Grateful chorus

Winnipeg’s choral groups will sing “Hallelujah” this month after three years of silent nights.

Groups such as the Winnipeg Singers, the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir, the Winnipeg Boys Choir and others across the city have been silenced by the COVID-19 pandemic since their last Christmas performances in the winter of 2019.

The hush ends Sunday afternoon at the Crescent Arts Centre (525 Wardlaw Ave.) when the Winnipeg Singers present Lessons and Carols: A Canadian Christmas, which includes new choral works by Canadian composers such as Andrew Balfour, Mark Sirett, Steven Chatman and Dan Wiebe, as well as narrated essays by Gimli music researcher Muriel Smith that will link the story of Jesus Christ’s birth with contemporary issues such as diversity and equality.

The Singers got a jump on the season a week ago when they performed Lessons and Carols in Kelowna, B.C. They found they were as missed by a sold-out audience yearning to hear their voices as they were excited about being onstage again.

“Going to Kelowna and being able to sing, it makes you realize how much you’ve been missing it,” says Pat Wray, the Winnipeg Singers’ executive director and an alto vocalist in the group.

“The biggest impression you get is that a lot of it is precious, precise and beautiful music… It really shows off the singers, in what we probably do best, unaccompanied, beautiful blends. It’ll definitely get people in the Christmas spirit.”

Yuri Klaz, who has been the Winnipeg Singers’ artistic director and conductor since 2003, is looking forward to performing the new works, as well as some classic carols, before a hometown crowd again.

“This is my life and my occupation for 45 years — I started my first concert when I was 16 years old; it’s hard to believe, but it’s true — and we’re finally getting back to regular performances and it’s absolutely exciting to get back on stage.”

It will be the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir’s turn to sing and celebrate on Dec. 11 at the St. Boniface Cathedral (180 Ave. de la Cathedrale). Their two performances of Christmas carols will also mark the choir’s 100th anniversary.

It debuted Dec. 11, 1922, and a century later, the philharmonic, led by Klaz, who has served as its conductor since 2000, will welcome members of its alumni and the Winnipeg Boys Choir to join in the celebration, with about 100 singers uniting to provide comfort and joy, highlighted by a performance of the Hallelujah Chorus.

“It’s my 23rd season with the Winnipeg Philharmonic, almost a quarter of the history of the choir. I can’t imagine it,” Klaz says.

While many arts groups have celebrated a return to performing in 2022, choral groups such as the Winnipeg Singers, the philharmonic choir and the Canzona choir, which will team up with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra on a performance of Handel’s Messiah on Dec. 17 at the Centennial Concert Hall, have been hardest hit, owing to the way COVID-19 is transmitted through the air we breathe.

Singing was one of the first activities public-health officials ruled out in 2020, especially after two rehearsals by a choir in Seattle in March 2020 — the second attended by 61 people — led to two deaths and 53 choir members falling ill.

“It’s not an easy time, because some choirs still sing wearing masks, and certainly, it’s a very heroic effort to sing in masks. Masks help, and masks don’t,” Klaz says. “Choral singing was the first to shut down and we’re the last to come back.”

The Winnipeg Singers have rehearsed in masks, wear them backstage and try to stay physically distant, but most of them performed without masks in Kelowna.

Sunday’s concert will be without an intermission to keep audience members from milling together.

“I think it’s going to affect choirs’ work for quite a while,” Wray says. “We’re living under the fear that everyone’s going to get sick and you’re going to be the last one in your section left.”

Ticket sales for concerts, plays and other live performances haven’t been as strong in 2022 when compared with shows prior to the pandemic, but Wray says the Singers’ Sunday show holds promise for 2023 and beyond.

“We’re doing more and more ticket sales online and I’ve seen a lot of tickets sold on our website,” she says, adding an online recording of the concert will go on sale at winnipegsingers.com about a week after Sunday’s show.

“Winnipeg’s a pretty much walk-up-and-buy-at-the-door crowd so we don’t usually pre-sell that kind of numbers.”

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Twitter: @AlanDSmall

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Alan Small
Reporter

Alan Small has been a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the latest being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.

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