Elektra Women's Choir celebrates the beauty and power of music sung by sopranos and altos
Two concerts by three ensembles cap off the annual Tapestry International Celebration of Women's Choirs
Elektra Women’s Choir. Photo by Wendy D. Photography
Elektra Women’s Choir presents the Choral Threads Concert (free) on May 5 at 7:30 pm at Pacific Spirit United Church and the Celebration Concert (ticketed) on May 6 at 7:30 pm at Christ Church Cathedral as part of Tapestry International Celebration of Women's Choirs
WHEN ELEKTRA WOMEN’S CHOIR joins forces with The Women’s Chorus of Dallas and Seattle’s Mirinesse Women’s Choir in concert this weekend, things will culminate in a total of 120 female voices rising together in exquisite harmony.
The concerts cap off the Tapestry International Celebration of Women's Choirs, which Elektra has been hosting since 2009. The purpose is to bring together accomplished adult women’s choirs in person over several days of singing.
“It is a thrill to bring this level of choral musicianship together,” Elektra artistic director Morna Edmundson shares with Stir. “In the Choral Threads concert, we meet each of our guest choirs in solo sets. “For the Celebration Concert, the audience is treated to works sung by all of us together, selected and rehearsed by each conductor and representative of their own choral culture.”
Edmundson is connected to hundreds of women's choirs around the world, and Elektra puts the word out for applications from choirs that would like to join the ensemble for the annual event. She looks for skill and diversity to create each festival’s mix of three or four choirs. The vocalists and audiences alike experience the different approaches and sounds that each ensemble brings.
“We will be gathering around repertoire from their worlds that the conductors are really excited to introduce to new singers and listeners,” Edmundson says.
For instance, Rebecca Rottsolk, artistic director of The Women’s Chorus of Dallas, is conducting a 2022 work by Rosephanye Powell, one of America’s premiere women composers of solo vocal and choral music. To Sit and Dream is based on a poem by Langston Hughes. Edmundson is conducting Beth Hanson's beautiful arrangement of Jane Siberry's song “The Valley”. “Truly a Canadian treasure,” Edmundson says of the work. Bringing things to a close is Melinda Imthurn conducting Mirinesse Women’s Choir in a piece with string quartet called Controlled Burn by multi-talented American rapper Dessa created in collaboration with well-known American choral composer Jocelyn Hagen.
The Women’s Chorus of Dallas.
The Women's Chorus of Dallas, established in 1989, was a pioneer in the women's choir movement's early days. Once the only chorus in Texas predominantly comprised of gay women, TWCD is proud of its diverse and welcoming membership for all women, regardless of age, race, or sexual identity.
Mirinesse Women’s Choir, meanwhile, was co-founded in 2006 by Rottsolk and Beth Ann Bonnecroy and is now under Rottsolk's sole direction. “It has thrilled audiences in Seattle and around Northwest Washington with the beautiful sound of healthy, classically trained adult women’s voices singing challenging and diverse repertoire from historic and contemporary sources throughout the world,” Edmundson says.
Mirinesse Women’s Choir,
The May 6 Choral Threads concerts features sets by each choir in music by Kim Andre Arnesen, Carmen Braden, Alex Eddington, Katerina Gimon, Jocelyn Hagen, Laura Hawley, Craig Hella Johnson, Nicholas Ryan Kelly, Don Macdonald, Rosephanye Powell, Sarah Quartel, Marie-Claire Saindon, and Stephen Smith.
The culmination of the choirs’ days together is the Celebration Concert on May 6. On the program is music by T. Patrick Carrabré, Dessa and Jocelyn Hagen, Edvard Grieg, Susan LaBarr, Alexandra Olsavsky, Rosephanye Powell, Jake Runestad, Marie-Claire Saindon, Jane Siberry (as mentioned above, arranged by Beth Hanson), and Stephen Smith.
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