Vancouver Chamber Choir Announces 2017-18 Season

Check out the line-up for Vancouver Chamber Choir's 2017-18 season!

2017

HERITAGE Singing Canada's Choral Songs

Friday, September 22 at Dunbar Ryerson United Church

Canada's choral music has always been one of the Vancouver Chamber Choir's specialties. In this concert, we celebrate Canada's 150th Anniversary and conductor Jon Washburn's 50th year in Vancouver with a great panorama of Canadian repertoire. Music of Willan, Somers, Beckwith, Raminsh, Chatman, Emery, Allan, Archer and a few special surprises from Canada's past and future.

THE MASTERS Great Choral Music

Friday, October 13 at Dunbar Ryerson United Church

Vancouver Chamber Choir alumna Kathleen Allan leads a programme of music from some of the greatest choral masters - Palestrina, Bach, Brahms, Britten and Stravinsky. Also, Jon Washburn combines the Choir's professional singers with advanced choral students from six Metro Vancouver university music departments in the annual FOCUS! event - guaranteed choral excitement!

ISCM World New Music Days 2017

Saturday, November 4 at Christ Church Cathedral

The Vancouver Chamber Choir joins forces with musica intima and Elektra Women's Choir in presenting a gala choral concert as part of the ISCM World New Music Days - an event being presented one time only in Vancouver by the International Society for Contemporary Music. Featured will be new and recent choral works by composers from all around the globe, including Sweden, Slovenia, China, Hungary, Finland and Switzerland. Also, a performance of R. Murray Schafer's delightful creation myth The Star Princess and the Waterlilies.

REJOICE! European Carols & Readings

Friday, December 1 at Dunbar Ryerson United Church

Chilly December days herald the warmth and intimacy of Christmas choirs, as we sing the Christmas story. You are invited to join conductor Jon Washburn, organist Bryn Nixon and the Vancouver Chamber Choir for an evening of beloved favourites and new discoveries, all in the welcoming ambience of Dunbar Ryerson United Church, and including an all-new ceremony of lessons and carols.

A BAROQUE CHRISTMAS Bach and More for Christmas

Saturday, December 16 at The Orpheum

Baroque era composers knew how to write music that literally dances with joy. So join the Vancouver Chamber Choir family of choirs, orchestra and soloists for a concert which celebrates the Christmas season like no other. Our guest conductor is John William Trotter, former Vancouver Chamber Choir Associate Conductor, who will lead the various forces in music of Bach, Handel

and other 18th-century greats.

2018

CHORAL EXPLORATIONS with Timothy Shantz

Friday, January 26 at Dunbar Ryerson United Church

Our guest conductor for this concert is Timothy Shantz from Calgary, where he is the music director of Spiritus Chamber Choir and Luminous Voices, as well as Chorus Master for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. He will lead the Vancouver Chamber Choir in an a cappella programme from favourite composers old and new in our familiar performance home at Dunbar Ryerson United Church in Kerrisdale.

MAESTRO! The Annual Conductors' Concert

Saturday, February 17 at Dunbar Ryerson United Church

Our Conductors' Concert is one of the fascinating events of the choral season. In the culmination of our 38th annual National Conductors' Symposium, Jon Washburn and five invited conductors from around the world will focus on three distinct musical genres - famous prayers, story ballads, and indigenous songs, all with a distinctly international flavour. Come and enjoy the unusual repertoire and the varied interpretations of the six conductors.

MOODS AND MODES Emotion in Music

Friday, March 9 at Dunbar Ryerson United Church

Choral programmes are often organized by similarities of the composers included or the texts being sung or chronologically by the era it represents. But for this concert we're experimenting with affective elements of music, grouping pieces together by the emotions they evoke. Of course, all music affects us emotionally, even those by composers who try expressly to not be expressive. Our Moods and Modes concert is more playful in concept, taking us on an evening's journey through cheerfulness, piety, intensity, playfulness, sorrow and humour as seen through the eyes of wonderful choral composers and poets. Then we'll see how you feel about that!

RACHMANINOV VESPERS and Lauridsen Lux Aeterna

Friday, March 30 at The Orpheum

Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov's music for the Orthodox All-Night Vigil - often known in the West as the Vespers - is known as his finest unaccompanied choral work, one of the landmarks of the entire choral repertoire. The Vancouver Chamber Choir is joined by the Vancouver Cantata Singers in order to reproduce the necessary Slavic sonority of a larger choir. As a companion piece, we have a 21st-century masterpiece and Vancouver Chamber Choir favourite - Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna for choirs and orchestra, an intimate work of quiet serenity centred around a universal symbol of hope, reassurance and goodness.

PRINTEMPS A Choral Spring with Michael Zaugg

Friday, April 20 at Dunbar Ryerson United Church

Michael Zaugg is the guest conductor for this last concert of the 2017-2018 subscription season. Originally from Switzerland, he is now the conductor and music director of Alberta's Pro Coro Canada. Michael is a long-time friend and collaborator with the Vancouver Chamber Choir, whom he has hosted many times in Edmonton, Ottawa and Montreal. His programme will be a spring affair, with many new and intriguing choral works for choral music lovers.

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