Chamber choir director to step down in 2019

Change and renewal have come to many of Vancouver’s pre-eminent classical music organizations in recent years. On Monday, it was announced that Jon Washburn, founder and artistic and executive director of the Vancouver Chamber Choir, will step down at the end of the 2018/19 season.

As has increasingly become local practice, Washburn will stay on with the ensemble during two transition seasons to begin what will no doubt be a complex search process for a new leader, a search given extra intensity given that Washburn founded the choir in 1971 and has been its conductor ever since.

Illinois-born Washburn came to Canada in 1965 to study musicology at the University of British Columbia. The late 1960s was a period of significant change in Vancouver’s musical development. Washburn saw an opportunity for a new type of choral ensemble — one that would be fully professional, could tackle choral classics and new music, would tour extensively nationally and internationally, and broadcast and record regularly.

His vision was prescient: Within a few seasons the ensemble set new choral standards and the Vancouver Chamber Choir was quickly recognized as an innovative group devoted to quality repertoire.

A news release dated June 26 outlines the ensemble’s — and Washburn’s — achievements: 90 tours, 55-plus recordings, 37 National Conductors’ Symposiums, and countless awards, prizes and honours.

Washburn has been both a trailblazer and a major figure on the Canadian music scene.

He will assume the post of conductor emeritus and principal guest conductor just in time for the Chamber Choir’s 49th season. With characteristic understatement, Washburn notes: “I’m sorry to be leaving the choir so soon, but I should be giving some younger conductors a chance before they, too, start reaching retirement age.”