Andrew Balfour performs Notinikew with The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
Composer Andrew Balfour, is the founder and artistic director of Camerata Nova.
AARON VINCENT ELKAIM/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
On Wednesday, November 11, Camerata Nova’s Artistic Director, Andrew Balfour, is lending his talents to an inspiring Remembrance Day performance with The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. The program offers a Choral Perspective of Canada’s Indigenous Veterans and welcomes Andrew as the guest curator, as well as longtime Camerata Nova collaborator, cellist, and composer Cris Derkson.
The program will reflect on the Indigenous experience through music, dance and poetry, and is centred around Andrew’s choral drama, Notinikew (Going to War). Movements of the work will be sung by Andrew’s Winnipeg-based Camerata Nova and by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
Andrew says of this choral drama:
Notinikew is an anti-war piece, an indigenous identity piece – a tragedy that speaks not just about World War I, but all wars and all indigenous soldiers. Why did these Indigenous warriors leave our forests and plains to enter a totally foreign military world and end up fighting in the midst of a true hell on earth?
The concert is a FREE event and will be featured via Livestream at 8:00 p.m. EST. Find out more about the program and performers on the event poster or concert webpage.
Learn the story behind Andrew’s Notinikew here.
