Local Holiday Recordings lift the spirits

The a cappella ensemble Camerata Nova has two CDs, Camerata Nova and Mystica. Both offer wonderful blends of Renaissance, medieval and modern works including Palestrina, Walton, Byrd, Gregorian Chant and some of artistic director Andrew Balfour's compositions inspired by the great masters. Although not strictly holiday fare, there is something uniquely peaceful about this ancient music, performed with this talented group's vocal purity, that is very welcome this time of year - and you'll likely find yourself listening to it year-round. Each CD is $20 plus $2 shipping and can be purchased on-line at cameratanova.com or by sending a cheque or money order to Camerata Nova CD (indicate title of CD), 246 Dromore Ave. Winnipeg MB R3M 0J4.

Gwenda Nemerofsky
Music Matters
Winnipeg Free Press
December 12, 2005


Inspired work blends strings, fine voices

Camerata Nova
Middle Ages to Manitoba
Église Précieux-Sang
May 25
Attendance: 200

CAMERATA Nova presented an eclectic program in the first of two performances of Middle Ages to Manitoba last night. Performed in the magnificent structure of Église Précieux-Sang, it made for a spiritual atmosphere.

The evening began with prolonged introductions in French and English, a nice touch in the community of St. Boniface. Recognition was afforded the church's architect, Étienne Gaboury, who was present at the concert. Unfortunately, the organizers chose to read a lengthy biography about him, which, although interesting, would have better belonged in the program for audience members to read at their leisure. The concert proper did not begin until 8:20 p.m.

A highlight in the first half was Brandon composer Kenneth Nichols' The Way of the Cross, written for Camerata Nova and string quartet. This 14-movement work, played without break, was commissioned through the Manitoba Arts Council. Written to commemorate the violent deaths of 14 young women at École polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, it is sung in English and Latin. The string quartet, WSO musicians Claudine St. Arnauld and Deborah Smythe violins, Merrily Peters, viola and Margaret Askeland, cello, was not simply accompaniment. They had as important a role as the singers.

Each movement symbolized the 14 Stations of the Cross, a series of representations depicting the events surrounding Jesus' crucifixion. The first opened dramatically, with tenor Michael Thompson in an ardent solo. The group moved right into the more pensive Station 2 station with an introduction by the quartet. There was good solo work throughout the piece, in particular, soprano Janine Patenaude, whose dark, full voice possesses a vibrato which enhanced the emotion of Station 5.

Station 9 featured a resonant cello solo with an almost playful answering motif from the violins and viola. A long unison section from the singers was very effective and almost suspenseful. Station 10 was exciting with solid performances from Smythe and Peters, fitting their parts together like puzzle pieces. Enter the singers, speaking their parts in an aggressive manner, and then contrasting this with sweet singing.

Artistic Director Andrew Balfour held the group together successfully throughout this challenging piece. Nichols was truly inspired and translated this into a work with a message of genuine feeling. Balfour's Ave Maria was a good showcase for this well-trained group. Momentary dissonances resolved quickly, making this quirky, but highly listenable. Balfour joined the ensemble as a singer for this work, which had a distracting effect.

Apart from this, it was a "triple-threat" evening : a most enjoyable performance with interesting repertoire in a wonderful venue.

Gwenda Nemerofsky
May 26 2005
Winnipeg Free Press



Andrew Balfour directs members of Camerata Nova in a rehearsal at Precious Blood Church.

Renaissance man

Andrew Balfour's life hasn't been serene, but the Cree-born composer finds solace -- and success -- in ancient spiritual vocal traditions


EVEN in the rarefied world of classical music, a cappella Renaissance chamber choirs are not exactly poised as the next big thing. But Winnipeg's Camerata Nova, a 10-voice choral ensemble under the artistic leadership of a Cree-born, Anglican-raised former trumpet player is raising the rafters of the local arts scene.

"You are what you make yourself to be," says Andrew Balfour, whose adult life has often been at odds with the serene beauty of the music he adores.

"I agree with Gandhi who said, 'Be the change you would see in the world.' If you want to be at peace in the world, you must be at peace with yourself."

Peace has been a while coming to Balfour, who at 38 appears to have found his calling as a composer of new vocal music, highly influenced by the madrigals and motets he sang as a youth in the All Saints' Anglican Church Men's and Boys' Choir.

His newest piece is one of two premieres to be performed amid a slate of Renaissance classics at Camerata Nova's spring concert Wednesday and Thursday nights.

"It takes a lot of guts to come out of nowhere," says Balfour's colleague Glenn Buhr, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's former composer-in-residence. "In a short time Andrew has become an important composer in a rich musical culture."

Born in Winnipeg to a Cree mother, Balfour was adopted at four months of age by a white Anglican priest and his wife, Clive and Lois Balfour, who had five children of their own.

A musical couple, the Balfours enrolled Andrew in the All Saints' Choir when he was nine. In junior high at Gordon Bell, he took up the trumpet.

Academics came hard to him, and music was the thing he did best. In those days, the All Saints' Choir was conducted by Donald Hatfield, a respected choir master known for his rigorous methods. Many of his charges have gone on to become professional musicians, and Andrew was in his element.

"If he had to miss a practice, it was a disaster," recalls Lois, now retired to Victoria with Clive, who spent 15 years as a drafting instructor at Red River College.

"Even then, music was all Andrew lived for." His racial heritage was not something he thought of too much as a boy. On Beresford Avenue in Fort Rouge where he grew up, there were two aboriginal families. He once made a racist remark to one of their children.

"My parents had to set me straight," he says, "that I shared their ancestry."

At age 13, he won the Harold L. Scarth Trophy for solo treble at the Winnipeg Music Festival. He calls this the "pinnacle of his singing career."

In high school, Balfour was a "band nerd" who practised his trumpet day and night. He stayed in school until age 18, though he didn't graduate. He took a job in a dairy, completed his Grade 12 and, with his parents about to move to Victoria, he entered the school of music at Brandon University.

Angry, confused, unable to concentrate, he stayed in Brandon only four months. After kicking around Winnipeg, directionless and spiralling downward for five years, he auditioned for and won the trumpeter's post in the Ottawa-based Canadian Armed Forces Band of the Ceremonial Guard.

At the time he was living in a room in the Charles Hotel. "That's become a bit of lore with my friends," he says today. "It would make a great screenplay."

He spent a season with the Ceremonial Guard Band, enjoyed the experience greatly, and returned to Winnipeg again to try post-secondary music studies, this time at the University of Manitoba.

It was there, with his tuition covered by his treaty status, that he renewed his acquaintance with early and Renaissance vocal music. He also encountered the music of the Estonian master Arvo Pärt, whose contemplative works explore and update the sacred musical tradition.

During these years, Balfour was contacted by the Fisher River First Nation, where his birth family lived. He met his grandparents, whom he describes as "wise and content." "My grandmother told me they knew I was going to be a musician because of the length of my fingers," he says. "It was a beautiful moment."

He never did finish his U of M degree. But in 1996, he and some of his vocalist friends got together informally to sing the early music they loved. Balfour became their leader, partially because he was so consumed by it.

At first they would rent a hall and put on a concert for family and friends. Soon they got more ambitious. In 1998 they incorporated as a not-for-profit arts group.

"Putting together a proper board is as hard as matching the voices in a choir," Balfour says. "You need people with the right skills. It's not just the money they bring; people have to be willing to devote the time."

In the last three years, Camerata Nova has made two CDs, which have sold more than enough copies to make money for the group. They are now up to three live productions, two concerts each, per season. Their annual budget is $80,000.

Next year, thanks to increased funding from the Manitoba Arts Council, they will be able to pay their singers for the first time.

"Andrew is close to being a musical genius," says Camerata president Sandi Mielitz, a retired CN Rail executive who signed aboard after being blown away by a concert she attended in 2001.

"I think his difficulties socially have led him to this, because it is the one pure, positive thing in his life."

Despite his elevated tastes in music, books and spirituality, Balfour continues to live in poverty, as he has since he left home. He is single. He lives on the second floor of a friend's house near downtown. He walks everywhere and takes manual labour jobs, in roofing and construction, when he runs out of money. "I'm good with my hands," he says. "Sometimes the people I work with look at me strangely when I tell them I listen to Beethoven."

His latest piece, Fantasia on a Poem by Rumi, a 20-minute work for choir, string quartet and crystal bowl, is inspired by the poetry of the 13th-century Sufi mystic.

On the same program is a second commission, The Way of the Cross, also for voice and string quartet, which Brandon composer Kenneth Nichols has written in memory of the victims of the Montreal Massacre of December 1989.

Camerata Nova consists of five women and five men, all of whom have other careers: sopranos Karine Beaudette, Janine Patenaude and Danielle de Moissac; tenors Richard Moody and Michael Thompson; altos Ross Brownlee, Todd Martin and Angela Neufeld; and basses Bryan Lopuck and Donald Warrener.

They'll be singing for the first time in this week's concerts with a string quartet, all WSO musicians: violinists Claudine St. Arnauld and Deborah Smythe, violist Merrily Peters and cellist Margaret Askeland.

"I'm not in the same league as Glenn or Sid (Rabinovitch) or Ken," says Balfour, who is articulate and intense, slight of build but quick of mind.

"I have a way to go. But I'm fortunate to have an outlet for my compositions. I write something and the choir performs it. Most composers don't have that."

Balfour's next goal is to expand the group to 12 voices, which will allow it to perform a broader repertoire.

"I've lived somewhere in the past," he says. "This music doesn't affect my brain. It goes right to my heart." Wednesday and Thursday's concerts are at Eglise Précieux-Sang, 200 Kenny St. Tickets, available at the door, are $16 for adults, $12 for seniors and $8 for students.

Morley Walker
May 22, 2005
Winnipeg Free Press


Beautiful Setting, Beautiful Music


Music lovers who want to be transported to another time in history will enjoy Camerata Nova’s concerts this weekend featuring exotic sounds of early Mediterranean music.

The Rotunda at the Legislative Building will be filled with Byzantine chants, songs from Catalonia, motets from Italy and Spain, as well as overtones of the Moors and the Middle East. The concert is entitled Mediterraneum: Early Songs from Byzantium to Barcelona.

“They’re performing some of the earliest music in the western world” says Sandi Mielitz, Chair of the Board for Camerata Nova. “They will be singing early experimental music vocal music dating back to about 500 A.D.”

Camerata Nova’s two free concerts – Saturday, November 27 and Sunday, November 28 – will feature Renaissance works by well-known composers such as Monteverdi, Gabrieli, Cardoso, and Gesualdo. The group will also be performing unique arrangements of ancient music that will be accompanied by harp, drum and crumhorn, described as an instrument that looks like an early clarinet but sounds more like a Kazoo.

Mielitz says the Rotunda is not just an aesthetically pleasing location to hold a conference, but also one where the acoustics are magnificent.

“The music just soars in the dome,” she says.

All of the music that Camerata Nova will be performing has been arranged by Artistic Director Andrew Balfour, based on some of the earliest lines of music in recorded history and re-arranged to be sung in the Rotunda. The group specializes in polyphony, a style of musical composition in which two or more independent melodies are juxtaposed in harmony.

Camerata Nova was founded in 1996 by Balfour and is comprised of 10 singers specializing in a capella Renaissance Music. The group has just released its second CD, entitled Mystica.

Mielitz advises concertgoers to arrive early.

“The Rotunda is such a beautiful location and with space being limited it fills up fairly early,” she says.

Camerata Nova’s next concerts will be March 12 and 13 at All Saint’s Church, where the group will be performing music that was written for the Kings of England and France.

J. Loewen
November 2004
MyWinnipeg.com


Camerata Nova: There's something about Mary - A Christmas Concert based on Renaissance Marian Texts.
November 29 and 30, 2003.

I attended the Saturday evening concert. This year's concert focused on the imagery of Mary with settings of music and texts from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, traditional carols and some modern settings of period texts. This was probably the best concert I have heard from this group, being well sung with an interesting program and a particularly well varied first half.

The group entered singing a haunting 12th century chant Ave Maria, then continued with 15th and 16th century pieces. Included was the lengthy Magnificat by Palestrina, which interspersed plainsong and polyphonic sections utilising choirs of high and low voices. Although a little sluggish in the middle, the overall effect was very dramatic with the upper choir being particularly energetic. This was followed by a lovely rendition of Rameau's O Nuit. Next came an arrangement by Michael McGlynn of the 15th century Spanish villançico Ríu, Ríu, Chíu for male voices. This arrangement was well suited to the echoey acoustics of the rotunda. Here the percussion often used in other versions of this piece was absent, but the tenors maintained a driving rhythm in the melody overtop of the lower droning. The fifteenth century Conventry Carol, also arranged by McGlynn alternated from lyrical to dramatic. The first half finished with the Monteverdi's soaring Ave Maria Stella.

The second half started with a modern composition Rosa Mystica by director Andrew Balfour using the 14th century poem, There is no Rose as a source. Rosa Mystica's haunting quality was augmented by Laine Hoogstraten playing on shell and Anna Rojas Flores performing overtone singing. The second half continued with more 16th century pieces and arrangements of German traditional carols. They also sang my favourite Polish Christmas carol, the lovely Lulajze Jezuniu arranged by Winnipeger Tadeusz Bienacki. Angela Neufeld did a particularly good job in her solo and with her Polish pronunciation.

Overall, the concert was excellent, the repertoire well chosen and the singing clear and energetic. Well done.

Monica Hultin
Winnipeg Early Music Society Newsletter


Choral group's first CD excellent

It has been five seasons now for Camerata Nova, a Winnipeg a cappella choral ensemble of 10 singers led by Andrew Balfour.

The group specializes in Renaissance music, but enjoys pushing the eclectic envelope to explore diverse choral music from across the centuries.

Camerata Nova will share centre stage with Manitoba composers in a concert entitled Vox antiqua, vox nova on Saturday at 8 p.m. at St. John's College, 99 Dysart Rd., at the University of Manitoba.

Early motets by Byrd, Monteverdi, des Prs and Tallis are on the bill, plus new works by Sid Robinovitch, Rmi Bouchard and Lianne Fournier. The premiere of four mass sections set by Balfour also is scheduled.

"Our fifth season has been a busy one: Three concerts, our first CD, three premieres by our artistic director and two master classes with Roy Goodman (Manitoba Chamber Orchestra music director)," said director Sandi Mielitz. "We perform everything from Byzantine chants to contemporary Canadian compositions."

Camerata Nova's new CD is excellent and beautifully presented, with comprehensive notes, texts and translations supporting the finely chosen program of music from the 12th century through the present. The downtown Millennium Centre's acoustics provide a suitably "wet" recorded ambiance for the program of sacred pieces.

Music Matters / James Manishen
The Winnipeg Free Press
Entertainment, Thursday, May 8, 2003, p. d7


Choral group welcomes rotunda acoustics

ANDREW Balfour was one of the few Winnipeggers watching with mixed emotions as the Blue Bombers lost the CFL Western Final on Sunday.

Obviously, he wanted to see the football team progress to the Grey Cup. But the fact that it won't be there does imply a larger crowd for this Sunday afternoon's concert at the Legislative Building by his 10-member choral group, Camerata Nova.

"Sunday is the best day to get people out and around," says Balfour, 35, artistic director of the Renaissance-style ensemble he founded in 1996.

"But I still found myself cheering as the Bombers started to come back from behind."

Camerata Nova will be presenting two concerts this weekend, Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Both shows, which will clock in at around two hours, are free of charge.

"It helps to build up an audience for our paid concerts," says Balfour, a university-trained trumpeter and singer who earns his living as a general tradesman.

"But we also love performing in the rotunda at the legislature. The acoustics are wonderful."

This year will mark the group's fourth consecutive Legislative Building appearance. Last year, the two shows attracted 800 people.

This weekend's concerts will feature an eclectic program of ancient and modern sounds. Balfour, who is of aboriginal descent, has prepared an adaptation of the Huron Carole, which will be sung in Cree.

His version is called Wyandott's Realm.

"The word Huron is a derogatory term used by the first Jesuit settlers in Quebec," Balfour says. "Wyandott is the aboriginal name for that particular tribe. The song is the first original Christmas carol from the New World."

Camerata Nova takes its name from an early Renaissance musical society. Newly incorporated as a non-profit organization, the group will record its first CD next week in the Millennium Centre on Main Street.

Camerata Nova consists of teachers, tradesman and engineers.

"We all have this one great thing in common," Balfour says. "We're all trained singers, and we love this music."

Morley Walker
The Winnipeg Free Press
Entertainment, Wednesday, November 20, 2002, p. d9