Local choir wins national award
Nove Voce off to Sweden next month
Nove Voce reached musical heights and hit the crescendo to achieve first place on a national scale.
The choral society has been awarded the top honour in the adult community choir category in the 2019 National Music Festival.
Because the music festival organization understands gathering choirs together from across the country at one place at the same time could be prohibitive they invite choirs to record their performance at their local music festival, as an unaltered, live, one-off take and submit it for consideration to be recognized on a provincial level. That way all the choirs are on the same playing field.
“And that’s the beautiful thing about this competition,” Robin Norman, Nove Voce’s choir director, said.
Nove Voce won the provincial honour during the 2019 Performing Arts BC Festival and then their original recording was submitted to the national festival and they were once again recognized as the best.
When Nove Voce placed second at the nationals last year they were invited to apply to attend an international competition in Gothenburg, Sweden in August.
The INTERKULTUR Grand Prix of Nations and Fourth European Choir Games sees choirs from all over the world gather to compete, participate in mass choir performances and workshops, Norman said.
“We were one of two Canadian choirs accepted to go,” Norman said. “We are representing Canada and competing in two categories – folk song and chamber.”
Norman said she’s probably most excited to compete in the folk song category because every single piece of music they will be performing is from a B.C. publisher called Cypress Choral Music and one of the pieces was written by Allison Girvan, who was born and raised in Prince George.
“So we really get to represent and then we’re closing with the Log Driver’s Waltz, which is infinitely Canadian, so it feels like we’re representing Canada really well in that moment.”
Four of the five pieces of music Nove Voce will use has been created by women, which is part of the choir society’s mandate.
“The second category we’re competing in is chamber,” Norman explained. That category comes with more stipulations which include using music composed before 1800 and songs in other languages, but Nove Voce has managed to use local composer Don MacDonald’s work as well as another Canadian piece.
It’s going to be a 12-day Swedish adventure for 21 of the 27-member choir, whose members were able to get sponsorship from the community to help offset costs of the trip.
“This wouldn’t be possible without the incredible dedication of the young women in the choir,” Norman said.
“They make this possible. When you look at how much we rehearse it’s a pretty big deal and all their hard work is paying off.”
For more information about the choir, visit www.novevoce.ca.