The Modern Toronto Choral Sound: Concreamus' Sonoluminescence Concert

On February 17, I was fortunate enough to attend Concreamus' Sonoluminescence concert. Concreamus, a choir associated with the Modern Sound Collective, consists of forty singers between the ages of 18-30 performing works by young composers in the Toronto area. Their programmes usually feature a mixture of works by known composers (canonic) and new works, either commissioned by Concreamus, or written by members of the choir. 

However impressive Comcreamus' sound and technique are (most members are either professional musicians or very experienced singers), what enchants me the most is the quality of the compositions that they perform. The title piece, Sonoluminescence by Toronto-based composer Erik Kreem, wowed me both through its innovative compositional technique, but also through its defiance of the modern Toronto choral sound.

It's hard to describe the modern Toronto choral sound. With the geographic hyper-locality of certain compositions that embody the modern Toronto choral sound (now abbreviated as MTCS), there must be some sort of a combination of both compositional technique and 'heard-sound' phenomenon. When it comes to compositional technique, the biggest idea that shines through in the MTCS is repetitive parsimonious chromatic voice leading. These pieces often use techniques that spotlight long smooth phrases, often with the melody obscured in the middle voices or lacking a melody at all, and above all, very smooth and relaxing. However, 'heard-sound phenomenon', are the ideas that tie all of these works that embody the MTCS together. It is a set of philosophical ideals that these composers are unconsciously vying towards: the idea of being inoffensive. 

No gasps! The MTCS is writing inoffensive music. Pieces that are written this way? Perfectly fine, if not too fine to be completely indistinguishable from others in the same style. 

The conclusion being? Erik Kreem's work, Sonoluminescence did not fall into the trap of the MTCS style. Unafraid to be offensive, it stood out like Erik Kreem himself in a crowd: tall and bold.