Many municipalities boast accomplished children's choirs -- an ideal development in terms of the vexed effort to develop new audiences for classical music. Many have released recordings, and some of these suffer by comparison with the venerable youth choirs of Britain and continental Europe, with their centuries of tradition and rigorous training regimes. This large group of Canadian young people (girls and boys, singing music for treble voices) can stand up to any comparison. The choir has an enviable warmth and purity of tone, helped along perhaps by some well-chosen Canadian music (try "A Psalm of Praise" by contemporary Canadian composer Eleanor Daley, track 17). Much of it is in the
John Rutter vein (and
Rutter himself is quoted effusively on the choir's website). The sunny "Dixit Dominus" of Baldassare Galuppi and "St. Leopold Mass" of Michael Haydn suit the choir's talents and outlook perfectly, and the accompanying youth orchestra is also startlingly talented. A few hints of insecurity creep into some of the solos and into the more extended "Freedom Trilogy" of
Paul Halley at the end (although the soloist on that one is lovely). Still, lovers of children's choral music will doubtless be impressed by the unusual program, and by the general level of competence shown here.