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ECHO WOMEN'S CHOIR - Gonna Sing and Shout 1. Onawa's Waltz F'01 2. Temagami Round S'00 3. Lo Yisa Goy F'01 4. Oj U Poli W'98 5. Vihor Ru u W'00 6. Divojka W'99 7. Shen Khar Venakhi W'99 8. Hush S'96 9. Four O'clock Blues S'97 10. Baby W'99 3:31 11. Berayna S'96 12. God Bless the Grass W'98 13. Simple Gifts W'99 2:10	14. Rivers of Delight S'96 15. Barnet W'00 16. O Lilium Con Valium W'98 17. De noche S'00 18. De Colores W'98 19. Maruxiña W'00 20. Bridget's Fire S'00 21. Beautiful Don W'99 22. True Light F'01 23. Tula W'00 1:48 24. Watinta Ba Fazi W'00 25. O Freedom W'00 26. Warrior Song W'00 27. Bread and Roses F'01 28. Beautiful City F'01 Total Time 71:30
Gonna Sing and Shout Echo cultivates a rich collection of contemporary and traditional music for women's voices focusing on works by Canadian and women composers as well as world music. The choir celebrates diversity in its members and its music. Echo members are not obliged to audition. Instead, the choir is open to any woman who loves to sing and can make the weekly rehearsal commitment. Along with our semi-annual concerts, we often sing at grass-roots events around the city. Echo began in 1991 when Sarah John and Becca Whitla formed this community-based women's choir. After Sarah's departure in 1993, Alan Gasser joined as co-director. Along with being a great musical match, they were a love match. Becca and Alan married in 1996 and now bring their daughter, Emma, to rehearsals. But theirs is not the only family to multiply. From the original 16 voices, Echo has grown to a strength of more than 60 members. A great blessing of gratitude is due to all Echo members past and present who helped make this CD a reality. Echoes of song These songs are a collection of our, and our audiences', favourite pieces, recorded live over the past five years. We begin with three rounds: Onawa's Waltz expresses the fervent hope that the young Onawa Pardini, a friend of the composer, will awake from a coma. The Temagami Round is a warning and plea to preserve our environment. It was written by Torontonian Marie-Lynn Hammond. We close this section by singing our universal wish for peace, Lo Yisa Goy. Oj U Poli features soloist Elana Sulatyski. During rehearsals, Elana exhorted the choir to sing with a bili holos (a field voice). To help us get the raucous triplet rhythm of the song, she suggested we imagine driving a stick shift tractor over the prairie, in time with the music -- and it worked! The next two songs, Vihor Ru u and Divojka Je Mileduv Brala, came to us through Mary Cay Brass, an expert in the music of former Yugoslavia. Alan and Becca met Mary Cay when they taught together at the Vermont Village Harmony singing camp. Shen Khar Venakhi is the most famous liturgical song of the Republic of Georgia. Thanks to Alan's work with the Darbazi choir, Georgian music is now relatively well known in Toronto. But it was Echo that first introduced this ancient hymn to Toronto audiences in December 1993. Hush, transcribed from the singing of the Golden Gate Quartet, is from our Spring 1996 concert "Rivers of Delight." It begins the segment of songs "just for the fun of it." Four O'clock Blues is an old Mama Yancey tune arranged by Bill Westcott for the choir. Next is an equally unlikely choir piece, the lullaby Baby from Bobby McFerrin's Medicine Man CD. To round out this section, we sing Berayna, a lively folk song with verses added by Echo members. A world-wide Echo In addition to commissioning Canadian composers to write new pieces and arrangements for the choir, Echo sings music from around the world. Selections from the United States include God Bless the Grass by progressive American songwriter Melvina Reynolds. Simple Gifts is a traditional Shaker tune. Sweet Prospect is an American shape-note hymn composed in 1833. Barnet is another shape-note piece, but a contemporary one. It's by Seth Houston, a young composer in his mid-twenties. The text for Barnet came from the gravestone of a young man who died in the American Civil War. From beyond the borders of our continent comes O Lilium Con Valium, which represents some of the earliest music that Echo performs. A song about the Virgin Mary, it dates from the 12th or 13th Century discovery of organum by the musicians of the Notre Dame School. De noche is a beautiful and haunting Taizé chant and De Colores is a traditional Spanish/Mexican song made famous by the United Farm Workers Union of America, who sang it as their anthem. Following that, we sing Maruxiña. This Spanish mine workers' song grieves the death of four men in the "Maria Luisa" coal mine. The song became famous during the miners' rebellion of 1934. Echoes near and far Next are three soulful songs by local women. Bridget's Fire was written by Moon Joyce to honour the women who tend the fire of St. Bridget, the patron saint of Ireland. Beautiful Don celebrates our city's river. It was written by Neila Lem, who contributed a number of pieces to the choir while she was a member. Neila wrote music for the words of an 1879 poem by Torontonian Mrs. G.A. Gilbert, inspired by Merle Travis's tune "Dark as a Dungeon." The composition was produced for the Festival of Lights held on the east banks of the Don River, where Echo performed it. Susan Reid composed True Light. For a number of years, she worked as an advocate for people with disabilities in Vermont. Her inspiration for the tune came one gloomy winter day while working inside the Vermont Legislature. She looked out, saw the sun shining on the snow and penned the tune. The true light of her words made us want to include it with this collection. Echoes of Resistance The first two songs from our South African set, Tula and Watinta Ba Fazi came to us through Kate Howard, another singer/instructor at the Village Harmony singing camps. Also from South Africa, O Freedom is an internationally celebrated anthem and popular Echo encore. We dedicate these three songs to the generations of brave women who struggled and continue to struggle for justice in South Africa. In particular, we dedicate them to Lillian Ngoyi and Helen Joseph. In 1956, they led a march of 20,000 women to protest the pass laws of apartheid. We begin our last group of songs with a Canadian song of resistance: the Warrior Song (by Kim Baryluk), as sung by the Winnipeg-based Wyrd Sisters. We follow that with Bread and Roses, a protest song of the women's movement and Echo favourite. The last song, Beautiful City, was the inspiration for our 10th anniversary CD title and artwork. Alan and Becca learned this spiritual from a Pete Seeger recording. The choir added two verses: one about the boundaries of our own city and another about people "dressed in pink," which was contributed by Becca's friends Lionel Ketola and Scott Clarke. Echo's co-directors Alan Gasser is a singer, conductor and music teacher. He grew up in Ohio, singing in an Anabaptist church where his father was a song leader. He has explored broadly and deeply among musical styles, including classical music and opera, gospel singing, vocal jazz, experimental works and Eastern European folk music. Alan has worked with Echo since 1993. In 1994, he formed the Georgian folk trio Kavkasia with whom he recorded the CD "Songs of the Caucasus". Their second CD, "O Morning Breeze," is planned for release in May 2001. Alan is also the founder of Toronto's Georgian folk chorus Darbazi. He has led workshops in London (UK), San Francisco, for the Toronto District School Board, and for Village Harmony in Vermont. Becca Whitla works as a community music maker and organizer in Toronto. For Becca, music is a critical, vibrant and healing part of any community. Becca is co-founder and co-director of the Echo Women's Choir. She is the music coordinator at the Church of the Holy Trinity where she leads the community's music making by playing the organ, piano, trumpet, kanjira, and by singing and leading the choir. Becca is also leader of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (H.E.R.E.) Local 75 Choir and a teacher for Village Harmony summer singing camps. In 1998, she and Alan released the CD "Parlour Songs & Heart Songs". Current Echo Members: Noemi Adorjan, Marg Bacon, Kaola Baird, Catherine Balfour, Nancy Barker, Bonnie Bean, Irene Bell, Linda Burtch, Dianne Cameron, Melanie Cishecki, Carolyn Clark, Sue Crowe Connolly, Marty Crowder, Jane Davidson-Neville, Gunta Dreifelds, Stephanie Duncan, Helen Fairbairn, Jennifer Francisco, Phyllis Gordon, Cathy Goring, Helen Gough, Marie Graff, Cleone Grasham, Silvia Hahn, Catherine Henderson, Jessie Hohmann, Gail Holland, Amber James, Janice Kaiman, Megumi Karube, Janet Killey, Devon Kirby, Cindy Kuzmyk, Jinny Kwak, Ilona Lampi, Ann Landrey, Linda Litwack, Meredith MacFarquhar, Linda McCormick, Laurel McCorriston, Sandy Miller, Carolyn Montgomery, Marg Norman, Hilde Ortman, Anya Poesiat, France Poliquin, Rena Post, Buu-Van Quach, Tina Ren, Molly Roberts, Sue Robertson, Sarah Shepherd, Anne Stanley, Alison Stein, Patty Stuart, Cathie Sutherland, Lisa Thomas, Barbara Treviranus, Liza Vespi, Wynn-Ann Wakeham, Nancy Whitla, Sandra Willow-Lang