The Fountain School of Performing Arts welcomed audiences for an evening of vocal music Wednesday (April 6), featuring the DalChorus, Ora vocal ensemble, and selected students from the Dal Voice program.
The performance featured a workshop of Cecillia Livingston’s piece Capture for chorus and cello, with accompanying visuals designed by Stage Design and Technical Theatre students and movement choreographed by Véronique MacKenzie
Capture was written as a reflection on the Unicorn Tapestries, a set of tapestries currently on display in the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. These tapestries have been a source of debate for the last century, with both their date of manufacture and message being uncertain. The first record of the artworks is from 1680, after which the tapestries were looted during the French Revolution, rediscovered in a barn, moved to the United States, bought by John D. Rockefeller, and finally donated to the Cloisters. This convoluted journey has led many artists to turn towards the tapestries, seeking a hidden meaning within the cryptic images and lettering.
Vocal fantasies come alive
Alongside the seven movements of Capture, the DalChorus performed works by John Rutter and Sam Pottle, continuing the theme of mystery and fantastic creatures. Pottle’s Jabberwocky incorporates small percussion instruments to create the mock-heroic sense of the poem by Lewis Caroll, telling the story of the quest to slay the fearsome jabberwocky. Rutter’s work Riddle Song, the fourth movement of his song cycle Fancies features six settings of Elizabethian poetry. This song belongs to the fine tradition of question songs, where the singers spell out a list of questions and then provide answers. Ora Vocal Ensemble also performed two works, Birds’ Lullaby by Katerina Gimon and Two Mythical Creatures by Nancy Telfer.
Between the new music premiere and the classics from renowned composers like John Rutter, this show had something for everyone.
This show took place on April 6 at 7:30 PM, in the Sir James Dunn Theatre, 6101 University Avenue.
Tickets to the production can be acquired at the Arts Centre box office, and online at tickets.artscentre.dal.ca
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