) was a Renaissance scholar, editor, composer and arranger. Tony's area of expertise was Renaissance literature which extended into history and music. His ambition was to present live every aspect of the Renaissance to Calgary audiences which is the primary objective of CRSP to this day.
Two CRSP favourites are the humorous pieces “Blood on the Saddle” and “Place Names of Alberta”. In this spring’s concert, CRSP will be performing Tony’s arrangement of the beautiful 17th century French folk song, “A la Claire Fontaine”.