Vancouver Youth Choir takes it outside for Music on Main’s Summer Pop-Up Concerts series
Artistic director and founder Carrie Tennant says the choir helps its young members make authentic human connections in an era when that is more challenging than ever
Vancouver Youth Choir (photo by Derek Stevens); Carrie Tennant (photo by Nikki Hoshal)
Music on Main presents Summer Pop-Up Concerts at Mount Pleasant Park August 11 to 13 at 6:30 pm
YOUNG PEOPLE WANT to have their voices heard. That’s true in a general sense, but also specifically in a musical one, which goes a long way toward explaining the phenomenal growth of the Vancouver Youth Choir. In fact, the ensemble, which artistic director Carrie Tennant founded in 2013, has had to cap its membership at 730 singers across 16 ensembles at eight levels.
In a telephone interview, Tennant tells Stir that the high level of demand for spots in the choir doesn’t surprise her.
“It’s really hard for young people to find authentic places of connection in their lives right now, that are human to human, and not either through a screen or removed in some way,” she says. “And so, there’s a real hunger for group singing, especially at the level of artistry and heart that these kids have. They’re so passionate about it. It’s not just an after-school activity for them. It’s an art form, and they take the community and inclusivity just as seriously as they take the Monteverdi or the Decemberists.”
The past few seasons have seen the Vancouver Youth Choir excel at an artistic level. In May of 2025, for example, the group won Chorus America’s prestigious Margaret Hillis Award for Artistic and Organizational Achievement. A year later, the VYC brought home the Fleischmann International Trophy from the Cork International Choral Festival in Ireland. Later that same month, the choir closed its season with the biggest concert of its career at the Orpheum.
And there are exciting times ahead, too. In December, the Vancouver Youth Choir will join Early Music Vancouver at its annual Christmas concert at the Chan Centre to perform Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria. Next spring, the group will jet off to the European Youth Choir Festival in Basel, Switzerland.
In comparison to those adventures, singing a cappella in a Vancouver park sounds like a relatively low-key engagement, but Tennant is looking forward to doing exactly that when the Vancouver Youth Choir performs at Mount Pleasant Park on August 11 as part of Music on Main’s Summer Pop-Up Concerts series. She sees it as an opportunity to demonstrate just how wide-ranging and globally informed the young singers’ repertoire is.
“We’re known for very eclectic mixes of music, so we’ll do some indie pop, some Renaissance music, some music from cultures from all over the world: Philippines, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Estonia, Slovenia, and China,” she says. “Vancouver is a very diverse city and our choir is super diverse, too. So I program music often based on the cultures of the singers in my ensemble, and then we are really lucky to have their assistance with the cultural context and the language and all of that.”
Music on Main launched its Summer Pop-Up Concerts in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with provincial health orders severely restricting seating capacity for indoor performances. The series proved so popular that Music on Main has kept it going every summer since then.
In addition to the Vancouver Youth Choir, this year’s performers include the Marko-Paolo Pocket Orchestra (August 12) and the Summer String Quartet (August 13). Food trucks will be on hand for the benefit of hungry music-lovers—although, of course, there’s nothing stopping attendees from packing along munchies from home.
The Vancouver Youth Choir has performed as part of the series before, and Tennant confirms that a good time is had by all.
“It's super fun,” she says. “It's kind of this cross-section of Vancouver, from all walks of life. People bring picnics, and they're sitting on blankets and chairs, and it just feels like Vancouver summer—a really connected, community vibe.” 
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