Again in 2020 when the pandemic lockdowns had been at their worst, and racial tensions put the Black Lives Matter motion in headlines throughout the continent, Baritone Elliot Madore took to social media to specific himself, like so many.
In a really private submit, Madore talked about his struggles with id as a bi-racial man.
“Finally, I attempted to dodge that query altogether, rationalizing that it was simpler to keep away from the dialog than having to persuade somebody of my very own authenticity. […]
“For sure, unabashedly expressing my very own id is one thing I’ve sorely lacked till this present day.”
Then Inventive Director of In opposition to the Grain Theatre Joel Ivany noticed the submit and reached out to speak about the potential for turning that expression into creation. Identification: A Music Cycle was the eventual end result, and it turned a video venture that debuted in 2022 after the pandemic.
With new songs and staging, the stay live performance model will see its world premiere on Might 22, 23 and 24 within the intimate confines of the long-lasting El Mocambo lounge.
The songs weave collectively private tales with music that blends components of jazz and Western classical music. The music for Identification: A Music Cycle was composed by Dinuk Wijeratne to poetry by Shauntay Grant. Joel Ivany directs, with musicians Nick Halley (percussion), Tyler Emond (bass), and Dinuk Wijeratne on piano.
Baritone Elliot Madore
Elliot Madore is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music. He was a recipient of the 2010 George London Award for a Canadian Singer from the George London Basis, and the ARIAS Rising Younger Artist Award from Opera Canada, amongst different competitors prizes and awards.
His skilled profession has seen him carry out with a few of the world’s most distinguished opera corporations and orchestras all through North America, Europe, and in Asia. This season, he made his function debut singing the title function in Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet with Opéra de Montréal, amongst many different engagements. Latest and upcoming performances embody performances of Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Colorado Symphony, and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the Reno Philharmonic.
As a recording artist, he seems on the Grammy Award-winning recording of L’heure espagnole and L’enfant et les sortilèges, singing the roles of Le chat and L’Horloge Comtoise. The recording was performed by Seiji Ozawa on the Saito Kinen Competition.
At this time, along with his performing engagements, Elliot is Affiliate Professor of Voice with the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music college.
Composer Dinuk Wijeratne
Sri Lankan-Canadian Dinuk Wijeratne is a conductor, composer and pianist. Wijeratne grew up in Dubai, and studied music on the Royal Northern School of Music in Manchester, UK, and at The Juilliard College in New York Metropolis on the invitation of Oscar-winning composer John Corigliano. His household moved to Canada in 2005, and at present he’s primarily based in Ottawa.
He made his Carnegie Corridor debut whereas nonetheless a pupil in 2004 as a composer, conductor, and pianist performing with Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Street Ensemble.
Amongst different awards and accolades, he gained each a JUNO Award and East Coast Music Award for Classical Composition of the Yr in 2016 for his piece Two Pop Songs on Vintage Poems.
With a broad perspective on music and style, Dinuk has written a wide range of compositions for orchestral devices, together with full orchestras and string quartets, and has collaborated with tabla gamers and DJs too. He’s equally at dwelling on the Berlin Philharmonie and the North Sea Jazz Competition. He has appeared on the BoulezSaal (Berlin), Kennedy Heart (Washington DC), Opéra Bastille (Paris), Lincoln Heart (New York), Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), and in Sri Lanka, Japan, and throughout the Center East.
Writer/Poet Shauntay Grant
Shauntay Grant is an writer, poet, playwright, and Affiliate Professor at Dalhousie College. She served because the third poet laureate of Halifax, Nova Scotia between 2009 and 2011.
Shauntay earned a BMus diploma from Dalhousie College, adopted by a BJ from the College of King’s School, and MFA from the College of British Columbia. At this time, she is predicated in Kjipuktuk, Mi’kma’ki (Halifax, Nova Scotia).
She has written performs, novels, poetry, spoken phrase items, and kids’s books, amongst different issues.
Her writing has gained a number of awards and honours, together with a Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Writing and Publishing from the Canada Council for the Arts, a Robert Merritt Award for her stage play The Bridge, and a Poet of Honour prize from the Canadian Competition of Spoken Phrase.
Amongst her finest identified works are Africville, a youngsters’s e book created with illustrator Eva Campbell in regards to the Black group of the identical identify, which gained a Marilyn Baillie Image Ebook Award .
- Identification may have three performances on Might 22, 23, and 24. Discover extra particulars in regards to the performances and get tickets [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.