Chez Nous: Christmas With Elektra transports audiences to a cozy Canadian home for the holidays
Artistic director Cassie Luftspring has curated a program of Elektra favourites, new commissions, and pieces with personal meaning
Elektra. Photo by Jina Kim
Chez Nous: Christmas With Elektra takes place at Pacific Spirit United Church on November 29 at 7:30 pm and November 30 at 3 pm
ONE OF THE VERY first works soprano Cassie Luftspring remembers performing was late British-Canadian composer Derek Holman’s Sir Christëmas. Set to old medieval texts, some of which are without authors, the jubilant secular suite has a fresh feel to it despite its historical roots. Of particular note is the way boisterous sections are balanced by moments of quiet beauty across its 23 minutes.
Holman’s Sir Christëmas was a holiday-concert staple for the Toronto Children’s Chorus, which Ontario native Luftspring grew up singing in. So when the choir’s founding artistic director, Jean Ashworth Bartle, offered to put a 16-year-old Luftspring in touch with Holman for composition lessons, the emerging artist jumped at the chance to learn from one of her idols.
Now, years later, Luftspring has begun her first season as artistic director of Elektra—and in a full-circle moment, she’s chosen Sir Christëmas to anchor the choir’s annual festive offering, Chez Nous.
“Including his music in the program is profoundly meaningful to me,” Luftspring tells Stir by phone in the lead-up to the show, “because it’s a way of honouring someone who shaped my own musical foundations—and I get to share his legacy with Elektra audiences.”
Luftspring, a trained soprano and conductor, has been singing with Elektra since she moved to Vancouver in 2016. Morna Edmundson, who created the choir with the late Diane Loomer in 1987 and spent nearly four decades as artistic director, passed the baton to her earlier this year. Chez Nous, happening at Pacific Spirit United Church on November 29 and 30, marks Luftspring’s first concert leading the choir. Edmundson will be cheering her on from the audience on opening night.
“I just feel very honoured to be in this position at this point in my life,” Luftspring says. “Morna has been a colleague and mentor to me for a number of years and such a huge support in my life. And you know, she’s left very big shoes to fill, but I’m so thrilled to be here and to continue to have her support.”
Elektra has titled its annual Christmas offering Chez Nous (meaning “at our house” in French) for over two decades now. Taking place at the end of November or start of December each year, the show is designed to evoke the atmosphere of entering a cozy home during the holidays.
Adding to that theme of community, this year’s Chez Nous program—including Sir Christëmas—consists of exclusively Canadian works. Luftspring has paired Elektra favourites, like Mark Sirett’s “Little Tree”, with pieces that have been meaningful to her in her career.
One piece that fits the latter category is Ottawa-based composer Kelly-Marie Murphy’s harp-infused “The Darkest Midnight in December”, a challenging composition that develops in mood from sombre to triumphant. Murphy wrote the piece for the Toronto Children’s Chorus in 2005, and as with Sir Christëmas, Luftspring grew up performing it.
Where Canadian history is concerned, the premiere of a commission by Gerda Blok-Wilson called “As If New-Created” is about as on-target as you can get. It transports listeners back to 1755 by detailing Great Britain’s expulsion of French-speaking Catholics from the Maritimes. It’s based on an 1847 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie”, which became a symbol of Acadian identity and resilience.
Blok-Wilson’s composition starts off ethereally with the lines “Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape/Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood,” before moving into Latin phrases that call for peace.
“It’s not necessarily a Christmas text, so to speak, but it has this very spiritual nature,” Luftspring notes, adding that it’s “a beautiful tie-in with what the whole concert is about.”
Among the other works Elektra will be singing is “Wyandot’s Realm” by Cree composer Andrew Balfour, a piece based on Jesuit missionary Jean de Brébeuf’s 1642 “Huron Carol”, one of the oldest Christmas hymns in Canadian history. But its Christian colonial roots are controversial in nature, especially given the fact that de Brébeuf attempted to write the carol in the language of the Huron-Wendat people, and its more popularly performed English translation is rather inaccurate. So Balfour has reimagined the piece to correct historical inaccuracies and centre Indigenous perspective.
While plenty of the works on the Chez Nous program will be performed a cappella, a few have instrumental components. Sir Christëmas, for instance, will feature flute, piano, cello, percussion, and harp—instruments that will certainly help create the warm vibe Elektra’s holiday concerts are known for.
“It feels like a very big moment for the entire Elektra community,” Luftspring says, “and I am so grateful for all of the love and support that I’ve received from our own singers and from Morna and the current staff. It just feels like family—and I’m very honoured to be here.” 
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