The Whitehorse Community Choir will be hosting their annual Christmas concert Dec. 1 and 2 at the Yukon Arts Centre
The leadup to the holidays is always a busy time for the Whitehorse Community Choir. With their annual Christmas concert around the corner, conductors Barbara Chamberlain and C.D. Saint, as well as their accompanists and singers, have a lot on their plates. Thankfully, we were able to get this year’s What’s Up Yukon interviews done ahead of time, before the real crunch.
“It always takes lots of work and organization to get all of this done and where it should be,” said Chamberlain. “It’s going well. The notes are still being learned, but they’re almost there.”
This year’s Christmas concert, called Christmas Through Time, features a mix of old to modern Christmas music performed by the Whitehorse Community Choir and smaller groups—the Persephones, the Neptunes and the Chamber Choir—with accompanists Barry Kitchen and Cheryl Wishart. This year’s concerts will also feature Meta Epstein on harp, Jerome McIntyre on bodhran and percussion, Lee Covin on bagpipe, and Katie Avery on violin.
Many of this year’s selections are from Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, which Britten wrote on a ship in 1942. Two segments will be performed by the large choir; and three more by the women’s choir, the Persephones. With Epstein lending her harp skills to the choir, it seemed a shoe-in choice for a concert based on the idea of Christmas through time.
“They’re very famous pieces in the choir world, and they’re famous because they have harp,” Chamberlain explained. “They were actually written for children, but they’re not easy pieces, so women’s choirs have taken over.”
Incorporating a bagpipe can bring up challenges for the singers, and Chamberlain has to be strategic with the placement of the bagpipe player, given that the instrument is so loud.
“When you have a full-sized bagpipe, you have to put the bagpipe behind the curtains in the back, in order for them to be able to sing over it, because they’re really loud,” said Chamberlain. “But the person I got to do it this year, Lee, plays a smaller one, so we’ll find out. I don’t know exactly how loud it is. Maybe we’ll have to place him to the side and back a little bit, but we’ll see.”
One thing Chamberlain wanted to make sure that this year’s show had was lots of variety. By choosing pieces that take audiences back centuries or decades, and by mixing them with modern works, there’s no shortage of potential for variety without straying from the theme.
“You can go see art in a museum, but with music, the museum is brought to you. You can hear something composed in the 1600s, right in front of your face,” said Chamberlain. “Music Through Time has always been different from the other arts in that it’s very hands-on; it’s not something you put on a wall and look at. It’s something that is sung for you, composed 400 years ago, and we take it for granted that this ought to exist.”
Big changes are coming for the choir, as this will be Chamberlain’s last Christmas concert with the group. After taking a sabbatical last year, the conductor rediscovered her passion for performing and decided she is ready to move on to other opportunities after this coming spring.
“It will be bittersweet, always,” she said. “But really, it’s time to move on and do something else. I’m not getting younger.”
Chamberlain is grateful to work alongside Saint, who is leading the Chamber Choir. This will be Saint’s second concert conducting his group of singers.
“It’s a little different for me because often, with the Chamber Choir, instead of having a conductor out front, I sing with the choir,” Saint said. “We figure out how we’ll move through the songs as a choir, together.”
Saint is happy to help Chamberlain work towards her semi-retirement, and though the idea of stepping into more of a leadership role can be daunting, he is up for the challenge. Though Saint and Chamberlain have different approaches, they both find each other’s leadership skills inspiring. Saint’s Chamber Choir will be performing four selections for “Christmas Through Time”: two being Christmas songs and two leaning more on the secular side, as Saint notes that the holidays are not just Christmas for everyone.
“Some of the music is a little more challenging, and the singers wanted to be challenged in a way that’s different from how the big choir works,” he explained. “Often our stuff goes into eight parts, rather than four, and that’s where we’re working from, to build that sense of independence in [the] community. We’re all trying to do something that we can’t do alone. It really is an expression of community.”
A relative newcomer to the territory, Saint has been living in the Yukon for four years but has found a home in the vibrant arts community. He is excited for his future with the choir and the possibility of taking things in new directions.
“It offers an opportunity for renewal and reconsideration of who we are and what role we play in the community,” he said. “Barb has had a good vision of that.”
Christmas Through Time takes place December 1 and 2 at the Yukon Arts Centre. To keep up with the Whitehorse Community Choir, visit whitehorsechoir.org.
