Chor Leoni projects peace in 2022 Remembrance Day concert, We Sang Our Songs
Vancouver’s revered 65-member male choir aims to offer solace in unsettling times
Chor Leoni, We Sang Our Songs. Photo by David Cooper
Chor Leoni presents We Sang Our Songs at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church on November 10 at 7:30 pm and November 11 at 2 pm and 5 pm
THE TEXT IN “Close To Home”, a piece that Swedish composer Emil Fredberg wrote for the Svanholm Singers in 2017, is an excerpt from Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous 1948 speech, delivered in Paris, called The Struggle For Human Rights. Among her points were the need for individuals to act on principles of respect and dignity and how we can only move forward as a collective once people integrate those values into their day-to-day lives.
The composition struck a chord with Erick Lichte, artistic director of Chor Leoni, who’s about to lead Vancouver’s 65-member male choir in its 31st annual Remembrance Day concert, called We Sang Our Songs. In a phone interview with with Stir, he recalls the impact the piece has had on him, listening to it against the backdrop of so much terrible recent news, from the murder of George Floyd and Canada’s reckoning over residential schools to COVID lockdowns and the war in Ukraine. In compiling the program for the upcoming concert, Lichte was contemplating how, while it would be understandable for anyone to feel helpless and overwhelmed by the enormity of it all, there’s comfort in knowing that people can help make the world a better place in their own small ways every day.
“We are at a place where human rights are at the forefront,” Lichte says. “Eleanor Roosevelt talked about the idea of ‘Where do human rights actually begin?’ They begin close to home—the places where we work, live, and go to school, the smaller parts of our community; that’s where people are actually treated. That speech is nearly 80 years old, but it really resonated with me.
“One tack I take to programming is that a concert is really about connections,” he says. “Here it’s about how these worlds of equality and diversity and human rights are interconnected with the idea of peace. Our Remembrance Day concert is a chance, every year, where we can take some time to look at the horrors of war, contemplate the ideas of peace, and make a small difference here in our neck of the woods in Vancouver.”
Erick Lichte.
“Close to Home” is among several pieces that make up We Sang Our Songs, which also features Rupert Lang’s “THE KONTAKION”. Originally commissioned for Chor Leoni in 1997, it has been a staple of the ensemble’s annual Remembrance Day concerts ever since; tenor soloist Bruce Hoffman has performed it for the last 25 years.
We Sang Our Songs includes the world premiere of “So Close” by Portland composer Stacey Philipps; “After the Last” by Chor Leoni composer in residence Don Macdonald; a piece by William Grant Still, the “dean of Afro-American composers”, set to a text by Verna Arvey about the Civil Rights movement; and a single movement by Brian Crouch that sets a poem written by Iraq War veteran Brian Turner, among other works. The ensemble will also perform Mykola Lysenko’s “Molytva Za Ukrainu” (“Prayer for Ukraine”); it’s the song that Saturday Night Live opened with just days after Russia’s invasion, performed by Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York.
Joining the choir are pianist Tina Chang (on St. Andrew’s-Wesley United’s new Steinway Model D piano); Jane Kim, who will play the newly restored Casavant organ; and trumpet player Katherine Evans.
Despite the sombreness of the event, Lichte promises uplift, with Chor Leoni finding itself at a unique place: “The choir is the best I’ve ever heard,” the conductor says. “It’s so extraordinary, after everything to do with the pandemic, to see that this is how we’ve landed is really exciting. There is a vibrancy of the tone and there’s also that human connection that’s happening very, very naturally from person to person.”
He adds that throughout the last two and a half years, the team has invested in private voice lessons for all of the singers with Jeanette Gallant. “All that work, that technique, is really taking hold,” Lichte says. “We’re all on the same page.”
While the concert won’t end any wars, Lichte is hopeful that it will bring a measure of peace.
“I think that whatever people may be grieving, they can bring that to these concerts and find a little bit of their own comfort,” Lichte says. “We can give people a little bit of solace, a little bit of hope,” he says. “That’s the part that each of us is called to do—give hope—and it matters.”
Chor Leoni is also offering Chor Leoni: Remembrance, a digital musical experience shot in 4K resolution for people to view at home. Available for free from November 10 to 20, it's accessible via RSVP, with the option to make a donation.
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