PREVIEW
A Pro Coro Canada New Year’s Eve
Monday, Dec. 31 from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral
10035 – 103 St.
Tickets: Advance $30 adult, $25 students/seniors and $30 to $35 at door. Call 780-420-1247 or visit www.procoro.ca
A few hours before the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, Pro Coro Canada is hosting a concert paying tribute to the past while welcoming the future.
The 24-member choir, led by artistic director Michael Zaugg, will perform at the historic All Saints Anglican Cathedral on Monday, Dec. 31.
Zaugg selected 10 wide-ranging masterpieces with works from acclaimed composers Gustav Mahler, Ugis Praulins, Joby Talbot, Jason Noble and Morten Lauridsen to name a few.
The now defunct Ensemble de la Rue was the original forerunner of New Year’s Eve concerts more than a decade ago. When the group dissolved, a hole was left in the season.
As a way to amplify Pro Coro’s presence in the community, Zaugg rebooted the traditional concert last year.
At the time he said, “This provides an option for people who don’t go to parties or for people who wait until midnight for fireworks. And there’s also a group of people who don’t like big crowds, but they like to be with people.”
St. Albert sopranos Carol Kube and Catherine Kubash as well as bass Michael Kurschat are longtime Pro Coro vocalists.
“This concert is quite fun,” said Kurschat. “It’s not one of our regular season concerts and we get a chance to relax in rehearsals. Because it’s a festive night with a ball drop, champagne and chocolates, it’s more relaxing. Everyone is happy and in a great frame of mind.”
One of the evening’s highlights is composer-in-residence Ugis Praulins The Way Children Sleep, a call for peace in a world loudly pounding war drums.
Kurschat notes the Latvian composer is quite eccentric.
“But he’s very organic in how he composes. He writes big block chords and independent lines. Written in nine individual voice parts, the singers have to be very responsive. There’s a lot of fast phrases and word repetition. It has a mantra-like quality. It has a certain groove with a lush texture and rhythmical sections. His music is unique and familiar at the same. It’s quite stunning.”
The choir also sings Juno award-winning composer Jason Noble’s Still Life. Known for creating transcendent music of unearthly beauty, Still Life is chanted in eight parts.
“It has no lyrics. It uses different slow-moving vowel sounds. It’s not fast-paced. It moves slowly through a series of chords with suspensions.”
Pro Coro once again sings a movement from Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles, a pilgrimage composition dedicated to Camino de Santiago, one of the most difficult pilgrimage routes in the Roman Catholic tradition.
The choral ensemble sings Santiago, the final movement, a joyous piece that sums up the physical and spiritual hardship of the 800-kilometre journey.
“There are quieter moments as you understand your meekness and how small you are in the world. And then there’s an explosion of joy as you realize God is all around us in nature.”
Through contrasting selections, the program is designed to conjure many moods.
“It’s lush. It’s thoughtful. It’s meditative. But you should feel comfortable listening to these songs. You will feel the vibrancy and the finality of the old year as you welcome the beginning of the new year.”
