Between The Years
December 26, 2022
Dear Friends and Supporters of Pro Coro Canada,
I invite you to join me on a musical journey through 2022 with Pro Coro Canada. All these works have significance to me, and to us as a choir. In particular, you will see the transformation from a masked, distanced group of singers to us all performing unmasked back at All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral. Thinking back to a year ago, when we had to cancel our New Year’s Eve concert due to health concerns and the omicron wave, it certainly feels like a different era. As we’re closing-in on the last day of the year, and I hope to see you, if you’re in Edmonton, at our New Year’s Eve concert on December 31 at 7:30PM.
The In Between Years playlist features live performances by Pro Coro Canada and some of our amazing guests. How exciting that half the music included is written by Alberta composers! We’re lucky to have such great talent here in town.
We’re starting our journey in January 2022 when we performed an entire concert of music by Alberta composers. Prayer to bring you home is by John Estacio with poetry by Alice Major.
Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir is one of my all-time favourite compositions, and we try to perform this masterwork every 3 or 4 years. Here is the opening movement Kyrie from our concert in March 2022.
Pro Coro Canada collaborated with the Canadian League of Composers and the PIVOT program. 12 Emerging composers wrote a new work for us, and then joined the choir, in-person or virtual, to workshop their music and hear our interpretation. Those 12 works explored the possibilities of the human voice, and also included movement and props. My selection is Book of Songs by Mari Alice Conrad, with lyrics by Anna Marie Sewell from May 2022.
As the restrictions were eased throughout 2022, Pro Coro Canada was able to travel, perform across Albert and partner with other choirs. In April 2022, we gave a couple of concerts featuring Alberta composers and shared the stage with the Augustana Choir (dir. John Wiebe), at the University of Alberta Augustana Campus in Camrose. We performed an eclectic program together including Yotin by Sherryl Sewepagaham.
In November 2022, Pro Coro Canada performed the Petite Messe Solennelle by Rossini. We were joined by amazing soloists from the University of Alberta Vocal Department, including their professor John Tessier, and pianist Jessica Robertson and accordion virtuoso Matti Pulkki. For this selection I chose an instrumental piece: the solo Preludio Religioso played by the accordion. Matti gives this work such musical beauty and his skill on the accordion is exquisite.
The year 2022 also featured our choir for emerging singers #connect. These choristers from across greater Edmonton and Calgary join for a project that is conceived with a rigorous schedule, music in several styles and languages and includes coaching by Pro Coro Canada singers. The experience is intended to mirror the work of the professional ensemble, resulting in a full, livestreamed concert. The November 2022 concert A thought of War included the powerful motet by Rudolf Mauersberger Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst, a favourite piece of the choir.
My next two selections come from our September 2022 concert The Nightingale. It was the anniversary of my 10 year artistic leadership of Pro Coro Canada. Besides performing Ugis Praulins masterwork, The Nightingale, the concert also featured music by local composers who have been associated with and composed for us over the last decade.
Absence by Laura Hawley was written for us in 2018 at the Banff Centre, and A boy and a boy by Stuart Beatch was commissioned for this special occasion in September. I am very happy to included both these powerful works in my playlist.
My last selection is from the annual Good Friday concert, which took place in April 2022. The choir ended the performance standing in a circle and performing Hannah Havrilets’ Prayer to the Most Holy Mother of God. That moment in the concert was, in the context of the war in the Ukraine, dedicated to all who suffer due to ongoing conflicts across the globe.
I hope you enjoy my ‘best of 2022’ playlist. Please note that some of the recordings were not initially prepared for broadcast and all works are best enjoyed with headphones or on a dedicated sound system.
Happy New Year, and I look forward to seeing you in 2023!