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Earth, Air, Fire, Water: Toronto, January 14, 2009 —The Toronto Consort presents Earth, Air, Fire, Water, an evocative pair of concerts on January 30 and 31 at 8:00 pm at Trinity St. Paul's Centre. The Consort’s own recorder virtuoso Alison Melville devised this program, which paints a musical portrait of the four elements featuring works by Renaissance composers from England, France and Germany. For tickets and information, call the Box Office at (416) 964-6337 or visit www.torontoconsort.org . The theory of the four elements and related principles of alchemy were powerful influences in Renaissance Europe. Alchemy was a serious discipline much misunderstood today, and its principles inspired many musical works of the period. Earth, Air, Fire, Water includes readings from alchemical writings of the 16th and 17th centuries alongside the musical selections. With sounds sweet or smoky, pensive or raunchy, from the refined melancholy of Dowland's Flow my tears to antic masque dances, Earth, Air, Fire, Water strikes a perfect balance of the elements as they were expressed in music. The program includes vocal and instrumental music by Weelkes, Campion, Dowland, Lassus, Morley, van Eyck, Playford, Praetorius, Isaac, and Lejeune, among others, performed on recorder/flute, hurdy gurdy, lute/guitar, percussion and harpsichord. Recognized as one of North America’s leading performers on recorder and historical flutes, Toronto-born Alison Melville’s career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player has taken her across Canada and the USA and to Iceland, Japan, New Zealand and Europe. Her extraordinary breadth of experience as a performer comprises solo and chamber music recitals; music for dance, theatre, film and television; and orchestral work with modern and period instrument orchestras. She performs music from the 12th to 21st centuries on a wide range of instruments including medieval, renaissance, baroque and modern recorders, renaissance, baroque and classical flutes and one-keyed piccolo, and the Norwegian seljefløyte. A member of the Toronto Consort and Ensemble Polaris, Alison Melville appears regularly as a soloist and orchestral player with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra; she can be heard on their JUNO Award-winning recordings of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and orchestral music of Jean-Philippe Rameau, and on numerous other Tafelmusik recordings on Sony, Analekta and CBC Records. Together with Colin Savage, Melville co-founded Baroque Music beside the Grange, a chamber music series which until 2006 presented over 178 concerts in one of Toronto’s oldest historic churches. She teaches at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music (Ohio) and at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. The Toronto Consort presents
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The Toronto Consort
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