Musica intima sings the sacred—and silly
Of the half-dozen concerts musica intima has booked for this festive season, one is not like the others—and if you guessed that might be the one called Ding Dong!, you’d be right.
“We wanted to have a concert for people… who maybe wanted something other than what the traditional Christmas for musica intima would be,” artistic manager Siri Olesen explains, in a telephone interview from the choir’s rehearsal facility at Redeemer Lutheran Church. “So in Ding Dong! it’s a little bit more tongue-in-cheek, and there’s not very much sacred repertoire in it. We’re looking at a different kind of repertoire: some of it can be kind of silly; it’s sung with a jazz trio backing us up; and it’ll be a smaller ensemble, with just eight singers. So it’s a concert where you can come and you can have a glass of wine, and you can laugh. It’s meant to be just a little bit more informal and a little bit more fun, I guess—not that a traditional Christmas isn’t fun!”
In other words, if you’re itching to show off your garish new 100-percent-acrylic holiday sweater, you can be assured that there’s no dress code at Ding Dong!.
“That’s right,” Olesen confirms, laughing.
“Bring your reindeer antlers!”
For the choir’s Sing Lullaby concerts, the mood will also be light—but it’s illumination we’re talking about here, not necessarily levity. For these five events, scattered across the Lower Mainland, Olesen plans on tapping into what she calls “the British choral tradition”, a category that might have as much to do with architecture as ethnicity.
“If you think of people going to Christmas Mass in those huge British cathedrals and hearing these ethereal voices coming from the front or from the balcony, singing these beautiful Christmas carols…that’s sort of where this program is coming from,” she explains. “For many people, this is representative of their traditional Christmas sound, even if we’re not necessarily British—and I’m certainly not British! However, this is a sound that seems particularly appropriate for Christmas, and one that a lot of other things have come from.
“It’s important to explore all different interpretations of what Christmas means,” she continues, “but every once in a while it’s also nice to go back to something that’s from a particular choral perspective, and certainly that British cathedral tradition makes you think of singers.”
When she thinks of singers, however, Olesen is also concerned with broadening the horizon for the exceptional vocalists she gets to work with. Musica intima has a long history of presenting new music as well as classics from the choral repertoire, and while the ensemble’s Sing Lullaby shows will contain a good number of familiar carols in time-tested arrangements, they’ll also feature works by living British composers Jonathan Dove and James MacMillan, alongside pieces by Vancouver resident Kristopher Fulton and Kingston, Ontario’s John Burge. Part of the plan is to show that there’s a line that leads directly from the establishment of the Anglican Church, and with it a distinctively British form of liturgical music, to present-day choral writing. But Olesen’s main intent is simply to offer a gorgeous, intimate Christmas experience to her listeners.
“They’re just stunning pieces,” she says of the contemporary works on the program, “and the texts make them relevant to the season.”
Musica intima presents Ding Dong! at St. James Community Square next Thursday (December 19). Sing Lullaby takes place at Burnaby’s Brentwood Presbyterian Church on Friday (December 13), St. Philip’s Anglican Church on Sunday (December 15), New Westminster’s Knox Presbyterian Church on Tuesday (December 17), Langley’s Shepherd of the Valley Church next Friday (December 20), and Christ Church Cathedral next Saturday (December 21).