Noel Edison, the founding conductor of the Elora Festival Singers, also conducts the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and the Mendelssohn Singers, and is the Artistic Director of the Elora Festival.
Composer's Artistic Vision
After moving to the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Toronto in 1921, Willan's church music shifted to an ethos of intimacy and devout brevity, often in unaccompanied motets.
Composition History
Healey Willan composed fourteen settings of the Missa Brevis for the Church of St Mary Magdalene, all written "with the stopwatch in hand" to avoid being over-lengthy.
Composer Biography
Healey Willan, born in England, moved to Canada in 1913 and became the Organist and Choirmaster at St Paul's Church, Toronto.
Performer Biography
The Elora Festival Singers, acclaimed as one of the world's finest professional chamber choirs, were founded in 1980 as the principal vocal ensemble for the Elora Festival.
Compositional Technique
Willan's music, particularly after 1917, shows the influence of Russian choral music with its widely spaced block harmony, a trait that reached a high point in his work Apostrophe to the heavenly host.
Composer Biography
Healey Willan, the composer, had a lifelong love for the human voice, beginning his musical instruction as a choirboy and ending his life as an organist and choirmaster.
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