Three events to get you in the Christmas spirit
For me, the latter half of November means one thing — Christmas is coming! I’m one of those people who loves carols, Christmas shopping and all the hustle and bustle associated with the season.
Festival Chorus artistic director Mel Kirby is another.
Kirby says people often tell him it’s the Festival Chorus’s annual Christmas concert that gets them in the mood for Christmas.
This year’s Festival Chorus Christmas concert happens the week before Advent begins.
Kirby says the chorus looked to one of the most quintessential of Christmas icons for this year’s concert inspiration — the angel.
The concert is titled Hear the Angels Sing.
Kirby estimates about threefifths of the songs on the bill deal with angels.
“They were the first ones to sing at Christmas,” Kirby points out.
In keeping with the concert’s angelic theme, harpist Gianetta Baril is featured on the program.
Kirby says the program contains many familiar carols, though some of the arrangements will be new to most audience members.
There will also be about a halfdozen brand new carols mixed in with old favourites.
Accompanying the choir of some 60 singers is tenor soloist Tonatiuth Abrego, who’ll sing Schubert’s version of Ave Maria and the beautiful O Holy Night.
The evening also includes the popular audience singalong where, as Kirby says, “people can let loose with their own voices.”
Hear the Angels Sing happens Nov. 23 at Knox United Church, 506 4th St. S.W.)
Information and tickets: thefestivalchorus.com or 403-2949494.
Praetorius: Christmas — Spiritus Chamber Choir
For a Christmas concert of a different flavour, Calgary’s Spiritus Chamber Choir performs a program that will take you back to Germany in the late 16th century.
Titled Praetorius: Christmas, it’s actually a co-production between Spiritus and Early Music Voices and will feature the special guest quartet, VoiceScapes.
“It will be like an old German Christmas vespers service,” explains Spiritus artistic director Timothy Shantz.
One of the featured numbers on the program is Magnificat by Michael Praetorius, one of the most famous German composers of the late Renaissance/early Baroque periods. (Praetorius lived between 1571 and 1621.)
To add to the program’s authenticity, several Baroque instruments — along with a string quartet and organ — accompany the singers for some numbers, including a cornetto, a sackbut (a softer predecessor to the modern trombone), and an early version of the bassoon called a dulcian.
“The program will include quite a variety of combinations. We can create so many different colours and textures of sound,” Shantz says.
“Early music, in a lot of ways, it’s like folk music. We can choose to add a cornetto here and a sackbut to a line there. … The music is more flexible than people would think,” Shantz adds.
New for Spiritus is an audience participation component where members of the crowd join in during the first and final carols of the evening.
While Shantz says this is music of yesteryear, he says part of Spiritus’s role is to “raise awareness in the community” about this music.
“We love to share this history in a real performance setting with an audience. But we don’t do it just because we know a lot about it. We think it’s beautiful music.”
And a “shout–out” to Spiritus Chamber Choir. It just won a national award — the Healey Willan Prize — from the Canadian Council for the Arts.
The choir also earned a spot in an international choral competition next spring in Cork, Ireland.
Praetorius: Christmas happens Dec. 1 at Knox United Church, 506 4th St. S.W.)
Information and tickets: spirituschamberchoir.ca or 403-9227021.
Miracle on 34th Street — Workshop Theatre
One of my favourite Christmas stories of all time is coming to a Calgary stage!
Workshop Theatre is presenting a stage version of Miracle on 34th Street, that 1947 classic Christmas film that starred Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwenn and a young Natalie Wood.
“I watched Miracle on 34th Street growing up,” says director Colleen Trumble. “I love the idea that it’s about the true spirit of Christmas as opposed to just commercialism,” she adds.
Trumble says the 1982 stage adaptation she’s working with is very similar to the film, except she has made the decision to set the action in the present day.
“I just thought the audience might be able to relate a little bit better if it’s in the modern day,” Trumble says, adding the text is so timeless only a couple of minor textual changes were necessary.
In Miracle on 34th Street, Doris Walker is training her young daughter, Susan, to be as practical as she is and to not believe in fairy tales like Santa Claus.
Enter Fred Gailey, a young man with his sights set on Doris, and a kindly old man from a nearby retirement home who claims he’s Kris Kringle. They attempt to help Doris and Susan believe in miracles once again.
At the same time, Kris serves as Santa Claus in a New York Macy’s store and spreads a raft of public goodwill by not allowing commercial interests to rule the spirit of Christmas.
In Act Two, audiences are treated to a court scene where the very existence of Santa Claus is on trial.
“This show is about being open to believing in the impossible,” Trumble says.
Miracle on 34th Street runs from Friday to Nov. 30 in the Pumphouse’s Victor Mitchell Theatre.
Information and tickets: workshoptheatre.org or 403-246-2999.