Cantata not as good as expected

Laurence Ewashko leads the Cantata Singers of Ottawa

And yet it wasn't quite the pleasure one might have expected. Somehow the whole was just slightly less than the sum of its parts.

The problem arose partly because a program of 18 short pieces, nice though they may be individually, tends to be a bit shapeless, seeming longer than it really is. "Folk singers" invariably leaven their programs with some chit-chat and background talk, and Carlo Verdicchio did something of the sort with his exceptionally informative commentary; that helped.

Another problem, and a surprising one, was that the choral tuning, while not bad, really, was well below the standard the Cantata Singers normally achieve. And there were occasional problems of intonation in each of the sections.

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable concert. When adapting folk songs for choral performance, there is always the danger of over-arranging and robbing the songs of their simple dignity.

Ewashko generally manages to avoid that pitfall when he chooses his selections, though not always.

An uncredited arrangement of Danny Boy had such a complex and fussy harmonic structure that it was hard to enjoy the song at all. On the other hand, John Rutter's arrangement of O Waly, Waly, though equally sophisticated, was entirely sympathetic and beautiful.

But the highlight of the evening was a simple setting by Allister MacGillivray of the Nova Scotia song Away from the Rolling Sea

Another highlight was the world premiere of Joanna Estelle's I Am My Country, a deeply felt and simply conveyed meditation on identity and belonging.