The City of Gardens Chorus has something to sing about. Made up of South Island women, the a capella group was recently honoured as the third best choral group west of Manitoba. “It’s always been a high achieving chorus,” said director Julie Smith. “They set their goals for this year and achieved every one of them.” The 70-member chorus travelled to Surrey in April to compete in the annual regional competition. The group was up against more than 20 choruses from B.C., Alberta and Saskat...

UWO Don Wright music faculty voice professor Jennifer Moir just brought Finnish choral stars Rajaton to London. Now, Moir is back with the fourth edition of the Kaleid choral fest, a four-day event shared by Woodstock and London. It brings together top vocal ensembles with students and community choirs. Rajaton were guests at an earlier edition of Kaleid. The 2008 guests are Juno-nominated Toronto vocal quartet Cadence, another a cappella ensemble. Moir is the fest's artistic director. She...

Once again, Jamboree staged Swarthmore’s finest a capella groups, with the unfortunate exclusion of Cantantrix. The event was an improvement on last year, both in musicality and in theatrics. Grapevine’s intro for each group was a parody of a familiar song and a parody of each group. The first group to perform, Mixed Company, received a censure for its improper attempt at a contraction, MoCo. The climax of their set was the theatrically preformed Come Sail Away by the Styx, featuring Chris Kl...

Part of me always feels bad when I’m judging a competition. I’m basically conflicted at the notion of combining music and competition. I think it was Berlioz – but it probably wasn’t – who said that competitions were for horses, not musicians. And yet we are universally drawn to them. They are our ever popular ‘refiner’s fire’; we’re always making qualitative determinations, looking to separate out the best of whatever it is that interests us. But I’m not sure that applying to music the sam...

Today’s first subject: Free Music! What’s the thing about free music these days? Last podcast featured Duwende Collective – available for free download at duwende.com. Radiohead’s new album was offered as a pay-what-you-want (you could pay nothing, although you still had to pay a processing fee)… no longer available to download. Legally. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is marketing his new album in various incarnations and monetary amounts, from free to $300 (and his free doesn’t includ...

Tom Crytzer grew up listening to barbershop music in his sleep. The veteran member of the Alle-Kiski Valley Barbershop Showtime Chorus means that literally. His dad, Layton "Rusty" Crytzer of Natrona Heights, used to practice in the basement with several quartets. "I used to hear the sound of their singing coming up through the floor registers into my bedroom at night," Crytzer says. Read the full article here.