Viva Voce Choir, fresh from their award-winning performance at the Victoria Arts Festival, presents their spring concert, Our Spirits Sing. Led by Choral Director Debbi Toole with accompanist Chris Kodaly, the choir will be joined by the Viva Voce Youth Choir in a program celebrating the joy and uplifting of the human spirit.
From a 13th Century wedding song from the Georgian Republic, to Scarlatti’s Exultate Deo, thru Oscar Peterson’s Hymn to Freedom, the choir explores the timelessness of joy. The beauty of Morten Lauridsen’s Sure on this Shining Night and Josef Rheinberger’s Abendlied will expand on this theme and showcase the choir’s growth in ensemble work.
At the other end of the musical spectrum is an edgy jazz version of Lennon & McCartney’s Blackbird, and the gospel style Ain’a That Good News will surely have toes a-tapping.
The VV Youth will feature excerpts from Schubert’s An die Musik, Mozart’s Laudanus Te, and a collection of various folk songs before joining the senior choir for the finale.
Joining the choir on stage is violinist Carolyn Hatch, providing accompaniment on i carry your heart with me, based on a beautiful and emotional poem by E.E. Cummings set to music by Z. Randall Stroppe.