Tag: choir concert

How Sweet the Singing – Twenty Years with Donna Brown

•

“The choir is singing this Sunday? Oh good, I’ll be there for sure.”

You hear this often enough to appreciate that for many people, music is a vital part of any Sunday Service. In the Unitarian Church of Vancouver the choir sings two Sundays a month, on average, although it practises every week. And the face of the choir is the inimitable Donna Brown, currently celebrating her twentieth year as Director of UCV’s Chalice Choir.

Donna eased into the choir a few years after she joined the church in 1989. The previous director, Sallie Novinger, encouraged her to join as a soprano. Whenever Sallie was ill she asked Donna to direct and when she decided to retire, she suggested Donna take over. The first few years were tumultuous, with many guest ministers, a huge range in the organization of services and a never-ending need to check, coordinate and adjust. Things settled down when Steven Epperson arrived; he, Donna and Elliott Dainow formed a seamless, cooperative team. She credits Rob Taylor, Connie Wigmore and the late Donna Cook, for their support in the early days. Gavin Grandish and Nicola Hamilton fill in whenever Donna can’t be there.

Donna still quotes her mentor, Harold Brown, when the choir struggles to master a piece: ‘Perfection is an abstraction, one we must strive to reach though it will always be beyond our grasp.’

Donna’s patience in dealing with forty or so Unitarians, not unlike herding cats, has been honed by twenty-five years as an elementary school teacher. She remains pleasant and smiling even as she pushes singers to be better. Her determination to keep trained and talented section leads enables the rank and file members to ‘sing up’ a level so the choir can work on music that would otherwise be too difficult for many. As concert dates approach, she may have sleepless nights but she never panics. She will listen to everyone once and then make hard decisions when necessary. Although she never singles anyone out for blame, her bionic hearing for faulty timing and sagging pitch means the choir improves year by year. If the abstract of perfection is occasionally too far out of reach, Donna changes the program.

Over the last twenty years, the choir has performed a wide range of pieces at its two annual concerts. Proceeds from concerts (and choir-run church lunches in lean years) have funded the music library. Donna has a passion for requiems but the music varies from Bach, Rutter, Faure and Stravinsky to medleys from Queen, Gershwin, Village People and West Side Story. The choir has sung for the wedding of choir member Catherine Ponsford and the funerals of Harold Brown and Phillip Hewett. Last year at the Vancouver Push Festival, the choir even sang in the role of Community Choir for the play, ‘The Events’ starring UCV’s own Douglas Ennenberg. This past February Donna took the choir across the border to sing at the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship service and at an interfaith concert to raise money for housing the homeless in the Bellingham area.

This year’s spring concert is titled ‘Donna’s Favourites’, pieces culled from her twenty years as Chalice Choir director. Mark your calendars, Sunday May 5 at 7:30. Come celebrate her stellar career with the choir here at UCV.

Choir Sings Gjeilo – Plus Lots More

•

Here’s some background on the choir concert. This year, the Chalice Choir’s Advent Concert features two pieces by the young (40) Norwegian-born composer Ola Gjeilo (pronounced Yay-lo). Dark Night of the Soul and Luminous Night of the Soul are both based on poetry by St. John of the Cross, a sixteenth century Spanish mystic, a contemporary of Teresa of Avila. St. John is considered one of the foremost poets in the Spanish language. These exquisitely layered pieces involve both piano and string accompaniment. They have been a delight to learn and we look forward to sharing them with you.

But that is not all we have for you. Anne Duranceau and Edgar Bridwell, along with a few of their friends, will present some lovely string music. The ensemble and the choir have prepared several beautiful songs and Lyndon Ladeur, our tenor lead, will dazzle you with an aria from his upcoming performance in Opera Mariposa’s production of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte (Nov 30, Dec, 1, 7, 8 at Marpole United.)

After our annual singalong, you will be invited to join us for a reception in Hewett Centre.

Want a preview? You can listen to Dark Night of the Soul and Luminous Night of the Soul here:

An evening to warm your heart and jump-start your holiday spirit. Please join us!

Tickets: $20 (or pay what you can) available at the door.

Bios below

Lyndon Ladeur, tenor | Ferrando

Lyndon Ladeur’s favourite roles to date include Marco in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers and Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. His major concert repertoire as a soloist consists of Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Gounod’s Messe solennelle en l’honneur de Sainte-Cécile. He made his international debut as part of the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival to a sold-out crowd at the Royal Hall in Harrogate, UK where he performed Marco in The Gondoliers. For this portrayal he was named the winner of the Best Male Vocalist award, as well as being nominated for Best Male Actor. He was given a 2018 Vancouver Academy of Music Emerging Artist Grant to contribute to this experience. He is also the reigning winner of both the Senior Classical Voice and Vocal Variety competitions at the BC Provincial Performing Arts Festival. After that, Lyndon was named a winner of the BC Provincial Concerto Competition.

dgar Bridwell was born in Illinois but has lived in BC and Montreal most of his life. He started violin when he was five years old. He later played, recorded and toured internationally with several Swing and Rockabilly bands, but came back to classical music a few years ago.

nne Duranceau was born in Montreal but lived mostly in Quebec City. After a career as a classically-trained dancer, she studied the contrabass at Laval University and obtained her Master’s Degree in Music at the University of Arizona, also travelling to participate in many workshops and festivals where she had the opportunity to work with several masters of international renown. She plays with several ensembles, among which Sinfonia, and the Klezmer group Mad Nomad.