About

Musique Royale presents Voice of the Weaver, a five-movement concerto for bass clarinet and chamber choir by Halifax-based composer Peter Anthony Togni and Mary Louise Martin, a Mi’kmaw poet, artist, and writer from Millbrook First Nations in Nova Scotia.

Written for bass clarinetist Jeff Reilly and The Elora Singers, conducted by Mark Vuorinen, Voice of the Weaver explores the spiritual, dynamic relationship between the overwhelming awe we feel for the giant forces of nature on the one hand and the simple actions of the day to day on the other. With intense choral clusters and soaring soprano lines invoking what Martin calls “patterns of great beauty in and through the standing ones” to clear, elegant figures reflecting that “events are quite… are quite ordinary” Peter Anthony Togni captures the full impact of Mary Louise Martin’s visionary poetry.

In the end all is summed up in the simple but profound final two words of the poem, “wela’lin niscum” or, thank you creator.

About the Artists

Jeff Reilly – bass clarinet

Jeff Reilly leads a multifaceted life as a bass clarinettist, composer, conductor, and producer.

Jeff Reilly is a musician with a broad and extensive scope of work. A twice Juno-nominated bass clarinetist as well as a composer, conductor, improviser, and producer, Jeff has appeared a soloist with the Elora Singers, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Winnipeg New Music Festival, Elmer Iseler Singers, the Canadian Chamber Choir, Calgary’s Luminous Voices, Ottawa’s 13 Strings and across Canada, USA, Europe and Asia in the groundbreaking trio Sanctuary. His approach to music blurs any simple distinctions between improvisation and composition, and he strives to do it with such integrity that we are reminded that these distinctions are moot.

Jeff has recorded and performed with Jerry Granelli, Ben Caplan, Barry Guy, Maya Homburger, John Potter, Peter Togni, Suzie Leblanc, India Gailey and Tom Allen. He is active in many musical projects including the Blackwood Duo, New Hermitage, Upstream Music and with James Shaw’s Vesuvius Big Band. As a soloist on the German ECM New Series label, his interpretation of Peter-Anthony Togni’s Lamentations of Jeremiah was praised by the British critic Norman Lebrecht: “The virtuoso clarinetist Jeff Reilly extends his cadenzas across the history of sound, from monotony to modernism, in a performance that is dominant and often hypnotic”

A long-time music producer with the Canadian Broadcasting corporation, he has produced thousands of hours of radio programming, including 4 multi-episode documentaries on music for the program IDEAS. He has produced hundreds of concert recordings of classical, jazz, world and contemporary music, hundreds of studio sessions and over 25 CD’s of Canadian jazz and classical music including releases on CBC record, Tafelmusic Media, Warner Classics UK, Centrediscs, NAXOS and Leaf Music. Over the years 6 of his CD productions have received Juno nominations.

Jeff has composed dozens of works for orchestra, big band, jazz composer’s orchestras, bass clarinet ensembles, chamber jazz groups and for his duo Blackwood with long-time collaborator Peter-Anthony Togni. In 2022 he received an Arts Nova Scotia grant to write a suite of compositions for James Shaw’s Vesuvius Big Band, to be premiered at the Halifax Jazz Festival in 2023.

Jeff is the regular conductor of the Upstream Orchestra, a jazz composer’s orchestra based in Halifax.

Mark Vuorinen – conductor

Mark Vuorinen is Artistic Director and Conductor of The Elora Singers and the Elora Festival and Waterloo Region’s Grand Philharmonic Choir. He is also Associate Professor and Chair of Music at Conrad Grebel University Colleve at the University of Waterloo and is the President of Choirs Ontario.

A recipient of many awards, Mark was the 2016 Laureate of the Ontario Arts Council’s Leslie Bell Prize, and received a 2016 National Choral Award from Choral Canada (Association of Canadian Choral Communities) for his research on Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Mark holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Toronto and Master of Music degree from Yale University’s School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music. Recent concert highlights include performances of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Britten’s War Requiem, Arvo Pärt’s Passio and Credo, Canadian premieres of Jonathon Dove’s There was a Child, and Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard, Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Ad Genua, Reena Esmail’s This Love Between Us and Barbara Croall’s Giishkaapkag (Where the Rock is Cut Through).

Mark’s research interests include the study of contemporary choral literature from the Baltic States, and in particular, the music of Arvo Pärt. Mark was an invited lecturer at the Arvo Pärt Project’s Sounding the Sacred conference in New York City in May 2017. He is published in Circuit Musiques Contemporaines, the Research Memorandum Series of Chorus America, and Principles of Music Composing of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.

The Elora Singers The Elora Singers, under the direction of Mark Vuorinen, has established an international reputation as one of Canada’s finest professional choirs. Founded in 1980, it is the ensemble-in-residence of the Elora Festival for three weeks each summer, in addition to presenting a regular concert series, producing recordings, and touring across Canada and internationally.

With twelve releases on the NAXOS label, the Grammy- and JUNO-nominated Elora Singers is recognized for its rich, warm sound and clarity of texture. The choir is renowned for its diverse styles, for its commitment to presenting and commissioning Canadian repertoire, and for collaborating with Canadian and international artists. Recent and upcoming collaborations include Voces8, the State Choir LATVIJA, the Grand Philharmonic Choir, Festival of the Sound, Canadian composers Stephanie Martin and Peter-Anthony Togni and the TorQ Percussion Quartet. A recording featuring new works by Barbara Assiginaak (Giishkaapkag) and Reena Esmail (This Love Between Us) was released in 2020 a Christmas recording, Radiant Dawn, was released in November 2021, and this past summer, The Elora Singers released their newest album, In Beauty May I Walk.

Community outreach is a vital part of The Elora Singers’ mandate. We are pleased to provide the gift of music to Elora and Wellington County residents through our Arts Connect music program at the Elora Centre for the Arts and the Circle of Song program at Wellington Terrace Long-Term Care Home. In December 2020, we shared our Nativity Festival online concerts with almost 300 retirement and long-term care homes, hospitals and social services support centres across Ontario and Canada.