Chapter 23 Conducting Energy
788 Words
Silver is the best conductor of heat and electricity, so we think there should be a silver medal for Alan Gasser (pronounced "gosser"). It would be our unofficial "best conductor award for the funkiest choir director in town. He leads the spine-tingling, twelve-member Darbazi (pictured above, Gasser is far right) in the exciting polyphony of Georgia - the republic, not the state. He also codirects the Echo Women's Choir with his wife, Becca Whitla. The Echo repertoire is broadly multicultural and motivated by a spirit of social justice it's also fun. Darbazi has a 2001 recording called Darbazi & Friends: Music from Beyond the Black Sea largosoft.com/darbazi), and the Echo Choir's Gonna Sing and Shout (deepdownproductions.com/artists/ echo.htm) can be found in an eclectic range of small shops around town. Some of this city's other offbeat choirs are the Chinese-Canadian Choir under Yan-Qiao Wang, which has performed seldom-heard work by important Chinese composers, Common Thread, a community chorus dedicated to diversity and social justice, and Singing Out!, the city's oldest and largest gay and lesbian chorus, under William Brown.
Other Opera
The Canadian Opera Company (coc.ca) may get the lion's share of the attention, but it's only one of about a dozen local opera companies. The standard rep is performed by Daniel Lipton's Opera Ontario (operaontario.com), Dwight Bennett's Opera Mississauga (operamississauga.com), and sometimes rescored for treble voices - Canadian Children's Opera Chorus (canadianchildrensopera.com) under Ann Cooper Gay. Guiseppe Macina's Toronto Opera Repertoire is a finishing school for emerging vocal stars, Guillermo Silve Marin's Opera in Concert (operainconcert.com) performs without sets or costumes, while Toronto Operetta Theatre (torontooperetta.com) focuses on operettas like The Merry Widow, The Student Prince, Gilbert & Sullivan, and so on. Opera Atelier (operaatelier.com), under Marshall Pynkoksi and Jeannette Zingg, has achieved an international reputation performing exquisitely authentic Baroque pieces. Experimental contemporary work comes from Wayne Strongman's Tapestry New Opera Works (tapestrynewopera.com), John Hess's Queen of Puddings (queenofpuddingsmusictheatre.com), and Thom Sokoloski's Autumn Leaf Performance (autumnleaf.com). Youngest of all is the newly formed Amphion Opera 1416-962-7137) under lan McAndrew.
FOR THE RECORD
Wherever there's protest and political action, you can bet TVAC will be there. The Toronto Video Activist Collective is a loose-knit association of videographers formed in 1998 to monitor public demonstrations and other situations where the expression of popular opinion asserts itself, possibly at the risk of authoritarian disapproval. TVAC documents what the mainstream news media may not. (In one case, a few telling inches of tape were enough not only to clear a peaceful demonstrator charged with assaulting a police officer, but to
bring him a generous settlement.)
From time to time, TVAC creates
compilation tapes with some of their
best mini-documentaries. They can
only be contacted via email through
the website lists.tao.ca.
Wizard's Lair
In a comfortable but otherwise unassuming home in the Annex, north of Bloor, the secrets of ancient magic are carefully preserved. It's the home of David Ben, conjurer extraordinaire, who was apprenticed in his youth to a magician of international fame, from whom he learned the lore of the illusionist, along with considerable skills of sleightofhand. The charming and affable Ben initially embarked on a career in taxation law, but now lives mainly by the craft of wizardry. (One of his signature tricks is swallowing a handful of needles, then retrieving them, neatly threaded.) Over many years he has collected a thorough and fascinating library on the history of conjuring and illusion, including biographical material on figures like Houdini, professional journals of magic, and memorabilia like vaudeville posters of the turn of the last century. The archives are always growing; Ben recently came into possession of the world's largest collection of materials relating to magician Dai Vernon a Canadian, and the man who taught Doug Henning. Among the gems: Vernon's own original silhouettes of celebrities like Cary Grant and silent film director D.W. Griffith, autographed by the subjects. Who could resist such treasures? Well, says Ben: "Something my wife would like is if I could make the books disappear."
SUPER 8 FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Don't let anyone tell you Super 8 is dead! There's a thriving Super 8 film scene in this city, showcased at the annual Splice This festival in June (splicethis.com). Founded by Laura Cowell and Kelly O'Brien, the festival has shown work by such local artists as Sook-Yin Lee, Kika Thorne, Fiona Smyth, and John Porter. By the way, local filmmakers Rick Palidwor and Mitch Perkins bear the unique distinction of having created a new film process while working at a local lab. They call it "Super Duper 8" (it's like Super 8, but better), which they achieved by modifying the camera motor. Their first feature film shot in Super Duper 8 was called Sleep Always.
- Writer
