Evensong For Easter Will Be Performed By Christ Church Cathedral Choir

Under the direction of Dr. Rupert Lang, the award-winning Christ Church Cathedral Choir presents an Evensong for Easter on April 30 (3:30pm) in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the music of William Byrd and featuring the Evening Canticles from his The Great Service, and his beloved Easter motet Haec Dies.

Employing a variety of textures (up to 10-part counterpoint!), Byrd weaves a tapestry of sound in a tour de force of Renaissance brilliance best experienced live. Published after the composer's death, The Great Service is both rarely performed and showcases one of the greatest choral composers at the height of his powers.

Evensong is held in the chancel at the front of the Cathedral, where you are invited to sit in the choir stalls or in the closest chairs to let the glorious sonorities wash over you. The service will include readings and prayers, and two hymns we sing together. All are welcome to enjoy Evensong, a distinctly Anglican service of choral music and a living tradition that costs nothing to experience live in the stunning beauty of Vancouver's historic Christ Church Cathedral. Gift yourself an hour of glorious choral music and contemplation. Join us for Evensong!

Christ Church Cathedral Choir is recognized as one of the finest in Canada, having won first-place prizes in the CBC's biennial Amateur Choral Competition in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2006. The choir also won a competition-wide award for the Best Performance of a Canadian Work in 2006. That same year they toured colonial Mexico, giving performances in San Miguel de Allende, Queretaro, and Guanajuato to great acclaim. Singing a remarkably large and varied repertoire, the choir's main function is to celebrate the Sunday services through hymns, psalms, motets, choral and congregational mass settings, and to sing the evening Compline service.

Dr. Rupert Lang marked his 35th anniversary as Organist and Director of Music at Vancouver's Christ Church Cathedral in August 2021. In 2021 he received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity from the Vancouver School of Theology and was named an Honorary Fellow of Canada's Summer Institute of Church Music in recognition of his lifetime dedication to church music. In the same year, Lang received a Lambeth Award - the Thomas Cranmer Award for Worship - in recognition of his outstanding lifetime contribution to church music.

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