Vancouver Chamber Choir offers wide-ranging concert at CHRISTMAS BY CANDELIGHT, December 16

The diverse program includes a moving piece by VCC composer-in-residence Matthew Whittall

Vancouver Chamber Choir presents CHRISTMAS BY CANDLELIGHT on December 16 at 6:30 pm and 8:30 pm at Pacific Spirit United Church

A GREGORIAN HYMN (“Veni, veni Emmanuel”); 15th-century text set to music in 2020 (Becky McGlade’s “A Spotless Rose”); and a classically layered European carol with text from the 15th century, melody from the late 16thcentury, harmonization from 1609, and one more layer added in 1990 (“Es ist ein Ros entsprungen”, Michael Praetorius/Jan Sandström): Vancouver Chamber Choir’s CHRISTMAS BY CANDLELIGHT is not your typical concert of carols.

VCC artistic director Kari Turunen has assembled a wide-ranging selection of songs for the 16-member ensemble, which is made up of sopranos Dinah Ayre, Maria Bamford, Emily M Cheung, Christina Cichos, and Kiyomi Hori; a l to s Tabitha Brasso-Ernst, Maria Golas, Fabiana Katz, and Risa Takahashi; tenors Eric Biskupski, Oliver Dalton, Eric Schwarzhoff, and Michael Stahl; and basses Steven Bélanger, Paul Nash George, Roberts Wim, and Vermeulen Jaime Yoon.

The program also features “Love came down at Christmas” by Canadian- Finnish artist Matthew Whittall, VCC composer-in-residence for the 2022-23 season. Turunen describes the work as “a warm and flowing setting to a poem by Christina Rossetti”. “Downward gestures are balanced beautifully by the well- shaped flowing melodic lines,” Turunen says in the program notes, “and the ending is warm, full and ecstatic.”

More information is here.

Matthew Whittall. Photo by Maarit Kytöharju

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