Performance Biography *

Ramona Carmelly has captivated audiences in roles from the sublime to the ridiculous, in opera, music theatre, concert, oratorio, jazz, and cabaret. She made her TV debut as the oblivious diva amid murder and mayhem (with villain and hero swinging behind her on fly ropes!) in the GlobalTV-Lifetime series Wildcard.

Most recently heard as Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro, Venus in Tannhäuser, Amneris in Aida, and The Angel/Narrator in the premiere of David Warrack's multi-faith oratorio Abraham, her diverse roles include: Venus (Tannhäuser), Fricka (Die Walküre) Waltraute (Götterdämmerung), Amneris (Aida), Meg Page and Dame Quickly (Falstaff), Mme de la Haltière (Cendrillon), Marcellina (The Marriage of Figaro), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Mère Marie de l’incarnation (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Mrs. Grose (Turn of the Screw), La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi), Larina, Filipievna and Olga (Eugene Onegin), Dido and The Sorceress (Dido and Aeneas), Mother and The Witch (Hansel and Gretel), Mercedes (Carmen), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Ottavia (The Coronation of Poppea), Mrs. McLean (Susannah), Katisha (The Mikado), Golde (Fiddler on the Roof), and Miss Hannigan (Annie).

Ramona has been a featured soloist in masses by Haydn, Mozart, Vivaldi, Fauré, and Dvořak. Concert highlights include Mahler's Symphony No. 3 with conductor Richard Bradshaw at Toronto Centre for the Arts, as well as Wagner’s Wesendonck lieder, Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No.5, Ravel’s Scheherazade, Mompou’s Cançons Becquerianas.  She had the honour to perform Helen Greenberg's Kaddish in the first concert sponsored by PEN Canada in memory of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl, and was invited to perform among such luminaries as Susan Hoeppner and Jacques Israelievitch at the Glick Society’s Tribute to Srul Irving Glick. She sang Chad Martin’s song cycle, i will open petal by petal myself, in John Oswald's Intimate Music project for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, arias from Amphion Opera's Cassandra and Mother of Kings for the Lyric Canada Conference showcase at Shaw, and the Farmer’s Wife in the North American premiere of And the Rat Laughed. Ramona voiced a deconstructed Brünnhilde from Wagner's Siegfried for The 50 Minute Ring by Myra Davies and Chris Willes for the Music Gallery’s X-avant Festival, and participated in a workshop of Christiaan Venter and Anusree Roy's opera, Noor over Afghan, at the Canadian Stage Festival of Ideas and Creation.

Ramona looks forward to creating the title role in Don't Call Me Mama, a new biographic portrait of the great “Mama” Cass Elliot, and reprising the role of Emily Carr on a Canadian tour of Emily, the Way you Are. She moonlights as a teacher, adjudicator, director, and recently as a lyricist.

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press

“Ramona Carmelly was every inch the diva princess as Amneris, in a thoughtful performance that held nothing back, especially in her big scene in Act IV. This is a voice that could develop in several directions, as she has the top and low notes, and sang a huge role in a bluesy style a few months ago in the premiere of David Warrack’s Abraham.” -- Leslie Barcza, Barczablog

“Ramona Carmelly as the Spoken Voice and the Angel really surprised me. I'm already a fan of her full-throated Wagnerian mezzo, but I got to hear a different kind of singing from her. A more contemporary musical theatre sound with - wait for it - some DAMN FINE BELTING!” -- Gregory Finney, Schmopera

“As Madame de la Haltiere, Ramona Carmelly had the right comic flair and rich tone.” -- Joseph So, La Scena Musicale

“special mention for Ramona Carmelly … Her performance was a lesson in how deft acting can overcome the limitations of opera on the concert stage.” -- Wayne Gooding, Opera Canada

“Ramona Carmelly, with her plush mezzo, was outstanding as the jealously domineering Mrs. McLean” -- David Lasker, The Globe and Mail

“... Alora, played marvelously by Ramona Joy Carmelly ” -- Peter Bevan-Baker - The Recorder and Times

“The gifted mezzo soprano … [gave] a soaring, gorgeous interpretation of Jewish-Canadian composer Srul Irving Glick's Time Cycle, a jewel from his much admired Yiddish Suite No. 2” -- Jordana Divon, The Canadian Jewish News

“It is not often a composer finds a performer who will prepare a work with such care and excellent musicianship... a top-notch performance.” -- Mary Gardiner, composer

April 2018

I want to preface this by saying this is NOT a plea for sympathy in the comments (or anywhere). I'm asking for something else entirely.

I'm going to ask a favour. A big one. It's important. And I'll go first. But I totally understand if you don't choose to participate.

Can we talk about depression and suicide without shame?

They are still in many ways part of a silent epidemic. Revealing such things can be terrifying, especially if you work in an industry where image is important - and these days that's just about every field.

Fear of being judged is why so many people do not reach out for help and spiral into a state in which we can consider ending our lives preferable to going on. Some of us feel desperately alone. Some of us know we are loved, we have people around us who would be devastated if we acted on those impulses. But all have one thing in common: we reach a state where the despair feels intolerable and ending our life looks like the only way out.

Were you paying attention to the pronouns? I am one of those people.

I have suffered through periodic bouts of depression, combinations of my own biochemistry and baggage. Sometimes they are triggered by events in my life, some of them seem to come out of nowhere, when things are going very well

There was a time I considered ending my life. Oddly, the time I did have suicidal thoughts was not when I was in the depths of despair, it was at a point when I felt myself on the verge of falling into another episode and I just didn't believe I could go through that again. I did not act on the impulse, but it was powerful. I reached out for help and I got it.

The details are not important right now. Suffice it to say that I've gone through periods when I was one of the walking wounded or struggling to keep my head above water, and periods when I thrived and felt pretty terrific.

Full disclosure: lately, I'm wrestling with a great deal but I am not depressed. I am at times sad or angry and I can't see my way through clearly, but I am not hopeless and I'm NOT suicidal. Really. I promise.

About a dozen years ago, I lost a friend to suicide. He chose to end his life and though I wish with all my heart that he had not, I will not judge him for it. Nobody can know the depths of another person's pain.

I am also privileged to have another friend who very recently reached out to me when he felt that depth of despair and after some struggle I am very glad that he chose life.

So that favour I'm here to ask...? If you are willing to participate, I want your help to end the stigma.

If you have ever been depressed, please speak up. It needn't be a source of shame.

If you have ever felt the urge to end your life, please speak up. It's not a dirty secret.

If you meet/speak with/read about someone who discloses these things, please refrain from judgment. If you meet one of us when we are in the throes of that condition, please let us know we are not alone and help us to get help.

I'm a survivor of depression. I am very lucky and very grateful to be here to say that.

We are not weak. Quite the opposite. We are survivors who contend with an illness that can at times be overwhelming. It is just one part of what makes up our lives. It does not define us.

Let's work together to end the shame by shining a light on the dark places.

If even one life is saved, or if even one person feels just a little less desperate for not having to hide, it's worth it.

Whatever you choose, thank you for reading this.

Find Your Voice with MezzoDiva

As well as continuing a varied and eclectic performing career, a vibrant mix of cabaret, theatre and recording projects, I'm very excited about a new holistic area of my teaching practice for singers and non-singers alike, in a variety of formats from individual private lessons to group master-classes, as well as seminars and workshop retreats in various lengths, from an hour to 3 days.

Whenever I meet people and I'm asked what I do, I tell people I'm a singer. The very next thing I almost always hear them say is something like "Oh, I can't sing." Well, I call B.S! My manifesto is that everyone can sing. Very few people are physiologically impaired in such a way as to interfere with the healthy function of their voice.

There is a very good reason for the metaphor of ‘your true voice in the world.’ The living breath and a commitment to honest open vocalization (the same tools and techniques which allow performers to create compelling, authentic performances) make singing an incredibly powerful medium through which people at all stages of life can open up to their own true voice, and through their voice to their power, their passion, their creativity and their truth.

Singing and speaking your truth, finding your voice is your birthright as a human being. We are all born doing it: slap, breath, wail. That was your very first song, your own intuitive healing voice. And considering how many people in this world have that right stolen, silenced, or suppressed, it seems a great shame to waste yours. Now, stop caring so much what other people might think, and go sing something!

My work is about helping people get out of their own way psychologically and relearning good vocal habits. So if you want to reclaim your true voice in the world, call me. I can help with that.



Find Your Voice with MezzoDiva

Why we sing, how to make your voice your own,

and why it’s more important today than ever before.

Ramona Carmelly - Mezzo Soprano

Performing Artist: Classical, Jazz, Cabaret

Opera/Oratorio/Music Theatre/Television/Concerts/Special Events

 

Also available for Lessons/Master-classes 
Vocal Technique & Repertoire
Musical/Dramatic Interpretation,
Character Study & Stagecraft

Relocated to Facebook

I am so involved in other activities that the care and feeding of a blog is not possible unless I clone myself, fully-formed and functional.

I've been so busy, I seem to have lost my blogging mojo (if I ever really had it). However, I still have quite a lot to say in person and online and I'd love to share it with you and connect and find out what you are up to.

I might drop in here from time to time, but if you're looking for me, you can find me on Facebook over here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=796570093. There are all kinds of things up on my page there, including a few good Notes from the past, and several coming up, which really are sort of like Facebook blog-posts.

So if you want more from me, go check it out over there.
See a round the webiverse!

Ciao for now!

MezzoDiva aka Ramona

It was not just another Tuesday afternoon

As it happens, once the police arrived I learned that they were in fact who they purported to be: plainclothes private security for the local dollar store.  And the terrified man they had chased for several blocks had indeed stolen some items: a few pairs of socks and a couple of cheap brimmed caps.  But had I not followed them all up that side-street to witness their apprehension of the man, would they have stopped at holding him down and yelling?

Had I not called the police, would they have done so only much later?  Rapidly advancing and flashing a laminated card at me for a couple of seconds after I expressed my concern does not prove anything.  And why were they so disturbed by my presence as to warn me off vociferously, and so threatened by the one photo I took with my phone to show the police, that one of them approached again to chest-bump, shove me and threaten me, desisting only when I offered to charge him with assault?

I was not, as they put it, “hindering their apprehension of the thief.”  I was merely acting as a witness, not willing to risk allowing someone who was clearly frightened enough to risk running into traffic to be beaten, or worse, simply because, as many others muttered as I went by enlisting their attention, “it’s none of my business.”

And I am very grateful to several other young men who responded to my requests to stay near when I said that I was not comfortable waiting there alone with the first three for the police to arrive and asked them to stand by calmly without escalating the already volatile and potentially violent situation.

I learned a few things yesterday afternoon on my way to an appointment in one of the less well-appointed neighbourhoods of Toronto.

1.  You cannot run, nor even walk rapidly, in flip flops.

2.  There is more chivalry among the young men of that neighbourhood than we might, from our stereotyped prejudices, assume. In ignoring such assumptions, I found allies who were polite and helpful in a potentially dangerous situation. And by treating them with respect, I earned theirs.

3.  I am in fact my brother’s keeper. We all are. And in these times ,when more than ever we are being made to feel disempowered and separate and fearful, we need to override those impulses and follow our truer instincts. The only way we will make this world the better place we want it to be is through a willingness to act according to our conscience.

I am also pondering one more thing:  what sort of circumstances would make a person risk arrest or worse to steal some socks and hats from a dollar store.  But that’s a question for another time.

"We must become the change we want to see in the world" ~ Mohandas 'Mahatma' Gandhi

FAT is not a four letter word.

FAT is not a four letter word.I applaud anyone's determination to manage their health and well-being, physical and emotional.  However, with everyone from parents to society, and now even schools becoming the fat police, this this makes me see red! Why? Because it does not help. Instead it (paradoxically, counter-productively, ironically, cruelly) creates an environment in which eating disorders and body dysmorphia thrive.

As someone who has spent all of her adult life on the other end of the scale (pardon the pun), I am a prime example of the damaging effects of harping on the fear of fat. When I was 13, I was 5'2 and I weighed 137 lbs. My petite mother panicked and dragged me to the doctor, beginning a life-long cycle of diets and weight gain, strict regimented eating or binging, and continual self-denigration. As a result, I have "yo-yo"ed between sizes 16-24 for my entire adolescent and adult life. It has taken me 32 years from that day to overcome the damage to my spirit and I am just starting to overcome the damage to my body.

We have to combat the zeitgeist of fat phobia - the last widely permissible (even lauded) bigotry. The very word, "fat", has become overloaded with anxiety and negative values. It has taken on hugely disproportional connotations of shame and mortification, and no longer functions as noun or adjective, but rather is used almost as a swear word. With the onslaught of media messages, from reality shows and "helpful" talk shows, the fashion industry to news reports of the latest "studies" on obesity, it is very easy to be caught up in the social frenzy and buy into the myths of fat vilification. Women in particular are bombarded with the message that if we are fat, then we are (or should be) physical, emotional and/or spiritual cripples, and fair game for all sorts of derogatory comments.

Enough!  I refuse to participate in or perpetuate that mythology. We owe it to ourselves and our sisters and daughters, and yes, also our brothers and sons, to combat the tyranny of our fat phobic society and how it targets and denigrates people based on size. You are beautiful at any size.

Let's be clear: We do not have a weight problem. We have a weight. They may have a problem with that. But let's stop letting them dump their problem on us.

As a child, I remember running around and playing with abandon. I took dance classes, and rode my bike, and walked, and ran, and... However, with the onset of tween-dom and adolescence, I succumbed to the pressures of schoolyard politics and lost my love of physical activity. In high school, gym class and school dances were at best boring and at worst humiliating. I became an artistic, nerdy, smart girl-woman who could not conceive of anything like physical "exercise" being fun (I recognize the words, but the sentence as a whole does not make sense).

In adulthood I rediscovered my joy of dancing and movement as well the pure unadulterated elation that comes from celebrating your strength, flexibility and endurance. I've walked 60-kms in two days (raising $13,500 to combat cancer) and had the blisters and lost toe-nails and sunburns and a cold from walking all day in the rain (because while healthy activity supports the immune system, extreme activity has been shown to suppress it) to prove it.  I've biked all around this fantastic hilly city of mine (just take a look at a topographical map of Toronto and you'll see what that entails). I've taken Yoga and Pilates classes, found myself able to contort my body into fantastic shapes and positions, though humorously hindered by bumping up against bits of myself in the process (like the time I had my legs thrown way back behind my head and found myself with a face-full of my own bountiful bosom, unable to breathe). And, after laughing at the strength-training instructor who wanted me to do push ups (Sure, honey. Tell you what. If you can bench press ME, we are on. Otherwise, can I push YOU up?), I discovered that real weight training was a true exercise in both torture and pleasure. Who knew it could be so satisfying to bench-press or leg press or, even, those dreaded PUSH-UPS!

All that physicality finally taught me to love my body as it is. Furthermore, I get hit on regularly these days - often even when I'm out walking with my husband. Real men who are not afraid to appreciate ladies with a little extra meat on our bones are out there and I am living proof that they can tell when we feel confident at whatever size!

Full disclosure: I currently wear about a size 24 (well, the labels say everything from 14-26, but I know my measurements but let's call it 24 if we have to give it  a number). In the last couple of years I've discovered something has shifted in my marriage. My husband, who used to be enthralled by the more usual womanly erogenous zones, is finding my voluptuous belly irresistible! His hands will inevitable stray to and linger on my belly.

This paralleled my own (gradual and hard-won) acceptance of that part of my body. Our unjustly maligned and oft-reviled yet generous and forgiving bellies can be honoured as a source of sensual pleasure, as well as serving so well in all the ways mentioned by Sarah Henderson in her wonderful poem: My Belly.  I just LOVE this. It's posted here: http://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-ann-henderson/my-belly-a-poem-of-love-and-hope/401604304591

You know, it's a funny thing I realized on the way to size acceptance. No matter what size we are and whether it's our ribs or our rolls that are more evident, even swathed in a burka, our bodies make their unique and wonderful shapes known. It's not like we really can hide the truth of our body, so why not embrace it instead?

The parable of the cracked jar

An Indian legend tells of a man who carried water to his village every day, in two large jars tied to the ends of a wooden pole, which he balanced on his back. One of the jars was older than the other, and had some small cracks; every time the man covered the distance to his house, half of the water was lost.

For two years, the man made the same journey. The younger jar was always very proud of its performance, safe in the knowledge that it was up to the mission it had been made for, while the other jar was mortified with shame at only fulfilling half of its allotted task, even though it knew that those cracks were the result of many years hard work. It was so ashamed that one day, while the man got ready to fetch water from the well, it decided to speak to him:
– I want to apologize, but because of the many years of service, you are only able to deliver half of my load, and quench half of the thirst which awaits you at your home.

The man smiled, and said – When we return, observe carefully the path.

And so it did. And the jar noticed that, on its side, many flowers and plants grew.

– See how nature is more lovely on your side? – commented the man. – I always knew you were cracked, and decided to make use of this fact. I planted flowers and vegetables, and you have always watered them. I have picked many roses to decorate my house with, I have fed my children with lettuce, cabbage and onions. If you were not as you are, how could I have done that?

I met someone recently who offered her shoulder to support me during a moment of fragility. I had a frightening and unforeseeable health scare in the midst of a very intense period in the very last days preparing a performance. One day, just before an orchestral dress rehearsal, I found myself unable to compartmentalize my feelings in order to keep it together so I could function at full steam. And I did something I have not done often. I asked for help. I asked someone to listen so I could articulate my fears in the hope that would make it easier for me to pull myself together.

At a time when she was indescribably busy, juggling the numerous balls that lead up to creating a show in the last days of rehearsal, this person took the time to sit with me and talk. And at one point in that talk, she said something that turned my ideas about my self, my identity, and my life's journey on their head and made me rethink everything I have believed to be true about myself.

As the child of a rage-a-holic, I lived in a bizarre world where I never knew from one day (or moment) to the next when the other shoe would drop. As a result of this upbringing, for most of my life I've always been waiting to flinch. I've functioned like a battle-scarred war veteran. As I learned more about such things and understood my symptoms in the context of post-traumatic stress, I started to define myself as the walking wounded, as someone who was damaged by those experiences in my early life but who seemingly functions at a high level in the world for periods of time, only to withdraw (sometimes secretly, sometimes overtly) into depression, sadness, self-pity, anger, self-judgement, and most of all regret: if only things had been different, I could be different, better, stronger.

On the other hand, I also came to realize that I have depression to thank for much of what I have come to know about myself. Had I not felt so miserable, some days barely to get out of bed, I would not have been inspired to think, to sort things out and seek the help of others to help me make sense of the chaos. But I always wished it had been different. That I had been different, normal - whatever I imagined that to be. And when I would go out into the world, I pretended to others and to myself that I was not me, I was someone else. Even (or especially) when I was not okay, I endeavoured to create the impression that I was fine. This was yet another layer of violence upon my spirit, now self-inflicted.

This colleague and new friend saw right through me. She intuitively recognized the real me as someone who had also experienced a youth where fear and anticipation of the imminent catastrophe was ever-present, and proceeded to point out that I am much stronger than I have been willing to acknowledge, that what I have believed about myself for so long is not necessarily the only true interpretation. Perhaps the real story is not that I am flawed by my wounds and scars, but rather that they are precisely what make me incredibly powerful. They made me a survivor, the hero of my own life. They made me a resilient, compassionate, empathetic, and fiercely committed person. They make me the truly compelling artist, both the creator and the creative vessel that I am.

Karl Ulrich Schnabel said: "An artist experiences emotions that are much more intense than those most people feel. On a daily basis, we handle emotions that are so intense that they would kill most people." There is a danger that we can disown the jar of our own life because we fear or disparage the cracks we bear. We feel that they are too deep, too wide, too broken. The cracked jar in the parable felt sorry for the water bearer because the jar saw its cracks as flaws and thus felt it wasn’t up to doing its job.

If we look at our own jars this way and try to deny them, reject them, put them in the corner to collect dust, pretend we have no cracks, present a normalized façade to the world for fear of having our cracks noticed and judged, we are wasting life’s most precious opportunities.

So, like the jar of the parable, that which was thought to be damaged, wounded, cracked, actually gives life. And through it gardens are watered and beautiful flowers bloom for all to enjoy. Life invites each one of us to use the cracks in our jar to water the gardens of our lives, to create new life and to inspire new growth along our path in this journey.

Fairytales can come true, it can happen to you...

Whew! I've been out of communication for a while, haven't I? It's been a whirlwind since the new year, with my trip to New York and a Quintimacy concert and rehearsals and more rehearsals (and yet more rehearsals)...

It's my day off and I'm attending to all the domestic duties I've neglected while rehearsing for an upcoming production of Cendrillon, Massenet's sparkling rendition of the Cinderella fairy tale. I've scrubbed the kitchen sink and counters, the bathroom sink, the toilet, and hubby has filled the washing machine with hot water and vinegar to try and eliminate the residue it's leaving on the supposedly clean laundry. I'm about to head up to scour the shower tiles and tub. Am I the only one who sees the irony here?

I have been invited to return as a guest artist to my alma mater, the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music (one of the foremost musical training programs in Canada), to perform a leading role in the first opera to be presented in the new acoustically perfect and exquisitely designed Koerner Hall. If you're in the GTA, come hear this magical work performed by the bright new generation of up and coming singers with conductor Uri Mayer and the Royal Conservatory Orchestra, on Saturday, March 20 at 7:30 pm, Sunday, March 21 at 2:00 pm, Tuesday, March 23 at 11:00 am and Thursday, March 25 at 7:30 pm.

Cendrillon (Cinderella) by Jules Massenet (1842-1912) is a re-telling of the familiar story. The Cinderella theme may have originated in classical antiquity, with the story of Rhodopis by the Greek Historian Strabo. The tale was written down in China during the year 830 by Tuan Ch'eng Shih who referred to it then as an old story. Of the most commonly read versions, a somewhat barbaric one by the Brothers Grimm and a more refined one by the upper class seventeenth century French writer Charles Perrault, the composer and his librettist Henri Cain (1859-1937) chose the latter. Massenet's rendition is a wonderfully constructed piece of musical theatre, where the sublime romanticism of the forlorn lovers is juxtaposed against the ethereally magical scenes of the fairy godmother and the outrageous shenanigans of the step-mother and her daughters.

We are deep into dress rehearsals - and it’s so much FUN! I am playing the wicked step-mother, which works for me very well vocally and temperamentally. It's also the perfect balance (and antidote) to the darker material I've been working in for most of the last year and a half: several amazing V-day shows (The Vagina Monologues and Any One of Us) a brilliant but harrowing opera about the holocaust (And the Rat Laughed), and the intensity of the Wagner arias I worked up for a recent vocal competition in New York.

Side note: I'm a hybrid creature - something of a vocal chameleon, possibly a closet soprano, probably zwischen-fach: this means my voice doesn't fall neatly into a category or 'fach'. I have a fine higher register, as well as a rich lower one, and I am operatically well-suited to zwischen-fach repertoire (that is, actual soprano roles which are occasionally taken by mezzos and vice versa) as well as the Verdi and Wagner mezzo roles, which often require the same range as the soprano, but not the same tessitura. Here's an easy analogy: the elevator goes to all the same floors, but the approach to the penthouse is a little different and while we love to visit, we prefer not to live there! It seemed that everyone who heard me had their own opinion about my fach and for years I was subjected to a tug of war between those in the soprano camp and those cheering for the mezzo team. Temperamentally, though, I am definitely much better suited to the mezzo repertoire. These roles are only rarely the heroines; rather usually we play the spoilers - witches, bitches, hags and whores, with the occasional mother, good or bad, thrown in for variety. This makes for much more interesting character fodder for my taste - not to mention the inherent therapeutic cathartic potential ;)

Now, don't get me wrong. I love to sing profoundly dramatic rep (whether mezzo or soprano). I adore the great sweeping Verdi and Wagner roles for their vibrant or lush textures, as well as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti for their fluidity and fioritura. Alas, Mozart and Puccini did not write much for the mezzo-soprano, though I had a blast in recent years singing Ciesca in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Marcellina in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro - both brilliant comedy shows with some very tight ensemble writing (in the Puccini, I even got to sing some fabulous High C's!). In addition, I am one of those freak singers who loves contemporary repertoire - passionately. But I have to admit that for stage work I wouldn't be bored doing comedy for the rest of my life. It’s ultimately the most gratifying for me.

Comedy is actually harder to do than the romantic or dramatic stuff. The timing and nuance of every action has to be so precise, in the exact musical place to be funny, and you have to play it all just as believably as drama. You don't get up and act funny. You have to be truly as committed to achieving your character's goal as you would be in a dramatic context. Good comedy comes out of good writing: the dialogue and the circumstances create incongruous scenarios and motivate absurd behaviour, and the less aware your character is of all that, the more hilarious the audience finds it all. Of course, there are physical expressions and actions that are funny, but they all have to come out of a genuine intention to get what your character wants in the scene.

Want to see a good example? Come to Cendrillon and I'll be happy to provide it!

Well, I'd better go finish my own chores then practise. Got places to go, people to sing with. Rehearsals to knit through.

Contrasts

I just returned from a whirlwind week of singing and fun in New York, where I participated in a vocal competition. I had the pleasure to reconnect with long-lost family and friends both new and old, I got to absorb some art and culture, and I went to a Broadway show - A Little Night Music.

Now, I am a very picky theatre-goer and I tend to hold very high standards as an audience member so pardon me while I simply GUSH: If you are in NYC you must (absolutely, unequivocally MUST) go to see A Little Night Music. It is magnificent! Brilliant in the seamlessness and economical simplicity of it's staging and beautifully crafted, nuanced and wonderful performances from everybody! It's at the Walter Kerr (on 48th St). Even if the only ticket you can get is expensive - it's worth it. It is as close to a perfect production as I have ever witnessed. If I did not have to come back rehearsals and performances of my own, I would have extended my stay over the weekend to see it another two or three times!

While I was away, in response to the horrific crisis in Haiti, I pledged to match dollar-for-dollar the money I spend on myself that week with a donation to Doctors without Borders and Haitian relief efforts - and I challenged everyone on my Facebook page to do the same! I had no secure internet connection while away, so the total will be donated now, and I have to say it's a whopper!

I am also instigating further efforts to raise funds and support for this cause as well as the ONGOING crisis of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where despite the supposed formal cease of hostilities, several armed groups still use sexual violence as a weapon of war. In the DRC it is more dangerous to be woman than a combatant as women and girls remain targets for violence. Physical and economic insecurity still characterize the lives of women and girls and the threat of and the use of violence are constants, discrimination against women and girls underlies the violence perpetrated against them, and the current climate of impunity allows the many forms of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, to flourish.

Some of you may also know me as MezzoDiva the Operatic Knitaholic, as well as the designer of the Campanula for the Cure and Hibiscus for Hope sock patterns, which together with some very sore muscles, blistered feet and 60 km (twice) helped me raise some $13,500.00 for The Weekend to End Breast Cancer in 2007 & 2008.

Well, if I can scrape together some time this week, I intend to reformat and re-release those patterns as Hibiscus for HAITI and Campanula for the CONGO. It may have to wait a few days, though as I just returned from an exciting but strenuous week of vocal endeavours in NYC, I am juggling assorted family crises and medical emergencies (my 90 year-old mother-in-law is due to be released from a 3 week stay in the hospital this week) and I just dove into rehearsals for an upcoming opera and for the Quintimacy concert next weekend.

With the agreement of the artists, all proceeds from Quintimacy's upcoming salon will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières, whose efforts in Haiti have been in demand both before the catastrophic earthquake> on January 12, 2010 and since then.

MSF's devotion to this calling, despite personal risk and losses, is truly heroic. MSF trauma centres were seriously damaged by the quake. Latest announcements confirm the quake killed 4 Haitian MSF staff; 4 others who'd recently worked with them also died; 6 are still missing. They just rolled up their sleeves and moved their treatment clinics to tents and mobile centres in the open. Their staff has a good sense of what's going to be needed in the short term as well as how much the rehabilitation of emergency and other healthcare in the country will cost in the long term. As the worldwide generosity continues, donations to their Emergency Relief Fund give MSF the maximum flexibility to respond directly where it’s most needed in Haiti, while ensuring they can still act rapidly should another disaster strike.

Pledge

I'm in NYC for a week for a singing competition and to visit friends - and I hope to see a Broadway show. I've pledged to match dollar-for-dollar the money I spend on myself this WEEK with an equal donation to Doctors without Borders and to Haitian relief efforts. I'm looking forward to making one doozy of a donation on Friday (when I get home to a secure connection) - and I hereby challenge everyone who reads this to do similarly:

Pick a day or the weekend or more, and what ever you spend for yourself that day, make a matching donation. Even if it's just lunch at McDonalds, every little bit helps. Just enjoy yourself and pledge to donate an equal amount to a reliable aid organization. The go have some fun and don't hold back - it's for a good cause!

For my Canadian friends, a list of registered charities can be found here.

For US and international friends, check with your local authorities for a registered charity.

Happy New Year!

An open letter written December 31, 2009 but not posted until today due to technical difficulties.

Dear friends and colleagues,

Tonight we take a soul-cleansing breath, release what is past, appreciate what remains, and look forward with new wisdom to what comes next. As this interesting year draws to a close, I'm both grateful for all the life-lessons of 2009 and very glad they are past. Most of all, I am very excited about embarking upon a brand new year. The coming weeks and months are burgeoning with so much goodness, both new beginnings and seeds sewn coming to fruition - my only complaint is that there are still only 7 days in a week and 24 hours in each of them, and I do need to sleep and attend to the mundane necessities of life (and laundry) sometimes. Here are just a few highlights:

I have been invited to return to my alma mater as a guest artist, the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music (one of the foremost musical training programs in Canada), to perform a leading role in the first opera to be presented in the new acoustically perfect and exquisitely designed Koerner Hall. I look forward to start rehearsals for Le Cendrillon (Cinderella) by Massenet in the New Year, performances coming up in March 2010 with conductor Uri Mayer and the Royal Conservatory Orchestra.

I’m taking a brief hiatus from these rehearsals in mid-January for a trip to New York City to compete in the Liederkranz Foundation’s vocal competition (Wagner Division). Strange, but true: I have never been to New York (other than briefly crossing the tarmac at La Guardia while changing planes), so I am very excited about this trip and look forward to spending a few days after the competition seeing the sights and visiting with friends and family.

In the meantime, I am also preparing for a very special concert with Quintimacy on January 31st. Quintimacy, a Toronto-based group I co-founded in 2008 with musicologist Eleanor Johnston, composer Chad Martin and pianists Joseph Ferretti and Elaine Lau, has become very dear to me. We are dedicated to rebuilding a close working relationship between performers, composers and personal engagement with the audience through intimate salon-style performance of new, rare and beautiful piano, vocal and chamber works in settings which foster a sense of immediacy and connection. You can hear highlights from Quintimacy’s first season online at Instant Encore.

Titled "Expressionists in the Melting Pot," the first concert of our second season will trace the impact of historical events on music from the early 20th century in Vienna to the strange realities of the new world, after the escape or expulsion of many composers from the Nazi regime, in a program which includes music by Berg, Scriabin, Schoenberg, Korngold, Weill. As always with Quintimacy, our concert includes entertaining informative anecdotes mixed with the music and will be followed by a reception with the artists. After our almost excessively intimate event of last season had our guests rubbing shoulders, with many at our very knees sharing cushions on the floor, we are delighted to announce that we’re moving into the more spacious yet still intimate Gallery 345, a beautiful space of over 2,000 square feet with 12 foot wood ceilings and plaster and brick walls, designed and lit for the display of art.

I’m also preparing for other engagements later in the year, including a tour with my alter-ego, Emily. Canadian composer Jana Skarecky’s one-woman opera about Emily Carr, EMILY, THE WAY YOU ARE, with libretto by renowned Canadian poet Di Brandt, premiered on April 20, 2008. I had the profoundly gratifying experience of giving voice to this boldly visionary and nonconformist Canadian artist and writer, as well as to several key figures in her life - her sisters, a spurned suitor, art critics and the Group of Seven’s Lawren Harris. (This performance, with pianist Joseph Ferretti and members of The Talisker Players chamber ensemble under conductor Gary Kulesha, was presented at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, Ontario, through the New Music in New Places program of the Canadian Music Centre, and may be heard online at the CMC archives.)

On top of all this, in response to continual requests by audiences at various concerts for a recording (and I am truly honoured and not a little surprised every time this occurs), I will be entering the studio this year to fulfill my promises and record a CD. To that end, I am preparing a sublime selection of vocal works by contemporary Canadian composers, including oeuvres by Chad Martin and Maria Case, as well as Alex Eddington, and Catherine Magowan and Ian McAndrew (Note to composers who may still be working on or dreaming about their compositions for this project - and you know who you are – start your engines!)

I also have several interesting teaching engagements later in the year in assorted eclectic places, including a personal project about which I am very passionate: developing an inter-disciplinary creativity workshop by applying the performance-related techniques I use with singing students in group master-classes and cross-pollinating from there, using the true inner voice to facilitate free authentic expression for artists in other media, such as painting/sculpture/fibre-arts/writing, and more.

I send you all blessings for this New Year and ever beyond: Don't wait for someone else to elevate you to your potential. Make your own magic in the Universe. Captain your journey. Risk something. Trust your power, and most importantly ... believe!

Wishing you and all your loved ones a wonderful holiday and a life filled with love and laughter, health and happiness, peace and prosperity, and many happy returns!

XO – Ramona

Expressionists in the Melting Pot

(Gustav Klimt, "Die Musik")
Quintimacy,
with special guest artist, soprano Kristin Mueller-Heaslip
Sunday January 31st, 2010 at 4 PM
Gallery 345 at 416.822.9781
345 Sorauren Ave, Toronto, ON

Tickets: $25 ($15 for seniors & students)

PROGRAMME*:
Berg: Sieben Fruehe Lieder and an excerpt from Lulu,
Scriabin: Prelude and Nocturne for Left Hand Alone,
Schoenberg: Sechs Kleine Klavierstuecke
as well as lieder by Korngold, cabaret-theatre gems by Weill,
not to mention other treats (aural and gustatory).

Join us as we trace the impact of historical events on music and with the divergence from the more intimate and accessible music forms and performances in the early 20th century after the escape or expulsion of many composers from the Nazi regime. As always with Quintimacy, our concert will be followed by a brief reception and includes entertaining informative anecdotes mixed with the music.

For more information and reservations please see our Facebook page (under groups), or call Gallery 345.

Quintimacy is a Toronto-based group dedicated to rebuilding a close working relationship between composer, performer and audience through intimate salon-style performance of new, rare and beautiful solo and chamber works. It was founded by musicologist Eleanor Johnston, composer Chad Martin and performers Ramona Carmelly, Joseph Ferretti and Elaine Lau in 2008.

* programme subject to change

Quintimacy - recorded LIVE May 2008

Last year I embarked on a new venture with a group of like-minded musicians and Quintimacy was born: a Toronto-based group dedicated to rebuilding a close working relationship between composer, performer and audience. We were concerned about the lack of intimate and accessible performances of special and sometimes rare selections from the scope of vocal and chamber music and, much like Mickey and Judy, we decided to just do something about it.

The concept of a return to an intimate salon-style of music presentation with conversation, proximity and artistic immediacy began generating a buzz among artists and music-lovers, performers and audiences, with our very warmly received debut event on November 16. "Conversation, Canapes and Cancions" featured seldom heard songs by Henri Duparc and Federico Mompou, as well as witty inventive pieces for toy piano (yes, toy piano) by our own Chad Martin. February's audience thrilled to "Ravel and other Pleasures" as acclaimed guest artists Shauna Basiuk (flute) and Liza McLennan (cello) joined us in Maurice Ravel’s spectacular Chansons Madécasses for voice, piano, cello and flute, framed by instrumental solo and chamber works in a scintillating and eclectic program of exotic, passionate and evocative style.

We closed our first season with mirrored poetic expressions of love on May 3, 2009, featuring Richard Wagner's lush and rapturous Wesendonck lieder as well as Franz Liszt’s transcription of Isolde’s Liebestod, and culminating in the premiere of a new commissioned song cycle by Quintimacy’s resident composer Chad Martin, "i will open petal by petal myself," setting love poems by the inimitable ee cummings. This performance was recorded live in a lovely private home, on Avenue Road near St Clair.

Here, for the first time ever, I present to you Quintimacy recorded live in performance:




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About the Artists:

Dynamic and versatile mezzo-soprano Ramona Carmelly has captivated audiences in opera, cabaret, jazz, concert and theatre roles from the sublime to the ridiculous in more than a dozen languages, and the critics have raved: "Her performance was a lesson in how deft acting can overcome the limitations of opera on the concert stage," (Opera Canada) and "Ramona Carmelly, with her plush mezzo, was outstanding." (Globe & Mail). In recent years, Ramona was a finalist for the Christina & Louis Quilico Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation and won a coveted position in the Apprentice Artist program with Des Moines Metro Opera. Recently Ramona was featured with the Talisker Players in the premiere of Emily, the Way You Are, a one-woman opera about Emily Carr composed expressly for her. Previous highlights include the Alto solo in Mahler's Third Symphony with conductor Richard Bradshaw and one of the first PEN-Canada concerts in memory of slain WSJ correspondent Daniel Pearl.

Joseph Ferretti has performed extensively throughout Europe, Canada and the USA as both soloist and collaborative artist. Recent series appearances include NUMUS, the Banff Centre for the Arts, COC's Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre, and Canadian Music Centre's New Music in New Places. Joseph frequently performs as a duo pianist with Elaine Lau. Their recording of music by Jack Behrens is featured on an album release by Capstone Records. Dr. Ferretti has been on the piano faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University since 2003.

Elaine Lau has appeared as keyboardist and soloist with Canadian orchestras, and has been broadcast on CBC and Public Radio in the United States, performing Canadian works. A new music enthusiast, Elaine has had the opportunity to work with many composers. Recent appearances include performances with the Canadian Chamber Ensemble, and on the NUMUS and Canadian Opera Company's Piano Virtuoso concert series. As duo-pianist with Joseph Ferretti, she has performed across Canada and the USA. In 2007, she was invited to present at the CFMTA/MTNA/ RCM Collaborative Conference. Elaine has served on the piano faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University since 2003.

Never again.

For personal reasons I've been away from the blog for much of the last few months, but today I feel compelled to write.

Last year on this day, a Saturday, I sang in the synagogue morning service, and as usual near the end I participated in the saying of the mourner's kaddish. Though not required of me because my parents and siblings are all still living, it's something that I choose to do whenever I am in a synagogue (or any house of worship), in memory of all the members of my family lost over the years, in the Holocaust and later, through natural causes and by other circumstances. I say the prayer for my grandparents and my great-aunt and great-uncle, my great-grandmother Rivka (for whom I was named and who often feels present in the periphery of my life, though she died long before I was born and I never met her). I say the prayer for my husband's father who died in 2003 and for whom I continue to feel a deep affection. And I say it in solidarity with all parts of the human community that are dealing with lost loved ones every day.

That day last year was particularly poignant though. I know because I made a note of it in my calendar. That day I said Kaddish for all the women who have been the focus of rage and violence, often from men, sometimes known to them and sometimes not.

On Dec.6 1989, Marc Lépine, stalked through classrooms corridors and a cafeteria at the École Polytechnique in Montreal armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife, on a deliberate and premeditated murderous rampage targeting women. He proceeded to kill fourteen women as well as injure four men and ten women before turning the gun on himself. In his suicide note he blamed feminists for ruining his life and in letters to his friends released later in the press, he outlined his motivation for the attack as supposedly reasonable anger towards feminists for seeking social changes that "retain the advantages of being women [...] while trying to grab those of the men."

Fourteen bright young lives were snuffed out in under twenty minutes in a brutal act of misplaced rage and hostility. Fourteen vibrant and creative women lost their opportunity to live and love and laugh, to build a life and to contribute their gifts to society, just because they had the temerity to aspire to become something more and one man saw their fortitude as a threat to his own thwarted ambition and self-esteem.

* Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
* Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
* Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
* Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
* Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk, École Polytechnique's finance dept.
* Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
* Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
* Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
* Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
* Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
* Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.

A White Ribbon Campaign was launched in 1991 by a group of men in London, Ontario, in wake of the massacre, for the purpose of raising awareness about the prevalence of male violence against women and commemorative demonstrations are held each year on December 6 across the country in memory of these slain women; numerous memorials have been assembled and the day has been designated National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, a call to action against discrimination and acts of hate against women.

I pray that one day soon campaigns like these will have educated men and women everywhere to the point that the fourteen women named above can finally rest in peace.

FREE TICKETS to the Tuesday matinee, November 10 at 1 p.m.!!!

It seems our school-groups show this Tuesday has a chunk of empty seats left and they've been made available to the cast to offer to our friends and colleagues.

Email Laura Goddard (laura@operayork.com) and mention this special offer.

If you're in the GTA and can make it on Tuesday afternoon - don't miss this one!

North American Premiere of Israeli Opera: Nov. 5, 7 and 8

I have the privilege to be a member of an exceptional cast in the North American premiere (and first new production) of a brilliant contemporary opera, Tschok Shel Achbarosh, offered by Opera York in conjunction with Holocaust Education Week. Performed in Hebrew with English surtitles, the dramatic story explores the multi-generational power of memory in a highly theatrical and musically inspiring production. It is an exquisitely wrought meditation on the past, present and future of Holocaust memory after the survivors are gone in a society which increasingly seeks to divert and sanitize its emotional experience.

The opera tells the tale of a young Jewish girl whose parents entrust her to a family of farmers living in a remote Polish village towards the end of the war. She is hidden in a dark potato cellar for over a year, with little food and only a rat for company. When the girl's parents no longer send money, the farmer's wife takes the girl to the village priest and urges him to kill her. Instead, he hides the girl in his church at great personal risk and ultimately rebels against a creator who abandoned his children. In 1999, the girl has become a grandmother, living in Tel Aviv. She, at first unwillingly and then inevitably, recounts her tale to her 12-year-old granddaughter, who is interviewing granny for a school project. In the year 2099, in a society dedicated to eradicating unpleasant emotions and experiences, two anthropologists are resolved to uncover the origins of the widespread myth known as the "Girl and the Rat". It is they who excavate this memory from its burial place, and in so doing recover their own humanity.


And the Rat Laughed goes beyond the typical testimony of eye-witness experience to the core that remains, composed of deep-rooted emotions hidden in dark cellars of our minds, and explores the concepts of how we view memories, what history will look like in the future and how we are shaping it all the time. The production features Israeli soprano Einat Aronstein who originated the lead role in Israel, with a cast of Canadian performers including Melanie Gall, Andrew Tees, Dion Mazerolle, Adriana Albu, Angela Burns, Ramona Carmelly and Gerrit Theule. The opera by Ella Milch-Sheriff and Nava Semel, is based on the bestselling novel by Nava Semel. The opera has been performed in Israel, Poland, Romania and South Africa.

Though modern, the music is entirely accessible, in turns evocatively disharmonic and richly lyrical. The text is poetically layered and stirring. Together, they braid the complexly interwoven plots, times and themes into a cohesive whole. The musicality and emotional conviction of the cast under supremely sensitive musical and stage direction brings to fruition one of the most compelling pieces of music-theatre I have ever encountered either as a performer or as audience.

If you are in the GTA hope you will take the opportunity to join us for this extraordinary event.

Opera York in partnership with the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto present the North American premiere of the Israeli Opera, And the Rat Laughed. The critically acclaimed opera tells the story of a child in hiding during the Holocaust. And the Rat Laughed runs during Holocaust Education Week
Thursday Nov. 5 and Saturday Nov. 7 at 8 p.m.,
Sunday Nov. 8 at 2 p.m. and Tuesday Nov. 10 at 1 p.m.
at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts (10268 Yonge Street)
Tickets $35-40-45. Student groups ticket price: $10
Box office: (905) 787 8811, or online at http://richmondhill.ticketwindow.ca/

Opera York, led by Artistic Director Geoffrey Butler, and featuring the Opera York Orchestra and Chorus, is in its 13th season. And The Rat Laughed is being performed in the company's new home the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts. The company runs a subscription series of two operas a season, serving York's diverse population. For more information about Opera York, go to www.operayork.com.

Holocaust Education Week is the largest Holocaust education event in the world. Running Nov. 1 to 11, it features more than 160 educational and cultural programs devoted to Holocaust remembrance and education. For more information, go to www.holocausteducationweek.com.

Srul Irving Glick: A Tribute Concert

The Glick Society and the Al Green Theatre present:
Srul Irving Glick: A Tribute Concert
Thursday October 29, 2009 at 7:30 PM
featuring: Jacques Israelievitch, Susan Hoeppner, Ramona Carmelly,
Jeanie Chung, the Elmer Iseler Singers & the MNjcc Suzuki Quartet

Tickets: $25 General Admission; $15 Students (ID required for pickup).
Tickets available in person, phone 416-924-6211 x 0.
To buy tickets online, click here.
For directions, public transit and local parking map, click here.
________________________________________

A Celebration of the Music of Srul Irving Glick on his 75th Birthday Anniversary, Thursday, October 29, 2009 – 7:30pm at the Al Green Theatre/ Miles Nadal Jewish JCC, 750 Spadina Ave at Bloor St.

The Glick Society in collaboration with the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre are planning a Tribute Concert to honour the music of Srul Irving Glick on his 75th birthday anniversary. The concert will feature some of Glick’s best liturgical, Yiddish and classical music.

Srul Irving Glick is one of Canada's most prolific and appreciated composers whose music is regularly performed throughout Canada, the U.S., and Europe. Paula Glick, the Executive Director of The Glick Society says “The Glick Society is honoured to be putting on this event to commemorate the great life and music of Srul Irving Glick on his 75th birthday anniversary. His music is adored by listeners and performers alike and we look forward to a wonderful evening celebration.”

The Miles Nadal JCC is thrilled to participate in a tribute to Srul Irving Glick, continuing its tradition of celebrating great Jewish artists and their accomplishments. The centre hopes to highlight Glick’s music for its diverse downtown audience, further inspiring young people to explore its relevance and resonance today.

Some of the artists performing for this Tribute include the Elmer Iseler Singers under the direction of Lydia Adams, violinist Jacques Israelievitch, flutist Susan Hoeppner, pianist Jeanie Chung, mezzo soprano Ramona Carmelly and a Suzuki quartet.

Tickets are $25, General Admission and $15 for students. For more information, contact the JCC at 416-924-6211 x 0. Tickets are available online at www.mnjcc.org, by phone 416-924-6211 x 0, or in person at the MNjcc, 750 Spadina Avenue, Toronto.

i will open petal by petal myself

Last summer I embarked on a new venture with a group of like-minded musicians and Quintimacy was born: a Toronto-based group dedicated to rebuilding a close working relationship between composer, performer and audience. We were concerned about the lack of intimate and accessible performances of special and sometimes rare selections from the scope of vocal and chamber music and, much like Mickey and Judy, we decided to just do something about it.

The concept of a return to an intimate salon-style of music presentation with conversation, proximity and artistic immediacy began generating a buzz among artists and music-lovers, performers and audiences, with our very warmly received debut event on November 16. "Conversation, Canapes and Cancions" featured seldom heard songs by Henri Duparc and Federico Mompou, as well as witty inventive pieces for toy piano (yes, toy piano) by our own Chad Martin. February's audience thrilled to "Ravel and other Pleasures" with Maurice Ravel’s spectacular Chansons Madécasses for voice, piano, cello and flute, framed by instrumental solo and chamber works in a scintillating and eclectic program of exotic, passionate and evocative style.

We close this season with mirrored poetic expressions of love on May 3, 2009, featuring Richard Wagner's lush and rapturous Wesendonck lieder as well as Franz Liszt’s transcription of Isolde’s Liebestod, and culminating in the premiere of a new commissioned song cycle by Quintimacy’s resident composer Chad Martin, "i will open petal by petal myself," setting love poems by the inimitable ee cummings. As always, informative discussion of the pieces will be offered during the performance as well as light refreshments to follow.

Come experience the salon-style and hear these gems performed in an intimate and accessible environment of camaraderie, with conversation, good company and complimentary refreshments. Then come back next season as we begin to explore the impact of socio-political events in the early 20th century, in particular the dissolution and evolution of the more intimate and accessible musical forms and performance styles, especially after the escape or expulsion of many composers from Europe during the growth of the Nazi regime in Germany and beyond.
Venue is a lovely private home, on Avenue Road near St Clair.
(for privacy, specific directions will be provided to guests upon reservation)

TICKETS: regular $25, students/seniors $15, artists/under-employed TBA - please inquire.
Seating is limited. Please book in advance c/o:
eleanormaraj@gmail.com -OR- mezzodiva@sympatico.ca

* all programmes are subject to change without notice.
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About the Artists:

Dynamic and versatile mezzo-soprano Ramona Carmelly has captivated audiences in opera, cabaret, jazz, concert and theatre roles from the sublime to the ridiculous in more than a dozen languages, and the critics have raved: "Her performance was a lesson in how deft acting can overcome the limitations of opera on the concert stage," (Opera Canada) and "Ramona Carmelly, with her plush mezzo, was outstanding." (Globe & Mail). In recent years, Ramona was a finalist for the Christina & Louis Quilico Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation and won a coveted position in the Apprentice Artist program with Des Moines Metro Opera. Most recently Ramona was featured with the Talisker Players in the premiere of Emily, the Way You Are, a one-woman opera about Emily Carr composed expressly for her. Previous highlights include the Alto solo in Mahler's Third Symphony with conductor Richard Bradshaw and one of the first PEN-Canada concerts in memory of slain WSJ correspondent Daniel Pearl.

Joseph Ferretti has performed extensively throughout Europe, Canada and the USA as both soloist and collaborative artist. Recent series appearances include NUMUS, the Banff Centre for the Arts, COC's Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre, and Canadian Music Centre's New Music in New Places. Joseph frequently performs as a duo pianist with Elaine Lau. Their recording of music by Jack Behrens is featured on an album release by Capstone Records. Dr. Ferretti has been on the piano faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University since 2003.

Elaine Lau has appeared as keyboardist and soloist with Canadian orchestras, and has been broadcast on CBC and Public Radio in the United States, performing Canadian works. A new music enthusiast, Elaine has had the opportunity to work with many composers. Recent appearances include performances with the Canadian Chamber Ensemble, and on the NUMUS and Canadian Opera Company's Piano Virtuoso concert series. As duo-pianist with Joseph Ferretti, she has performed across Canada and the USA. In 2007, she was invited to present at the CFMTA/MTNA/ RCM Collaborative Conference. Elaine has served on the piano faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University since 2003.

What is V-day?*

* contents borrowed liberally from a note on Facebook by Jason D. Riddle, V-day Toronto and V-day*

If you are not in Toronto and want to know what your city is doing for V-DAY events go to: V-day

V-Day is an international UN theatre festival and a global movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler’s award winning play The Vagina Monologues and related artistic works. All proceeds go to various charities that make a tremendous difference in our community and around the world.

Last weekend a group of very talented and dedicated men and women came together in a “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer.” Commissioned by V-Day for the first Until The Violence Stops festival which took place in June 2006 in NYC, this is an unabashed and disturbingly beautiful look at violence against women and a shout out to the world to demand an end to it. Inspired, funny, poignant, angry, heartfelt, tragic, and this groundbreaking collection of diverse voices rising up in a collective roar to break open, expose, and examine the insidiousness of brutality, neglect, exploitation or "just a little put-down", together creating a true and profound portrait of this issue's effect on every one of us.

The second show of V-day Toronto 2009 opened last night with the one that started it all, Eve Ensler’s ground-breaking masterpiece “The Vagina Monologues.” A poignant and hilarious tour of the last frontier, the ultimate forbidden zone, this play is a celebration of female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery. Based on interviews with over 200 women about their memories and experiences of sexuality, this stunning phenomenon that has swept the globe gives us real women's deepest fantasies and fears through stories of intimacy, vulnerability, and sexual self-discovery, guaranteeing that no one who reads it will ever look at the female body, ponder the female mind, or think of womanhood in quite the same way again. It is witty and irreverent, compassionate and wise. And GUYS, have no fear: it’s not hard to sit through, it’s funny, heart-warming, powerful, moving and awe-inspiring. This is truly a show for everyone.

THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES more info at V-day Toronto
Saturday March 14, at 7:30 pm and Sunday March 15, at 5:30 pm at The Capitol Theatre

The third show “Any One of Us,” makes its Canadian premiere later this month. Written by female inmates through an outreach program to incarcerated women in major federal prisons, AOOU reveals the connection between women in prison and the violence in their lives that often leads them there. This play is powerful, life changing - and the cast is amazing! (I'm biased because I'm stage managing this one, but IMHO if you can see only one V-day event this year, this is the one you must see.)

ANY ONE OF US: WORDS FROM PRISON more info at V-day Toronto
Saturday March 28, 8:00 pm and Sunday March 29, 5:30pm at The Workman Theatre

This year, 2009, the global spotlight for V-day International is the Congo. The UN recently declared The Democratic Republic of Congo to be the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman. “Voices of the Congo” is being developed right here in Toronto, but due to time constraints the show will be held in the fall of 2009. In the meantime, an educational teach-in called “Congo 101” provides a crucial opportunity to inform and educate ourselves and each other about the circumstances in this region and the western world’s tacit complicity in the brutal atrocities perpetrated against the women who live there.

CONGO 101: The V-Day Teach-In more info at V-day Toronto
Sunday April 19, 10:30am and 1:30pm at the Centre for Social Innovation

The last event, “Strike a Chord, Not a Woman,” is an unplugged benefit concert with several prominent Toronto Musicians, all men, all promoting non-violence against women.

STRIKE A CHORD, NOT A WOMAN, V-Day Benefit Concert more info at V-day Toronto
Sunday April 19, 6:30pm at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre

I don’t think there is a single person out there who has not been affected by the violence committed against women. For the guys who might think this event is not for them, just think about ALL the women in your lives, your mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, girlfriends, wives, friends and all the other women who have come into your life. There is no way violence against women has not affected you in some way or another. Come help us speak out against the violence, come out and support your mothers, your sisters your lovers, your friends and indeed all women world wide. Come out in solidarity and show your support, be a part of the solution. I guarantee that you will have a new outlook when you leave.

“We must not abide by the violence one miserable person lets loose on another.
We must Shout and Scream until it STOPS!” – from MMRP

“We were worried about vaginas” – from The Vagina Monologues

“I DARE you to be a man of substance” – from Any One of Us

A male actor in the MMRP cast said recently, “I am a Feminist. If you think about it, being a Feminist is the same as being a Humanist. You cannot have Humanity without that which makes Humanity special.”

Why we do what we do - Art vs. Entertainment:

The spirit, power, purpose and truth of music and art in our world.
The following is transcribed from the welcome address to parents of freshman, given by Dr. Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Boston Conservatory.

“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school—she said, “you’re WASTING your SAT scores.” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would anyone bother with music? And yet—from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”

On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings—people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, ND, about 4 years ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier—even in his 70’s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. This concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:

'If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.'”