Whitehorse Community Choir is presenting “Believe in The Sun,” featuring the Chamber Choir and the Persephones on March 2 at Christ Church Cathedral
Typically, the Whitehorse Community Choir performances mainly feature their Big Choir ensemble, with fewer selections sung by the a cappella Chamber Choir, the bass and tenor choir (The Neptunes) and the treble choir (The Persephones). Under leadership from C.D. Saint, the Chamber Choir singers will be stepping out of their comfort zones this spring with a special concert, titled “Believe in the Sun,” in which they will serve as the main performers, along with The Persephones and accompanist Cheryl Wishart.
“Preparations are going really well,” said Saint. “The singers are putting in a lot of work, and one thing I realized is that we’re stretching ourselves; the Chamber Choir usually just does a short set in the spring and christmas concerts, and this time we’re doing the bulk of the concert ourselves.”
In addition to covering more repertoire, Saint mentioned that the Chamber Choir has also had less time to prepare than they typically would for a concert, with “Believe in the Sun” coming only a few months after the Whitehorse Community Choir’s Christmas concert. For this concert, it will be The Persephones doing a shorter set as part of the evening.
“The singers seemed up for it, so that’s really cool,” said Saint, going on to say that it was the singers who first brought forward the idea of doing a longer concert of their own. “There was just some feedback from singers that they wanted to do more. They wanted to take on more and have more opportunities to share with an audience what they love to do.”
Saint was happy to oblige the requests of his singers but admits that they didn’t exactly know what they were getting themselves into, but he cherishes the opportunity to work with the singers who are driven to put in their maximum effort to make this happen.
When the ball got rolling on programming this concert, a few ideas for themes were floating around, according to Saint. He also took the opportunity to ask the singers if there was specific pieces they wanted to take on and he was put onto some work he didn’t know or hadn’t thought about before.
“A number of the pieces they identified as ones they wanted to do (that made it into the program), I noticed had a theme of light,” Saint said. “You know how long it stays dark here, even when it’s changing quickly. It’s still dark, and it still feels dark in March.”
As Saint built the programming, he started to look for other music that could fit into the theme of light, contextualizing it as signs of winter ending and the Yukon moving into springtime. The Whitehorse Community Choir concerts always start at 7:30 p.m. and on March 2, the sun sets at 7:31 p.m.
“It just seemed too good to pass up with all these little connections.”
“Believe in the Sun” takes place on March 2 at Christ Church Cathedral on 4th Avenue and Elliot Street, featuring the Whitehorse Chamber Choir, with a performance by The Persephones and accompanist Cheryl Wishart. Directors are C.D. Saint and Barbara Chamberlin. Tickets are available on Eventbrite. The Whitehorse Community Choir will also be performing with all four choirs May 3 and 4, which will be Chamberlin’s last events with the singing collective. Visit whitehorsechoir.org to stay up to date.
