Grand Philharmonic Choir announces upcoming season
Ninth season to return to tradition, strengths
KITCHENER — With its new season just three months away, artistic director Mark Vuorinen promises more of what audiences have come to love.
“It’s our ninth season and in some ways, it’s a season that follows our traditions, the stuff we’re known for and do well,” said Vuorinen. “The past season was very different, with some new things. This is more traditional.”
The Grand Philharmonic Choir season begins Oct. 21 with “Big Choruses: From Brahms to Broadway.” The concert will feature many audience favourites, spanning oratorios to operas to musical theatre, with guest host, CBC Radio’s Tom Allen plus the Grand Philharmonic Children’s Choir and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
The winter season will be launched Nov. 25 with “Winter Hymn” seasonal music with the Philharmonic’s Chamber Singers presenting Benjamin Britten’s “Ceremony of Carols.” The concert will feature Toronto-based harpist, Julia Seager-Scott.
Handel’s “Messiah” returns after a one year hiatus on Dec. 9 at Centre in the Square and this year the production will also feature projected images from St. John’s Bible, a copy of which is now in residence at the University of Waterloo’s St. Jerome’s University. This rare book was commissioned in 1998 and is one of a very few handwritten and illuminated bibles created since the 16th century.
Illumination is an ancient method of illustrating texts with brilliant colours, particularly gold and silver, giving the bible an almost three dimensional yet ancient texture.
Vuorinen has been collaborating with the university’s Critical Media Lab to have these richly colourful images transformed to digital format from ink and paper, a first for the choir.
“It’s like looking at an iconic image during the concert,” he said. “It’s moving and shimmering.”
In keeping with the sacred overtones of the season, on Feb. 10 the choir performs “Gloria!” which is often described as a combination of biblical Hebrew verse and Christian choral tradition. This concert will also debut the winning composition from the choir’s first choral music competition.
On Good Friday, March 30, the choir performs the deeply moving Bach’s masterwork, “St. John Passion” a piece of music often played at Easter.
April 21 wraps up the season with an Earth Day celebration in music, “Earth Sea Sky” from the First Nation’s Ute Nation prayer with text from Rupert Lang’s “Earth Teach Me.” The concert will also feature Leonard Enns’ “Ten Thousand Rivers of Oil.”
The choir will host a number of events outside of the main concerts, including open rehearsals where the public is invited to join in, such as April 1, the Beethoven Missa Solemnis Sing-In at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church.
The Philharmonic was founded in 1922 and has been under the direction of Vuorinen for the past nine years. It now consists of four choirs; the adult choir, the smaller chamber choir, a youth choir for ages 14 to 23 and a children’s choir for young singers seven to 14.
When they sing together, the combined choir is a powerful 200 voices strong.