Current Season

May 7 & 8, 2022: Dear Mother Earth
We will continue our “O Earth, Return” environmentally themed concert series with the premiere of our current joint NewWorks winners — Storm Birds by Maria Case and I Heard the Bird Cry by Kathryn Rose.  The program expands from this avian topic to the theme of creation in general. We feature Copland’s masterpiece, In the Beginning, with Jennifer Enns Modolo as soloist, and the brilliant The Passing of the Year by Jonathan Dove, with Catherine Robertson as pianist. 

The environmental focus will continue next season with the premiere of an exciting new work (commissioned by DaCapo and funded by Canada Council), Earthrise, by Nicholas Ryan Kelly (whom you may also hear on DaCapo’s latest NewWorks recording). Join with us for the continuing journey! 

Important concert notes:

• Only limited tickets are available for each performance!
• All tickets are pay-what-you can and MUST be reserved in advance. There will be NO tickets available at the door. Reservations close at midnight the night before each performance.
  • Tickets can be reserved online or by calling 519-725-7549
• May will be a full-length concert, with intermission
• Proof of vaccination is still mandatory and masks must be worn at all times inside the venue

Program:

Copland, Aaron ~ IN THE BEGINNING
with guest mezzo soprano Jennifer Enns Modolo

Rose, Kathryn ~ I HEARD THE BIRD CRY
NewWorks 2020 winning work; premiere

Enns, Leonard ~ AS ON WINGS

Case, Maria ~ STORM BIRDS
NewWorks 2020 winning work; premiere

Dove, Jonathan ~ THE PASSING OF THE YEAR
with guest pianist Catherine Robertson

Enns, Leonard ~ DEAR MOTHER EARTH

Ticheli, Frank ~ EARTH SONG

---

March 26 & 27, 2022: Be Like a Bird
with guest pianist, Catherine Robertson

Concert Program 

In March, we began what will be a multi-concert series on nature, “O Earth, Return,” as our response to increasing global environmental challenges. Birds and flight were part of the March program themes, along with the broader celebrations of nature. The program included Lauridsen’s wonderful Mid-Winter Songs with Catherine Robertson at the piano, and Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams, with its slightly tongue-in-cheek corrective message that though we try, we can never truly be like a bird.

November 13 & 14, 2021: Hear at Last

Concert program

This fall, we completed the Road to Refuge and introduced our Environmental theme for the year.  The November concert began with several reflective works, as we acknowledged ongoing global challenges and remembered the personal and general losses of the past two years. As an arrival point of the refugee theme, the program included the premiere of a moving new work, Far from Ourselves, by the emerging composer, Julia Jacklein; and in anticipation of our new environmental focus, we included The Searching Sings by the late path-breaking Murray Schafer. Our guest artist was cellist Miriam Stewart Kroeker, with whom we reprised a movement from Christine Donkin’s powerful Following the Moonroad, and also presented two new works, Breathe, and There are No Words, by Leonard Enns.