Persona Cantare 2003

In November 2003, Persona Volare returned to 517 College Street. This time we moved into Suite 315, just down the hall. A completely different configuration of rooms, less office-like, this space more closely resembled an ensemble of small European flats. There were more windowed rooms, no carpeting, door and wall trim and offices that were simply open concept areas leading into other rooms. And, to top it all off, each room had been painted a vile version of what might have, in the hands of a skilful decorator, been a beautiful colour - grass green was acidic gas, violet became Barney incarnate and buttercup yellow turned into a migraine inducer. After the necessary decorating improvements, work began.

Corinna Ghaznavi observes at the start of her essay, "Behind every good song is a melody, rhythm, and good lyrics. The trick when singing together is to get the balance of voices right. Persona Cantare sings in ten voices, north with amplifiers, loud speakers, the ladies dressed in silver..." Bel Canto.

Rock On + Andante Sostenuto = the mechanisms of Cantare

The secret to bel canto, some claim, lies in the continuity of tone. Many singers are evaluated on their ability to pass from one musical phrase to the next with little to no interruption. The art of sustaining crystal clear passages to create a beautiful lyrical line can be seen in the performances of the most famous bel canto singers. And so, with Persona Cantare we applied this technique à la Giuseppe Verdi at the Dairy Queen and transformed the space into a lyrical opera with nuances of bliss, harmony, and a condensed cityscape of Marshall amplifiers expanded into a Holiday for Strings.