Josh is a young Jamaican-Canadian and this blog is about his music & travel adventures and anything that takes his interest. He sings bass, and studies organ, piano, violin & viola.
(This blog was last updated in April 2019, and will no longer updated in the future.)
I am so sorry for neglecting my blog for so long!
I have been super busy!
I became the Junior Organ Scholar at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church. I have especially been involved with the Tone Chimes. I still sing with the choir, and I also played the piano for a couple pieces.
I have also been involved with Orchestra and I started substitute teaching piano at a Music School.
I did a few RCM exams too.... Organ Grade 8, History Grade 10, and Viola Grade 7.
On October 30, 2018, I did an Organ Recital at The Cathedral Church of St. James.
(My Dad had to be the videographer as my Mom started back classes at University of Toronto and couldn't make it.)
Last Tuesday, I did a recital at The Cathedral Church of St. James for "Music at Midday".
Philip Elliot recorded it for me and I uploaded the full recital to SoundCloud:
It was a lot more relaxed than my first two recitals and I felt better prepared, mainly because I had done it before.
Thomas Fitches came to hear me play!
The first time I met him was just a couple days before I started doing organ lessons. I heard him play at "Music at Midday" and so it is really a big deal to me that he came to hear my recital. Thank you so much for coming!
The biggest surprise was that Chrissy Quigley came to my recital! She helps to organize the Leahy Music Camp and she mentioned that she might come but it was wonderful seeing her!
I made sure to upload both Choral Song and Folk Tune since I know you loved them! Thank you for coming all the way to Toronto to hear me play!
One of the highlights of the recital is showing people the Pipe Organ afterwards... I'm hoping that some of the kids will be interested in learning organ in the future!
A huge "Thank you" to my teacher, Ian Sadler and to Robert Busiakiewicz, the Director of Music at The Cathedral Church of St. James for allowing me to perform and do lessons there. And of course, thank you to Philip Elliot for the audio-recording and to my Mom for the videos!
Last week, I went to the Leahy Music Camp.
It was at the beautiful Lakefield College School just outside Peterborough.
This year, I focussed on piano so each morning, I would go to workshops for piano where I learnt how to vary bass lines and chords when accompanying fiddle.
Each afternoon they had electives where you could choose to learn fiddle, guitar, piano, accordion, bagpipes, banjo, step dancing, composition, improvisation, arranging, computer lab or even recording!
It's really difficult to choose what to do in the electives.
I chose:
Beginner Step Dancing with Jacqueline Enright
Beginner Accordion with Timi Turmel
Improvising on Fiddle with Shane Cook
Intro to Bagpipes with Liam McGlashon
Composing with Erin Leahy
And Mac Lab with Gary Atkins.
(Sorry, I don't have a pic from this elective.)
Each evening they had lots of fun stuff planned for us.... You can choose to do as many or as little of the activities as you like.
Monday Evening, the Instructors put on a performance.
I put together a little montage of clips from their performance.
They were awesome!
So much talent in one room and to think they are the ones who would be teaching us for the week!
On Tuesday, we had a Dance.
It was so much fun and my legs were sore the following day. :-)
On Wednesday afternoon, we had a special Slow Fast Jam. In between some of the songs that we were all playing together, we got to see some of the campers perform.
I didn't do the evening activity on the Wednesday though.... We decided to stay in and rest for the busy Thursday ahead.
On the Thursday, we recorded the Camp Chorus.
For the Camp Chorus, I played in the piano section this year. (Last year, I did the fiddle.)
Each section learns their own part separately, and the first time we hear the full thing is when we get together to record it.
It is really exciting!
After the camp edits it and send it out this year, I will make a post about it here on my blog.
On the Thursday afternoon, we had our group challenge performance.
The group challenge is my favourite part of camp.
For the Group Challenge, we get together with other campers who we don't normally see or work with throughout the year and work together on something to perform for everyone.
This year, I worked with Olivia Werden and Gail Poulsen. Olivia wrote a beautiful song called Leia's Lullaby and we arranged and performed it for the group challenge.
We also performed it in the evening at the Grand Jam.
The Grand Jam is the final performance at the camp... It is a lot of fun but it also means that the camp is over. We all get to share the stage with the Instructors and play the tunes that we've learnt throughout the week.
Thank you so much to the Leahys for having such a wonderful camp. It is so nice to be around a family which really seems to like each other and take care of each other.
And of course, a special thanks to Frank Callaghan for opening doors once again for us!
And thanks to Mom for being my chaperone and taking such good videos throughout the camp!
~~
Update:
This blog post has been edited to include a link to a video of the performance of "Leia's Lullaby".
On Sunday, I sang with the Northdale Concert Band, the Grace Church-on-the-Hill Choir, the Christ Church Deer Park Choir, and the Timothy Eaton Memorial Church Choir, at their Last Night of the Proms.
May and June are always super busy because of all of the auditions, examinations, competitions and performances.
On Saturday, I performed at the Adagio Music Festival. It's a very small festival and I have been doing it on and off for years. They have pictures of me from 2011 and 2012 in their gallery.
Here is one of the pieces I did at the festival - Sonatina for Piano, 3rd Movement (1959) by Aram Khatchaturian.
The last time I did the festival was in 2015 when I played "Two Gossiping Old Women" by Aram Khatchaturian.... I guess I really like Khatchaturian.
May has been a very exciting month for me. I have so much to blog about! I'll split them up into a series of blog posts so it's not one huge, rambling piece.
On May 5th, the Royal Canadian College of Organists (Toronto Chapter) had a workshop about how to play hymns. Thomas Fitches led the workshop at St. Clement's Church.
The description of the workshop said:
I had my first RCCO exam coming up - The Service Playing exam and, of course, I went.
Playing a hymn is different from doing a piece for a recital.
You have to think about where the congregation will breathe when they are singing.
You need to think about the introduction - The congregants need to know when to sing
Rhythm is important - it needs to be steady or the people singing might get confused
The tempo needs to be at a speed where the congregation can sing a line in one breath
You have to think about the meaning of the words and this should be reflected in your choice of registration.
At the hymn playing workshop we worked on all of these and more!
Here was the first time I played through the hymn, Lord Jesus Think on Me (Southwell)
I needed to play just a bit faster, and I needed to extend the introduction so that the last notes I'd play would be in the same key that the congregation would sing.
Here is how it sounded after and with people singing.
It is so different going from practicing alone to playing with people singing. I don't usually play for a congregation, so this was really good for me.
I think it is really helpful that the RCCO offers this kind of workshop and it's free!
Tom even brought tim-bits, pastries and coffee to share!
Thank you so much Tom, and thank you to the RCCO for putting on the workshop!
On Pi Day, we usually do something Pi/Pie related or go to the Science Centre. But, this year, Pi Day is smack in the middle of March Break and that means the Science Centre would be packed. So, instead, we decided to head downtown and visit one of our favourite museums.
We finally got to see the exhibit "Eaton's Goes to War: Family, Memory and Meaning" at Mackenzie House. It is about the people who went to fight in the First World War who worked at Eaton's Department Store.
I was at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church for Remembrance Day last year and they did a wonderful service with beautiful music paying special tribute to the members there who served in both of the World Wars. (The whole service is available online at https://www.temc.ca/sermon/decisions-nightfall.) It got me wondering about the people who served and so, I really wanted to see this exhibition.
I didn't expect to see something about someone younger than me going to war. He was 13, working at Eaton's and he enlisted in the army along with his older brother, Fred.
Fred Gledhill received a Distinguished Conduct Medal, and became the youngest Regimental Sergeant Major in the British Army.
One thing that is special about this exhibit is that it looks at how these men who served are remembered by their families and what happened after.
I always hear stories about my Grandfather (Mom's Dad) and my Great Grandfather and Great Uncle (Dad's Grandfather and grand-uncle) and I know that being in the army in World War II was a part of their lives, but they were so much more.
Eaton's Goes to War is on at Mackenzie House until April 30th this year.
Ryerson Interior Design Students also have an exhibit up at Mackenzie House.
Can you see the silhouettes of Mackenzie and his daughters?
There is also a display of objects made from human hair.
And of course, we spent some time in the Print Shop.
Thanks to Alex and Jared for the wonderful afternoon!
And a special thank you for having the well thought out exhibit on Eaton's Goes to War. You always have such great exhibits!
Since it was March Break, I had my entire Saturday free. My orchestra just had our concert and so we have a couple Saturdays off.
I was able to go to William Porter's Masterclass hosted by the RCCO (the Royal Canadian College of Organists) on March 10 at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church at King & Simcoe.
It was my first time watching a Masterclass and it's quite different from a regular class as there is an audience. William Porter is a world-renowned performer and he is well known for his improvisations.
The participants in this Masterclass were, Manuel Piazza, Stefani Bedin, Zoe Lei and Martin Jongsma.
I got to the Masterclass early, so I was able to sit up front.
First we heard Manuel Piazza play the Bach Prelude in B Minor, BWV 544. Manuel is the Organ Scholar at St. James' Cathedral and Manuel played for the choir that I sang with in Chichester & Winchester in the UK over the New Year hoilday.
William Porter taught Manuel to slowly release the keys for certain chords so that it would be a more gentle release. He also had some feedback about the text. He commented that on the original manuscripts from the earlier years Bach was less strict about notation, but later on, he became more precise. Sometimes publishers or editors may have added things. William Porter noted that you need to understand the piece instead of entirely relying on the notation.
Next we heard Stefani Bedin play Bach's Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, BWV 676.
(I believe Stefani's teacher is Kevin Komisaruk. Kevin played clavichord for my Grandma at her hospital bedside just a few days before she passed away. She was really comforted by his playing.)
William suggested that Stefani use some alternate fingering that would make it less tiring to play. He also had some feedback about the text and the consistency of certain elements like trills at choral entries.
We then heard Zoe Lei play Bach's Prelude in E flat Major.
William Porter asked her to focus on the rhythm of the piece. He also looked at the meaning of the phrase, "Pro organo pleno" and how it has changed over the years regarding registration. In Bach's time, it meant principals, mixtures and pedal reeds and then later on it evolved to include the manual reeds. She only needed to make a very simple change by adding the mixtures (stops with multiple ranks of high pitched pipes.)
The last organist we heard was Martin Jongsma. He was improvising a fugue and William Porter gave him feedback on how to improvise a fugue in the German Baroque style.
This was the most interesting part for me as improvisation is totally new to me. For the fugue, he suggested to keeping to 3rds and 6ths for the counter subject, and he also said that you shouldn't start a new voice from the same note but they shouldn't be too far apart from each other. I tried this when I got home, and it's so cool.
Thanks to the RCCO, William Porter and to all of the organists who played!
It was a great morning out!
