Cosmopolitan Chorus headed for Carnegie Hall
Sixty-three members of Edmonton’s Cosmopolitan Chorus will take to the biggest stage in New York’s Carnegie Hall May 19 to perform a world-popular composition.
The historic stage in the 2,804seat Stern Auditorium is where the likes of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Maria Callas and Judy Collins have appeared.
And if singing in the world’s most famous concert hall in Midtown Manhattan could have helped your resume, you could have been there.
“What makes the performance so special for us is our choir is non-auditioned,” said conductor Jamie Burns, who has led the choir for 13 years.
“While we have many experienced choristers, there are also some who have only been singing in a choir for a year or less.
“Our mandate is to take in members at their current level and to raise them to new heights musically.”
The invitation to perform came last May through Laurier Fagnan, a music professor at the University of Alberta’s Campus St.-Jean, who has previously worked with the Cosmopolitan Chorus.
MidAmerica, an established production company, contacted Fagnan while booking springtime fixtures at Carnegie Hall.
The firm stages community group, school and church choir concerts in March through June when many orchestras and other ensembles are touring.
“The experience is understandably quite expensive, so after a summer of fundraising and tour organizing, we held a meeting,” said Burns.
“Some 63 choristers committed to the project and will be able to cross the experience off their bucket list. To have fully two-thirds of our membership able to participate on relatively short notice exceeded my wildest expectations.”
Filling the seats of the auditorium doesn’t worry Burns.
“We will take a number of supporters with us,” he said.
“And then 60 members of Chorale St.-Jean and members of other choirs will join us, including a contingent from the Smithers, B.C.-based Nova Borealis.
“They too will have supporters, so we’ll have an enthusiastic Canadian section in the audience. But also many tourists and New York City residents support concerts such as ours, where our massed choir will be accompanied by a full professional orchestra and soloists.”
The choir has in the past few months been working on the piece they are to sing, Requiem for the Living by American composer Dan Forrest.
“The Requiem evokes themes of both the vanity and the beauty of mankind,” said Burns.
“Since its publication in 2014, it has become one of the most widely-performed pieces in the choral-orchestral repertoire.”
The entire choir, including those not making the trip to New York, performed Forrest’s work before an audience of 500 at McDougall United Church last week.
“To see the expressions of satisfaction on the faces of both the performers and the audience at the end of the performance was quite possibly the highlight of my career as a musician and as a conductor,” said Burns.
“I’m confident our Carnegie Hall performance will make for an electrifying evening.”
Hopefully the choir will be as well received as The Beatles, who hired the same hall when they made their first visit to the U.S. in 1964.
LOCAL DYNAMIC DUO
If the performances last week by Sherwood Park’s Chad Stewart and Shane Kyle is anything to go by, they might cycle through the Rockies in June and not over them.
The pair cycled back from Vancouver to Jasper last year with a CASA group and will make their second trip with the charity in June, cycling to Jasper from Kaslo, B.C.
“They are so full of ingenuity and energy I feel they might think cycling over a mountain is the long way round and just go through it,” said Nadine Samycia, executive director of the CASA Foundation, which helps youngsters and their families with mental-health issues.
Stewart and Kyle have stepped forward and said they will sponsor CASA bike rides for the next three years.
They need to raise $25,000 each year and have just thrown two successful fundraisers a week apart.
They climbed off bikes at noon April 14 after spinning for 24 hours with their 10-person team.
“Our target of $5,000 for our bikeathon was comfortably passed,” said Stewart, 42.
“And we’re well over our target of $30,000 for our black-tie Celebrating Courage dinner at the Lexus showrooms last week.”
The pair, who together own the Concrete Blonde Salon- Spas in Sherwood Park and Fort Saskatchewan, have also found time to train hard on spin bikes all winter at Johnny Law’s Spinunity studio.
“Johnny also played DJ for our 24-our bike ride,” explains Kyle, 38.
A highlight at the Lexus dinner was when Brian Zieglar won the draw for a Brett Kissel autographed guitar, then donated it back and Brian Moody, one of the stalwart bike ride support drivers, paid $2,000 for it at auction.
An on-the-spot sculpture created by Ryan Kurylo sold for $3,400 and a dinner for eight prepared by chef Paul Shufelt went under the hammer of auctioneer Mark Schulz for $3,000.
Friend and management consultant Dianne Young produced a door and said it was a symbol of the work CASA does in helping families move through dark periods toward light. Guests lined up to pay $100 to sign the door.