11:48 AM
RadarPerformers
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Event Details
On December 14, come and hear Toronto’s own ACTA Recorder Quartet as they present a program of early and modern-era music for the holiday season!
There’s something for everyone on the musical menu, from carol settings of the German and English Renaissance to excerpts from Corelli’s Christmas Concerto and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, from Britten’s Alpine Suite to Stan Davis’s Chanukah Medley and arrangements of Winter Wonderland, The Twelve Days of Christmas, and other holiday fare, all performed on combinations of recorders both large and small.
The ACTA Recorder Quartet is Anne Massicotte, Colin Savage, Tatsuki Shimoda and Alison Melville, and we all hope you’ll join us for this out-of-the-ordinary seasonal celebration!
Anne Massicotte started her musical career as a clarinettist, graduating from the Conservatoire de Québec. She played with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and toured for Jeunesses Musicales with her chamber music group. She taught music in elementary school for many years, conducting award winning children`s choirs. A lifelong recorder player, Anne played Renaissance and medieval music with Ensemble Anonymus in Quebec City. Since 1984 she has taught recorder to children at CAMMAC’s summer music camp, north of Montreal, where she also performs. She currently sings with the Amadeus Choir, and is very much enjoying exploring the recorder consort repertoire with ACTA.
Toronto-born Alison Melville began playing the recorder in a school classroom in London (UK). Her subsequent career has taken her across North America and to New Zealand, Iceland, Japan and Europe, most recently to Switzerland and Finland. A member of the Toronto Consort and Ensemble Polaris, she appears regularly with Tafelmusik and collaborates with many others. Some highlights: playing for The Tudors, The Friendly Giant, and Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter; solo shows in inner-city London (UK) schools; playing Bach in Switzerland; improvising music in duet with an acrobat in northern Finland; and, oh yes, a summer of concerts in Ontario prisons. Alison has been heard on CBC/R-C, BBC, RNZ, NPR, Iceland’s RUV, and on over 60 CDs. She taught for many years at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and is currently on faculty at the University of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier University. www.alisonmelville.com
Colin Savage has performed on recorder and historical clarinets with ensembles in Canada, the USA, Europe and Japan, including Artek, New York Collegium, Tafelmusik, Canadian Opera Company, Opera Atelier, la Nouvele Sinfonie, Aradia Ensemble, Apollo’s Fire, les Boréades and the Toronto Consort. He is principal clarinetist with the Mississauga Symphony Orchestra, and particularly enjoys playing bass clarinet with the Arctic fusion band Ensemble Polaris, whose recordings of Nordic/Canadian/Mediterranean folk melodies have received international critical acclaim. He is regularly heard on CBC Radio, and has recorded for Sony Classical, ebs, Naxos, Atma, Analekta and Dorian. Colin's interest in analog photographic processes finds him in well-lit and very dark places, and his images of abandoned spaces, shot with a vintage twin lens reflex camera, are featured in the book “Modern Canadian Interiors”.
Tatsuki Shimoda has been playing the recorder since a young age, and comes from a musical family with whom he has explored music in various settings. While studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music in downtown Toronto, where he recently received a Performer's A.R.C.T. in recorder, he has played at numerous music festivals around the GTA and Ontario. Also a player of oboe and cello, and currently working to improve his skills at the piano, Tatsuki continues to explore the recorder and music as a passion in life.