April 5, 2022

Dear Friends and Supporters of Pro Coro Canada,

As the year slowly rolled into April, and Pro Coro began preparing for the annual Good Friday concert, I was reminded of the start of the pandemic in 2020 and how our yearly presentation at Easter was the first we had to cancel. In our effort to communicate and engage with you, we started our weekly newsletter, with the first edition released two years ago on April 1, 2020. The newsletter included a blogpost with my observations as we wrangled with the lockdowns, cancellations, medical data and projections, fears and hopes.

I am grateful that we are able to make music in-person again, and I look forward to seeing you next week on April 15 for Good Friday with Pro Coro Canada.

with my best wishes,
Michael Zaugg, Managing and Artistic Director

We Want to Hear From You!

As we move into the final part of the 2021-2022 season with Pro Coro Canada, we have two more concerts after Good Friday: Before the West (May 15) and Doors of Heaven (June 18).

We are asking for your feedback as we evaluate our health and safety protocols for these concerts. For our Good Friday concert on April 15, Pro Coro Canada requires that audience members wear face masks for the duration of the concert while inside the performance venue.

Canadian Premiere: Nicola Burnett Smith’s “Stabat Mater”

“The creation of the music grew from the structure and the emotion of the poem by Phil Vernon. Coming from a theatre background, I visualized a group of women, perhaps a Greek Chorus, telling us what they had just seen and felt. As I read the poem and started to set it to music, I imagined these witnesses being shocked to stillness at first by the trauma of what they had witnessed, singing almost meditatively at first, with restraint, slowly and with heavy breaths, as if watching a funeral cortege pass by: they feel the need to sing what they saw in order to take in the unimaginable depth of the grief and suffering they have seen. The music becomes a comfort to them, a way of processing their thoughts and attempting to make sense of it all, as they stand together to tell the story to the observers. Emotion is gradually released into the music as the passion is freed and becomes personal.”

Nicola Burnett Smith has been working with poets on setting their words to music since 2016 and that is how Phil Vernon came to invite her to write music inspired by his poem, ‘Stabat Mater’. The first performance was in London on April 15, 2019 at The Actors’ Church in Covent Garden.

Nicola’s 30 years of work in the theatre have given her opportunities to explore many different genres of music and performance as actor, singer, musician and composer: from opera and oratorio to jazz, folk, pop and contemporary music. Her UK stage work has included the Edinburgh International Festival, BAC Opera Festival, repertory theatres including the Royal National Theatre, and many UK tours.

Nicola was born in Scotland in 1964 and her family emigrated to Canada a year later. They lived as landed emigrants in Saskatoon and Vancouver until 1972 when they returned to the UK. Nicola has not been back to Canada since then and is pleased to be traveling to Edmonton to watch the performance of ‘Stabat Mater’ in the country that was once her home.

www.nicolaburnettsmith.co.uk

Next Week: Good Friday with Pro Coro

Good Friday with Pro Coro Canada at 7:30pm on Friday, April 15th at Robertson-Wesley United Church (10209 123 St NW), as well as live-streamed online through ProCoroTV.

Join Pro Coro Canada for our annual Good Friday concert as the ensemble reflects on the Passion of Christ with choral music spanning 250 years. This performance will feature works by Allan Bevan, Lotti, Scarlatti, Lukaszewski, and a Canadian premiere by Nicola Burnett Smith.

Student tickets are only $12! Call the office to purchase: 780-420-1247.

Watch a preview: