Choir ends season on a high note

Since its debut in 1981, Greenwood Singers has aspired to offer a repertoire that spans the ages from Renaissance to Broadway.

In its season closer, the 40-member choir delivers a lighthearted spring-like concert in All Things English this coming Friday at All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral.

“My parents immigrated here after the war from England and through them I learned the rich traditions of English choral music,” says Greenwood’s founder and music director Robert de Frece.

This concert’s musical odyssey takes the listener from the sacred music of Elizabethan and modern eras to a series of flower songs and children’s rhymes. The program finishes with several Cole Porter selections from Kiss Me Kate.

Linda Gibson from St. Albert and Laura Rankin from Morinville are also vocalists in the choir. Accompanying the choir are pianist Helen Stuart and organist Jeremy Spurgeon.

The concert opens with a set of three songs – two of Orlando Gibbons’ works, Hosanna to the Son of David and O Clap Your Hands as bookends to William Byrd’s Ave Verum Corps.

“I’ve always loved the two Gibbons,” de Frece said. “They’re both bright and exultant, and we needed something more sedate in the middle. Ave Verum has a wonderful stillness in the middle.”

Following is Te Deum, a part of the Anglican church service, a work with exciting angular chords. Soprano Susan Henzi sings a solo in this lush song of praise.

Following is one of de Frece’s favourite composers: Benjamin Britten, whose Five Flower Songs is a fun composition in five movements that makes de Frece think of spring.

“It was written for the 25th wedding anniversary of a couple and they were gardeners,” explained de Frece.

In Three Elizabethan Part Songs, the words are borrowed from William Shakespeare and George Hebert with Ralph Vaughn Williams arranging the music.

“They have beautiful melodies, lovely harmonies. Vaughn Williams always had a gift for taking words and music and making them fit. He had a real sense of how music and melody fit together.”

Five Childhood Lyrics that include The Owl and The Pussy Cat and Sing a Song of Sixpence are sure to bring back youthful memories locked in time.

And the program closes with a series of up-tempo selections from Kiss Me Kate.

“Because the melodies are so beautiful, we have enjoyed learning them,” de Frece said. “In Kiss Me Kate, there’s a real passion or light-hearted humour with witty lyrics. The melody stays with you and it’s so hummable.”