reviewvancouver,Christmas with Chor Leoni

Now in its thirty-fourth year, the Vancouver based, internationally renowned Chor Leoni is a sixty-plus member male choir who once again bring their seasonal concert to the St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church in downtown Vancouver. This year Chor Leoni presents its seasonal celebration of light and hope with a gallimaufry of traditional and modern Christmas Carols along with both spiritual and secular Christmas tunes.

Marie-Claire Saindon
Photo: chorleoni.org

The six concerts taking place on the winter solstice weekend provide a wonderful opportunity for Chor Leoni to create new memories for their audiences with some seasonal favourites performed in previous concerts and a couple of new works getting their first public outing.

The world premiere performances of Saina Khaledi’s My Beloved (Song for Yalda night) and Marie-Claire Saindon’s Jubilo are very different, yet in their own way, equally enjoyable. Ms. Khaledi informs the story behind her own composition and plays the intro on the santour - a traditional Persian instrument having around seventy strings on a wooden trapezoid shaped body. Ms. Saindon’s Jubilo features the incredible fiddle mastery of Cameron Wilson. The work is performed as a dance that interweaves other melodies such as the unmistakable “On Christmas day in the Morning.”

Erick Lichti
Photo: chorleoni.org

Earlier in the repertoire, conductor Erick Lichte introduced a pair of interesting adaptations of popular carols by contemporary artists. The first, Angels we have Heard on High is an appealing kind of hybrid arrangement by Ken Cormier of Detroit native Sufjan Stevens’ transcription that feature harp and violin. Cormier also has a hand arranging classically trained, singer-songwriter Tori Amos’ Star of Wonder.

British composer Gustav Holst’s In the Bleak Midwinter appears to be a popular staple with Chor Leoni. Arranged by Dan Forest and featuring Vivian Chen on the harp, the piece is perhaps less to do with Christmas, but rather about the quiet joy of winter.

Artistic Director Lichte for some reason chooses to conclude Chor Leoni’s regular programme with Leroy Anderson’s secular Sleigh Ride that was written principally as relief from a heat wave in the summer of 1947. Members of the audience were invited to join the choir on stage playing bells.
The choir concluded the evening by way of an encore that required delightful audience participation with the singing of Franz Gruber’s Silent Night.