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Long live the Queen, in Her own words! Toronto Consort Launches Season with The Queen Nov. 9 and 10 featuring actor Karen Woolridge Toronto, October 12, 2007 — The Queen, it seems, is all the rage these days: from Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth:The Golden Age opening in movie theatres this week, to CBC Television’s hit series The Tudors (for which members of the Consort provided music), Canadian audiences are gripped by Monarch madness. The Toronto Consort, Canada’s leading chamber ensemble specializing in the music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and early Baroque, ups the ante: the ensemble launches its 2007/2008 concert season at 8 pm on November 9 and 10 with The Queen, a words-and-music celebration of the remarkable ruler, Queen Elizabeth I. Concerts take place at Trinity St. Paul's Centre, 427 Bloor Street West, and tickets are available through the Box Office at (416) 964-6337. For more information: www.torontoconsort.org England's famed Virgin Queen has been portrayed by some of the greatest actors in film history, including Bette Davis, Glenda Jackson, Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, and Helen Mirren. For the Consort’s performances, Toronto actor Karen Woolridge inhabits the role of Elizabeth I and interprets selections from Her Majesty’s own brilliant rhetoric. The last Tudor ruler of England, Elizabeth I reigned over the Golden Age of English music and literature, and was herself an exceptional writer of speeches, letters and poems. Woolridge is joined by an ensemble of voices, lute, bandora, cittern, gamba, violin, and period keyboards in a program that includes rollicking ballads, sensuous lute songs, and instrumental dances. The concerts follow a narrative of Queen Elizabeth's life, including her coronation, her suitors, the Spanish armada, the Earl of Essex, and her final days. Karen Woolridge has been performing lead roles for 27 years in theatres across Canada and the United States. She played the female version of Richard Greenblatt in 2 Pianos, 4 Hands on a Mirvish Productions tour, and directed a touring production of the same show. Favourite acting experiences include Cold Comfort for Theatre Passe Muraille, Weekend Healer for Factory Theatre, and Second Nature for Videocabaret. She was a finalist for an ACTRA Award for her performance as a country and western singer in CBC Television’s Anne’s Story. Recently, she adapted and produced a Toni Cade Bambara story at the 2007 Toronto Fringe Festival. Last season she read poetry by Anne Michaels and Lorna Crozier for Tafelmusik’s Bach and the Muses programme. Woolridge has narrated for The Toronto Consort in the past, reading the works of such other notable women as Hildegard of Bingen. One of the country’s busiest musicians, Artistic Director David Fallis has been researching and selecting excerpts from Elizabeth I’s vast catalogue of texts for The Queen. As Historical Music Producer for the hit CBC Televisions series The Tudors, Fallis is in charge of researching, compiling and recording authentic period music for the 10-part series starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Sam Neill and Peter O’Toole. Fallis and members of The Toronto Consort are recording music for the second season of The Tudors, currently in production on location in Ireland. Fallis is also Music Director of Opera Atelier and is in rehearsal for the company’s co-presentation with The Toronto Consort of Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses.
The Toronto Consort presents The Queen with actor Karen Woolridge
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The Toronto Consort
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