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Reflections on RIME

As you might know, I am finishing my PhD in Music Education at the University of Toronto. So last week I attended the international conference known as RIME: Research in Music Education in the beautiful University of Exeter in England. This was the view from my bedroom window:             Besides the tremendous views, I also got a lot out of the conference itself. Now that I am back in Toronto, I find I am left both excited and troubled about the state of music education world-wide. Excited because I saw many presentations that examined a wide… Read More »Reflections on RIME

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Concert: Moonlit City (Sat March 28)

5th Annual Earth Hour Celebration and Fundraiser for Echo Women’s Choir   Featuring Annabelle Chvostek Saturday, March 28, 2015 7 pm Church of the Holy Trinity, 10 Trinity Square (by Toronto Eaton Centre) Tickets: $35 This Saturday evening, Echo Women’s Choir is hosting a fundraiser concert that also celebrates Earth Hour. Here are three reasons to join us: 1) The concert is lit by candles in the 150-year old Holy Trinity Church in downtown Toronto. This is an utterly magical setting to listen to Echo Women’s Choir sing pieces by Malcolm Daglish, Tom Chapin, and others in honour of Earth Hour.… Read More »Concert: Moonlit City (Sat March 28)

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the politics of music, the music of politics; aka I’m on strike

Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! I am (finally, really, truly) close to finishing my ph.d. at the University of Toronto, but as a Teaching Assistant, that means I’ve been a part of the highly publicized CUPE 3902 Unit 1 strike. I have lots of political opinions but perhaps will share those in another post. What I will say here is that I’m pretty sure being on the picket line is the opposite of writing a dissertation in every satisfying way–lots of people, lots of walking (albeit in circles), being blunt clear about the message. Perhaps what I’ve most loved about being… Read More »the politics of music, the music of politics; aka I’m on strike

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Concert: The Divine Feminine

I get to work with the wonderful Echo Women’s Choir this semester, and am conducting a set at their concert on December 7 in downtown Toronto. I’m loving the repertoire this season: a couple challenging Ave Maria kinds of pieces (unusual for Echo); a ladino lullaby; some Georgian crazy-harmony pieces; a gospel piece. I think it’s going to be a fantastic concert. Here are the details: Sunday, December 7, 2014 7:30 pm Church of the Holy Trinity (next to Eaton Centre on West side) $15 advance/$20 at the door/$10 seniors, students, underwaged To reserve tix: 416-779-5554 for more info: www.echowomenschoir.ca

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Join my mass choir at the Ontario Science Centre next week!

Next week, I’m leading a music lab at the Ontario Science Centre as part of their ‘Science of Rock’ special exhibit. Come join in the fun! The music labs last about 40 minutes and you have three chances to participate in the week: Tuesday, Aug 19 at 12 pm and again at 2pm Thurs, Aug 21 at 12 pm only I’d love to stack the audience with some singers, so please join in! Feel free to tell others too! I’ll be touching on some physiology of the singing voice as well as some acoustic principles. Everyone will then learn a… Read More »Join my mass choir at the Ontario Science Centre next week!

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Drop-in Summer Singing Class

I’m launching a series of 4 drop-in group singing classes on Wednesdays, July 23 to August 20. Affordably priced at $10/session, but you must register! I also currently have a few spots left throughout the summer for private lessons on Monday afternoons. For information on both, see upcoming.

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Night Songs: Celebrate Earth Hour with Music

This Saturday night, Echo Women’s Choir and Mariposa in the Schools are holding a joint fundraiser at Holy Trinity Church. Tickets are $35, and come with free wine tasting, plus incredible music from the likes of Gurpreet Chana (The Tabla Guy) and Melanie Doane, as well as Echo, and I’m going to conduct one of the songs and sing with them. The whole evening is hosted by Andrew Craig. Echo Women’s Choir is an 80-voice non-auditioned women’s choir based in Toronto that sings an incredible range of repertoire. Mariposa in the Schools is an amazing organization that introduces the world’s… Read More »Night Songs: Celebrate Earth Hour with Music

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Pete Seeger: The Man of a Million Small, Powerful Actions

So Pete Seeger passed away on Monday at the age of 94. I, like so many millions of people, have been deeply affected and influenced by his music and his commitment to building a more just world through music. I never met him, but I have had the pleasure of singing and teaching his music. I frankly don’t have much to say that could add to the many amazing tributes that have been published, from the New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and the CBC, to name just a few. There’s a fantastic documentary on CBC’s program Ideas that lets… Read More »Pete Seeger: The Man of a Million Small, Powerful Actions

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“the power of the arts”

This past weekend I attended the Power of the Arts National Forum in Ottawa, hosted by the Michaëlle Jean Foundation and Carleton University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Let me first say that there are a surprising number of organizations in Canada working at the intersection of arts and social change. I learned about fantastic projects, like Beautifulcity.ca, which successfully campaigned for a new tax on billboards in Toronto to be streamed into arts funding. Or the research project Pedagogical Impulse, which paired visual artists and 6th grade students to explore ‘Canada and its Trading partners’ in interesting and… Read More »“the power of the arts”

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confronting the rational with the embodied

I just left the ph.d. defense for my capoeira teacher and friend, Lang. Her dissertation on capoeira focuses on how the Afro-Brazilian martial art form is both a powerful site of transformative learning and a challenge to strictly logical/cerebral learning indoctrinated in us in academic institutions. She began defending her thesis this morning by bringing in the whole group and playing in the roda at the beginnning. The University of Toronto is really strict about these things: defenses are not open to the public and we were not allowed to be present during the actual defense. But we were allowed… Read More »confronting the rational with the embodied

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