The Elora Singers had me at “hello” when, saluting a sell-out crowd in the town’s Gambrel Barn, they kicked off their 45th festival’s closing night gala with this:

Quick and bright yet wonderfully poignant, Gerald Finzi’s partsong has been the Singers’ unofficial theme tune since they returned to the post-pandemic concert stage. It deftly conveys their genuine delight in making music, made manifest even in the boilerplate welcome speeches of artistic director Mark Vuorinen and festival manager/alto Christine Stelmachovich. As the duo powered through the now-ubiquitous Land Acknowledgment, sponsorship recognitions, dad jokes, etc., their gratitude and glee at seeing an audience literally unable to fit inside the Barn’s walls was impossible to fake.

Then the stage was turned over to piano duo James Anagnoson & Leslie Kinton for a sweeping version of Johannes’ Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn. Kicking off with an exalted statement of the St. Anthony Chorale, Anagnoson & Kinton teased out Brahms’ imaginative shifts of tempo, texture and tonality throughout the variations, his accomplished use of counterpoint brought firmly to the fore. And when the duo built up the work’s finale (variations on a ground bass leading into a grandly restated chorale) to its tumultuous climax, they received an ovation not only well-deserved, but essential as a response to their first-rate performance.

Next came Toronto’s Elmer Iseler Singers, celebrating their 45th year as Canada’s premier professional vocal ensemble. Conducted by artistic director Lydia Adams (wonderfully gracious when we chatted briefly at intermission), the EIS exhibited their rich tone in a brief set on the lyrical theme of “rising” — bookended by seminal choral classics (James MacMillan’s O Radiant Dawn, Healey Willan’s Rise Up, My Love), investigating the compositional possibilities inherent in Hindu, Islamic and First Nations texts — and unleashing a devastatingly gorgeous, wordless take on Ukranian composer Myroslav Skoryk’s Melodia.

Finally, an hour of everything but the kitchen sink; how else to describe Carl Orff’s gargantuan cantata Carmina Burana, with all the previous forces plus five percussionists and three vocal soloists jammed onstage? Based on a medieval manuscript of secular poems (by disaffected monks?), Orff’s 1936 masterwork is a rhythm-dominated hour of songs about — well, sex and drink and the Middle Ages equivalent of rock’n’roll! Soprano Leslie Fagan as “the girl in the red dress”, tenor Andrew Haij in an infamously difficult cameo (as a swan roasting on a spit) and baritone Russell Braun as a variety of ne’er-do-wells played their parts to the hilt, flirting shamelessly with the front rows; the massed choir lamented the woes of Fortune (“Empress of the World”), raised way too many toasts in the tavern and egged on young lovers with a will. And even in this cut-down orchestration, the pianos and percussion slammed out one driving, kaleidoscopic groove after another. Having performed it multiple times with the Grand Rapids Symphony & Chorus, I can tell you that few classical works build up the momentum or bring the sonic spectacle this work does; with Vuorinen focusing Orff’s inventions to full intensity, the Eloras, Iselers and companions brought down the house, wild applause erupting almost before the final crescendo died away.

In short, this past Saturday proved a grand night for singing. What the Elora Festival accomplished this past weekend (and throughout the past month) is not just another set of rousing performances, but a lasting testimony to music’s ability to move, shake and thrill its creators, performers and listeners. Long may this choral festival bring the best of what’s sung and said to this beautiful village!

— Rick Krueger