In The News: Soundstreams’ “Canadian Choral Celebration”“Michael Zaugg and Pro Coro Canada took to the stage after intermission to perform Ugis Praulins’ Laudibus in Sanctis (2008), a euphoric composition set to the text of Psalm 150. This was by far the strongest and most assertive performance of the concert; Pro Coro’s singers demonstrated a strong sense of solidarity and confidence in their ensemble which was communicated quite magnificently through the music itself. Last of the program was Henryk Górecki’s Miserere (1981) which showcased solidarity in a different sense – namely, in the way breaths were drawn between words, which in turn gave shape to Górecki’s concerns about the state of political turmoil in Poland the year this piece was written. Laudibus in Sanctis made for a quietly intense (and as such, daring) conclusion to Soundstreams’ Canadian Choral Celebration, a gradual slow burn of voices which eventually brought the audience back to where the afternoon began: a choir, standing together in stillness and in silence, seeing with their ears.”
|
