Cantilon Choirs appeal to the heart

While many teens go for the glitzy bling of Christmas, Alyssa Kraus, 16, can’t wait to immerse herself in the spiritual wonder, mystery and radiance of the Christmas season.

The Grade 11 Bellerose student will be one of 180 voices from the Cantilon Choirs singing sacred songs and traditional carols at the Winspear Centre on Sunday, Dec. 11.

“It’s such a great experience. I have managed to appreciate so many different languages and cultures. These are people so dear to me they are like family. In singing with them, I’ve learned discipline and understanding, and there’s this joy of learning great music,” says Kraus now in her 11th year at Cantilon.

Under the guiding hand of artistic director Heather Johnson, a former St. Albert resident, Cantilon started as one local choir of enthusiastic teens in 1999. It has since expanded to five choirs with an international reputation.

Assisting Johnson is St. Albert’s own Amy Bautista who has taken the Cantilon KinderSingers under her wing.

Kraus, now part of the Cantilon Chamber Choir, sings one of the concert centrepieces, Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. It is a composition of 12 works borrowing a Latin text and usually performed by a treble choir of unchanged voices.

Each vignette is a masterpiece with a 12th and 14th century flavour that varies from welcoming the baby Jesus and celebrating the beauty and purity of the virgin birth to a more war-like segment of the Christ child battling the forces of hell.

“Musically they vary from the quietest to the most glorious sound,” says Kraus of the striking rhythmic and melodic composition.

Accompanying the singers is the Strathcona String Quartet and the orchestral harp of Keri Lynn Zwicker.

“One of the things that’s really neat is that 15 years ago, she played the Ceremony of Carols with us. It was the first time she played with the choirs and it’s come full circle,” Johnson says.

The candlelight processional, a Cantilon staple held in the darkened concert hall, returns telling the Christmas story in all its glory.

“It’s just so beautiful with all the children coming out of different levels of the Winspear,” adds Johnson.

Additional showcase pieces include Mark Sirett’s The Stars Point the Way commissioned by Cantilon in 2009, and traditional carols along the vein of Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard on High and Do You Hear What I Hear.

“It’s truly going to be a couple of hours of peace and relaxation in a hectic week. There’s something very beautiful about children’s voices at Christmas that makes it very special and real.”