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FORTE - PEI Men's Choir

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FORTE - PEI Men's Choir

PEI Men's choir directed by Dr. Margot Rejskind.

FORTE PEI Men’s Choir was created in 2015 with the vision of providing male singers of all ages the opportunity to make music together at the highest possible level, and in doing so to strengthen the level of participation in male singing on PEI. The Choir also seeks to provide learning opportunities for developing accompanists, singers, and choral leaders, as well as to engage new audiences through the pursuit of musical excellence, and innovative performance.

05/13/2026

10th anniversary Mothers Day concert
Listen to (and watch) 38 minutes of hearty and heart-felt singing: https://youtu.be/-84H5s0NukM

05/05/2026

ANCIENT WISDOM: a Maxim for Our World Today
In “On Justice, Truth and Peace,” composer Amy F. Bernon has musically woven together three timeless texts into a song full of conviction about the inter-dependence of those three virtues.
The prime theme is a quotation from Rabban Shim'on ben Gamli'el — a sage at the time of Jesus and a leader during the Jewish revolt against Roman rule: "On these three things the whole world stands.”
Second comes the teaching of another Talmudic scholar, Rav Muna — that those three essentials are fundamentally united, that where justice and truth exist, peace follows.
Interesting, isn’t it, that General Dwight Eisenhower observed “Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.” And Martin Luther King Jr. echoed “True peace … is the presence of justice.”
The third strand of the song — "Hine ma tov uma naim shevet achim gam yachad." is a verse from Psalm 133, translating to "How good it is for people to dwell together in unity!” . a message of community, harmony, and the joy of togetherness.
Amy Bernon’s piece becomes chant-like, as it inter-laces those three texts in an almost hypnotic repetition. She has said “I need to have an itch of sorts to write something new … Something needs to ‘bother me.’” Clearly she was ‘bothered’ by current events and trends, as should we all be. This song’s theme is an ancient one, but is there anything more needed in our world just now?
“On Justice, Truth and Peace” is a powerful part of ‘A Decade of Harmony’ — the 10th anniversary concert of the Forte Men’s Choir on Sunday, May 10th, 2:30 pm at the Kirk of St. James in Charlottetown. $15 cash at-the-door. Information: [email protected] ; 902-628-6778.

04/28/2026

Delightful variety: Ralph Vaughan Williams

He wrote it all: influenced by everything from Tudor dance music (think Henry the Eighth) to country folk tunes, over a span of sixty years he created operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral works including nine symphonies.
Vaughan Williams has earned two places in Conductor Margot’s personal choices for our May 10th retrospective of ten years of concerts, and they’re a fine example of the kind of variety in the program line-up.
“Let Beauty Awake” is a perfectly lovely tribute to dawn and to dusk, with a tender kiss thrown in — in which piece pianist Jacqueline Sorensen Young has to strike as many as 36 notes in a single bar!
Contrast that with “Down Among the Dead Men”, which is a rather rowdy drinking ditty (very manly!!)
Vaughan Williams said that the human voice was "the oldest and greatest of musical instruments”.
You can hear the hearty and heart-felt blend of sixteen male voices in ‘A Decade of Harmony’ — the 10th anniversary concert of the Forte Men’s Choir on Sunday, May 10th, 2:30 pm at the Kirk of St. James in Charlottetown. $15 cash at-the-door. Information: [email protected] ; 902-628-6778.
PS - a trick question: how do you pronounce Vaughan Williams’ first name? Hint: not as in Alpha or laugh … rather, think ‘safe’.

04/21/2026

“Do You Hear the People Sing?”

Good title: what an appropriate piece, to be included in Forte’s May 10th concert — fitting in two senses …

✧ This is the rousing song from Les Misérables, which has its people taking to the barricades in revolutionary protest. It is “the song of angry men … music of a people who will not be slaves!” A timely rallying cry for Canadians just now, don’t you think?

✧ You should want to hear these people sing — the rich four-part blend of hearty male voices, 18 strong.

They’ll also sing another well-known song from Les Mis: Jean Valjean’s pleading cry “Bring Him Home.”

Those are just two of the dozen songs that are arranged in Forte’s musical bouquet for Mothers Day. Come treat yourself, and perhaps your mom, to an hour of choral music on Sunday, May 10th, 2:30 pm at the Kirk of St. James in Charlottetown.
$15 cash at-the-door. Information: [email protected] ; 902-628-6778

12/07/2025

A great program …
… for a fine Sunday afternoon, to get you in the mood for wassailing and decking your halls. Talk about variety. Some truly lovely arrangements of traditional carols like “O Holy Night” and “The First Noel” … the comic ditty “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” … a (literally) ringing bell-piece titled “Ding-a Ding-a Ding” … “We Toast the Days” in a farewell to the old year, matched by greeting the new one with an astonishingly peppy “Auld Lang Syne.” The emotional finish is our director Margot’s own arrangement of “Peace, Peace” with “Silent Night” floating over-top.

A Very Forte Christmas: December 14th (2:30 pm) at the Kirk (Pownal @ Fitzroy St., Charlottetown). $15 (cash) at the door.

12/04/2025

Jacqueline
We’re not sure which has the greater warmth: her touch on the keys or her smile. We know we are blessed to have both. Jacqueline Sorensen Young is a superb musician, and she has been a mainstay of Forte concerts for years.
Much of our singing is a capella, but a concert usually has four or five pieces with piano accompaniment. “A Very Forte Christmas”, features several pieces in which Jacqueline’s playing will be far more than support; it will shine with performance versatility. It’s there, for instance, for the dramatic setting that mixes “The First Noel” and “Pachelbel’s Canon”; it backs “The Wexford Carol”; it’s a jazzy addition to “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas and “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.
The Forte guys have a lot of fun together, and it’s clear that Jacqueline does too.
The December 14th concert will be special in two celebratory ways … It’s Forte’s 10th anniversary, and it’s Jacqueline’s birthday!
A Very Forte Christmas: December 14th (2:30 pm) at the Kirk. $15 (cash) at the door.

12/01/2025

Carúl Inis Córthaidh
Bet you don’t recognize this title of what is probably familiar Christmas music.
It’s The Wexford Carol … or as it was historically named (and written) in Ireland, the “Enniscorthy Carol”. That’s because it originated in Enniscorthy in County Wexford, southeast Ireland.
You may recognize the first-verse lyric: “Good people all, this Christmas time, Consider well and bear in mind What our good God for us has done.” It goes on to tell the Nativity story, complete with manger, angels and shepherds.
It’s one of the oldest carols, believed by some to have originated in the 1100s, but likely was formally ‘composed’ in the 15th or 16th century. It is certainly Ireland’s oldest-known Christmas carol. It was handed down by oral tradition until about 1920, when William Grattan Flood, the organist of the cathedral in Enniscorthy [That’s the photo], heard it sung by a local fellow and transcribed the carol, note by note. He used it every Christmas, and succeeded in having it published in The Oxford Book of Carols. And so it made it into our popular culture.
While The Wexford Carol has in modern times been sung by some notable female performers such as Julie Andrews, Loreena McKennitt and Alison Krauss, there has been a somewhat surprising tradition: for years it was felt that only men should sing it. Well, it’s going to be men who sing it, heartily for sure, as part of A Very Forte Christmas on Sunday 14 December (2:30 pm) at the Kirk.

11/25/2025

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas …
The song was written by Meredith Willson, of Broadway “The Music Man” fame. In 1951 it was a seasonal hit for both Perry Como and Bing Crosby.
Would you believe there’s a Canadian, indeed a Maritime, connection? The story is that Willson wrote the song while staying at the Grand Hotel in Yarmouth, NS. The song refers to a "tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well..."; Frost Park is directly across the road from the Grand Hotel.
An indication of the tune’s popularity: 382,000 streamings on Spotify! It’s used in hit films like Home Alone 2 and Polar Express — which is a Christmastime favourite of Margot, Forte’s conductor. She will lead the men in a Mark Hayes arrangement for four male voices — part of A Very Forte Christmas — at the Kirk at 2:30 on Sunday, December 14th.

11/21/2025

Our children know that The Grinch — created Dr. Seuss for his 1957 children's book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! — is the rascal who tries to ruin Christmas in Whoville. He’s a green, furry, pot-bellied, pear-shaped, snub-nosed creature with a cat-like face and a misanthropic nature … no resemblance to the men of the Forte Men’s Choir! Indeed, they’ll sing an anthem to him, full of sarcastic salute … à la “Your brain is full of spiders; you’ve got garlic in your soul.”
“You’re a Mean One, Mister Grinch” is a really fun song, composed for a 1966 TV animation of the Dr. Seuss story. It has been used in subsequent TV shows and a stage musical, and recorded by more than a dozen artists. A critic described one such, by the rock band The Whirling Dirvishes, as "wonderfully depraved in the best of holiday ways”.
And this is the song that was sung by Forte at its very first performance, ten years ago. It will be brought back to delightfully wicked life as part of A Very Forte Christmas — at the Kirk at 2:30 on Sunday, December 14th.

11/06/2025

A Very Forte Christmas
Sunday 14 December, 2:30 pm - at the Kirk of St. James, downtown Charlottetown (Pownal at Fitzroy)
Music for ringing the bells, scorning the Grinch and toasting the new year.
It’s the annual Advent concert of the Forte Men’s Choir.
The rich blend of TTBB male voices ... Fresh settings of traditional carols and contemporary Christmas tunes, a hum-dinger of a bell song, an amazingly peppy Auld Lang Syne … plus audience sing-along, including the lovely blend of “Peace, Peace, Peace” with Silent Night.
Information: [email protected]; 902-628-6778; Facebook: FORTE - PEI Men’s Choir

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Charlottetown, PE

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902 314 4726

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