Chor Leoni offers songs to soothe the soul for Remembrance Day
Breathe in Hope takes place at the newly restored St. Andrew’s-Wesley United, the male choir’s new home
Chor Leoni is launching its 30th season with its Remembrance Day concert, Breathe in Hope.
Chor Leoni presents Breathe in Hope on November 10 at 7:30 pm and November 11 at 2 pm and 7:30 pm at St. Andrew's-Wesley United,
CHOR LEONI’S REMEMBRANCE DAY concert is the revered male choir’s most beloved annual tradition. The 2021 edition is set to be even more highly anticipated, for a few reasons. Breathe in Hope marks the singing lions’ first return to live performance since the pandemic and the launch of their 30th season. The show will take place in its new home at the just-renovated St. Andrew’s-Wesley United, complete with enhanced sound and lighting and restored organ—the heritage building’s first concert since being restored. Then there’s Kate Bush, Eric Bogle, Melissa Dunphy, and Henrik Dahlgren—some of the artists whose works appear on the program that features a mix of old and new, and no less than six world premieres.
The performance is a way to take time to honour those who have served in the country’s defence. And at this particular juncture in time, as we gradually come out of COVID-19, it’s also needed, says conductor and composer Erick Lichte, Chor Leoni’s artistic director.
“Not only do I encourage people to come to our concert, but people need to go to concerts period, so that we can share in all of this together,” Lichte says in a phone interview with Stir. “It matters. It’s important.
“My feeling is very strongly that we’re all dealing with a lot of unprocessed grief at this moment,” he says. “Even if we had it good with the pandemic, I think maybe those folks are going to be the last to recognize some of that grief they hold in their hearts. We wanted to create a program that was certainly about the grief and the horror of war and the promise of peace but also one that, on a parallel track, is talking about and dealing with some of the grief we’re all holding in our hearts. This concert is a balm for that. This program has a lot of voices of composers that are new to Chor Leoni and new to Chor Leoni audiences, so it’s a fresh take on what this day means to us all.”
First, the return to live performance is indeed a moment worth marking for the 66-member choir. The pandemic was crushingly difficult on the performing arts in general, while its effects were felt especially acutely by choral singers, who by very definition gather in close proximity to sing en masse. Being isolated and unable to meet regularly in person for rehearsals—Zoom just doesn’t cut it—was hard on the group, but early on, it found ways to keep singing. When the choir reunited earlier this fall for the first time at St. Andrews-Wesley United, where the organization is the new choir in residence, Lichte says it was nothing short of soul-filling.
“I’ve been nothing but grateful and feel nothing but gratitude for the support I’ve had from all the folks around me throughout the pandemic; there was definitely a time where I personally needed to feel bolstered when I couldn’t do what I’m on this Earth to do,” he says. “As far as our choral community, I think there are mental-health aspects we’re starting to feel now that we’re back together and singing. We’re masked, so I wouldn’t quite call it normal, but oh my goodness…. Our first rehearsal was on a Wednesday night and when I woke up on Thursday morning I looked to my wife and said ‘I feel better!’ You hear stories about having a vitamin deficiency and you get hooked up to that bag of vitamin D or whatever you’re down on and you feel an almost immediate cure; I think it was something akin to that. Being together and seeing one another and just being inside the music was remarkable.”
Chor Leoni artistic director Erick Lichte. Photo by Dan Conrad
Gathering is particularly exciting for the choir this season, as it will be for its audiences, as it takes up residence at the historic St. Andrews-Wesley United. The Gothic Revival heritage landmark church, built between 1930 and 1933, began a massive renewal in 2019 for seismic upgrading, and along with the structural improvements came beautiful enhancements including new flooring and pews. “To come out of this silence and into our new digs has been nothing short of stunning and awe-inspiring,” Lichte says. “It’s so wonderful to have such a home. Everyone wants a house in Vancouver, and to have them open our doors to us in this way is wonderful.
“We’re in for such a treat,” he says. “As a concert space, it’s quieter—there’s less downtown Vancouver sound creeping into the space, so there’s the chance for even more thrilling pianissimos. It used to have a linoleum floor and now it has this beautiful stone floor, and the acousticians hit all the targets. To my ear the sound is cleaner and clearer.”
The sound of a tenor-bass male choir is especially apt for Remembrance Day 2021, for reasons both apparent and perhaps not so apparent, Lichte says.
Composer Marrques L.A. Garrett. Photo by Justin S. Robinson (JSR Photography)
“Throughout history there has been kind of this trope of men going to war and that repertoire of traditional male choir songs, so on the surface it makes sense, but less obvious, and what I think the real key is now, why we’re well into the 21st century and still having resonance while people are thinking about colonialism and all of these issues that we’re all trying to wrestle with in Canada is that here are these voices which can be associated with aggression…singing about peace; oftentimes this is the most tender and heartfelt music that we do. That’s the fit.
“People discover Chor Leoni at Remembrance Day: they’re disarmed by the vulnerability that these men are showing. I’m particularly proud of that we can share that message of peace through this concert.”
Featuring Tina Chang on piano, Katherine Evans on trumpet, and Tim Woodford on organ, Breathe in Hope features 11 pieces.
“My Heart Be Brave” is a world premiere setting the poetry of James Weldon Johnson by African-American composer Marques L.A. Garrett, assistant professor of music in choral activities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the Glenn Korff School of Music. “It’s such a hopeful piece, one that the choir has really leaned into,” Lichte says. “It offers such inner strength, and it frankly requires it from the choir.”
In “Waves of Gallipoli”, a world premiere by Melissa Dunphy, the metaphor is “the waves of human beings coming up against the shore and dying, and the waves of dead in the cemeteries”, says the Philadelphia-based composer of political, vocal and theatrical art. Remember her name: Born to refugee parents and raised in Australia, she immigrated to the United States in 2003 and has gone on to become sought-after around the world. The Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey is marked with cemeteries; the graves of Australian and New Zealand infantry bear epitaphs provided by the families of the fallen. Five of these epitaphs are included as text in the composition, along with lines from poet Leon Gellert, a Gallipoli veteran.
Composer Ken Cormier, Chor Leoni’s collaborative pianist of 23 years, shares the world premiere of his arrangement of Kate Bush’s “Army Dreamers”. The song is about a grieving mother who laments her motherhood through the death of her soldier son. Originally released on the album Never For Ever, it was blacklisted during the Gulf War in 1991, joining a list of 67 songs simultaneously banned from BBC airplay.
Chor Leoni composer in residence Don Macdonald.
“I’m always looking for folk songs and pop songs dealing with the themes we’re dealing with for Remembrance Day; I think they connect in a really immediate and visceral way,” Lichte says. “Kate Bush was a total maverick and genius and has a really unique voice in popular music. Frankly it’s a vey unsettling pop song, and it’s one that is just so smart. It makes you think and it makes you feel. I’m so proud that we could turn this into something that would work with Chor Leoni. Kate Bush is not the first thing out of your mouth when you think of the choir, but this is an example of how we can bring other voices into the mix. Especially for those on the periphery who may feel we’re all this one flavour, we’re trying to bring as many voices into the conversation as we can.”
Also on the program are “Tenebrae” by Michael McGlynn; “Lux Aeterna” by Ēriks Ešenvalds; and Dale Trumbore’s “Breathe in Hope”. Commissioned by the Los Angeles Children's Chorus for the 2017 Chorus America Conference, the concert’s titular song is based on Maya Jackson's text, which began as two Facebook posts responding to the violent deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. Jackson writes: This is going to sound wrong./But I hope this pain lasts.”
Katerina Gimon’s “Bell Tower”, commissioned by Chor Leoni, has its world premiere at the upcoming performance. With her Master’s of music composition from UBC, the composer, improviser, and vocalist is becoming widely known for her distinctive, eclectic style.
In “Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep”, Minnesota Shruthi Rajasekar gives new life to Mary Elizabeth Frye’s beloved poem, written to comfort a grieving friend. Drawn to Frye’s vivid imagery, Rajasekar composed a ragamalika, which she describes as “a garland of ragas, the emotive scales of Indian classical music”.
“I haven’t witnessed a piece that is such an organic hybrid of classical Indian technique and theory as well as Western choral music,” Lichte says. “Each of the ragas embodies a different aspect of nature illuminated in the text. In one way it has modern choral music with shimmery chords but when you dig deeper, she is shifting through so many classical Indian composition tools and modes of expression so naturally and organically.”
Chor Leoni’s new composer in residence, Don Macdonald, will share the world premiere of “Boundless and Infinite”. “I wanted to create a mood that allowed for hope and a sense of community,” Macdonald says. “This I did by writing poetry that reflected on the spirit of my father who passed away in September of 2020. "
A multiple Canadian Film Awards nominee and three-time Leo Award winner, Macdonald has more than 50 film music credits to his name and has worked with major studios such as 20th Century Fox and Lions Gate Films. He has also composed for theatre and dance. Active as a choral singer since a very young age, he’s based in Nelson, where he teaches at the Selkirk College Contemporary Music and Technology Program.
“He has more or less written a brand-new hymn,” Lichte says. “He knocked it out of the park.
“The audience is not just a witness but a participant in the message of this day,” he adds. “It’s scored for trumpet and organ, so it will also allow folks to hear the brand-new pipe organ. It’s very personal but it’s also very universal. It’s inclusive of all. It’s fresh it’s new and it reflects who we are right who we’re trying to be.”
Chor Leoni will also perform Swedish composer Henrik Dahlgren’s “Son to Mother”, a piece commissioned by the Svanholm Singers in 2017 for inclusion in a concert marking 70 years since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Dahlgren came across a poem by Maya Angelou, but he felt overwhelmed by the power of her words, so he began building the piece on silence.
Finally, a long-time audience favourite, Eric Bogle’s “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, arranged by Macdonald, appears on the program, as it has almost every year since the choir has held its Remembrance Day concert. Macdonald, who was a founding member of the choir’s second tenor section, can be heard singing the solo on Chor Leoni’s very first CD.
For more information, see Chor Leoni.
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