It’s Canada’s 150th year, and the Island Consort Chamber Choir is ready to celebrate.
This vast country has a wonderful variety of histories, landscapes and characteristics — and the Island Consort Chamber Choir, directed by Bruce Farquharson, will celebrate with a musical pastiche of songs by Canadian composer at St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Qualicum Beach on Nov. 24.
The program, Sketches of Canada, will take the audience across the country with songs of fishing and sailing in the Maritimes, to the music of Quebec and Ontario and the Prairies, to the First Nations of British Columbia.
The choir will sing repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries, from Nova Scotia’s Donald Cook to Quebec’s Donald Patriquin and recent Armenian immigrant Vahram Sarkissian. Also, music from Ontario’s Healey Willan, Alberta’s Ian Tyson, and Vancouverites Stephen Chatman, Kathleen Allen and Matthew Emery.
There will be songs of winter sun and rain, of trains and mosquitos and log-rolling, of love and patriotism, and of the Salish and Tsimshian. Piano accompanist will be Sharon Wishart.
The concert is set for Friday, Nov. 24, 7:30 pm at St. Mark’s Anglican Church, Qualicum Beach. Admission, purchased at the door, is $20 for adults, $5 for students and those under 12 are free. For more information, go to www.islandconsort.ca.
— Submitted by Bruce Farquharson