The Villager

As the holiday season approaches, the multicultural choir is promoting its array of previously released CDs and DVDs as well as preparing to perform in a series of concerts titled Indigo Christmas: Snow Angel.

At the heart of the chorale's success is the unceasing passion of founder, conductor and artistic director Brainerd Blyden-Taylor, a visionary who has seen his dream of creating a choral group dedicated to Afrocentric music come to fruition.

"I founded The Nathaniel Dett Chorale in 1998 in response to a musical void in Canada," Blyden-Taylor said. "To the best of my or anyone else's knowledge, there had never before been a professional ensemble dedicated to the dissemination of Afrocentric choral music and the response received in Canada and the United States of America since its inception has certainly given credence to the founding vision."

The Nathaniel Dett Chorale is Canada's first professional choral group dedicated wholly to Afrocentric music of all styles, including classical, spiritual, gospel, jazz, folk and blues. The group is composed of 21 classically trained vocalists. To date, the chorale has shared the stage with internationally recognized artists such as Juno Award-winning jazz pianist Joe Sealy, opera star Kathleen Battle, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

The goal of the chorale is to build bridges of understanding, appreciation and acceptance between communities of people, both Afrocentric and others, through the medium of music. Another goal is to dissolve the barriers of stereotype, while empowering humans in general and those of African descent in particular.

Through the work of the group, Blyden-Taylor said he hopes to emphasize the complex power of spirituals to act as a unifying power in society, as well as promote the groundbreaking effort of Nathaniel Dett.

"Part of the job I want to do personally with the Nathaniel Dett Chorale is to let people know spirituals aren't just throwaways or just encores or feel-good stuff," Blyden-Taylor said. "They are serious major pieces of music...and Nathaniel Dett was one of the people that took the spiritual and using the Euro-classical forms and idioms, wrote these things into anthems, motets and into oratorio and cantatas."

Listeners will be able to hear the intricacies of the spiritual first-hand within Indigo Christmas: Snow Angel. Performances take place Friday, Dec. 14 at 8 p.m. at the George Weston Recital Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5400 Yonge St. and Saturday, Dec. 15 at 8 p.m. at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts.

For Blyden-Taylor, these performances continue the company's outreach to the diverse population of the GTA and connect all people through the unifying themes present in music.

"Our diversity is really our major commonality - that we are diverse is our unifying factor," Blyden-Taylor recently said to news outlets. "But how do we live with each other? We do that by telling each other our stories and by sharing who we are with each other. That's what's interesting, that's what's helpful."

Visit www.nathanieldettchorale.org/ for more information about CDs, DVDs, scheduling and ticket prices.

Jon Sarpong is the diversity officer at Durham College. He provides independent diversity training and consultation for various organizations. Contact Sarpong by e-mailing jsarpong@hotmail.com.