Pro Coro mixes modern, ancient sound

For the past few years, Pro Coro Chamber Choir set aside one concert each season to focus solely on the 12-voice men's choir.

This year an equal number of women join forces in Voices United on Sunday, Nov. 21 at McDougall United Church in Edmonton.

St. Albert's own Trent Worthington, Pro Coro's associate conductor, has also invited jazz musicians P.J. Perry (saxophone), just back from New York, Luis Tovar (hand percussion) from Calgary and Edmonton-based Mike Lent (bass).

“We are very fortunate to have P.J. with us. He's one of those talented musicians that can pick and choose where they want to work and he chose to play with us,” Worthington says.

Worthington is particularly pumped that this is the first time Pro Coro presents a jazz-based program. “In a sense, it allows P.J. to explore new frontiers and it opens doors for freedom of creativity.”

Worthington's concept for building the program was to meld the chant-like origins of choral music that later evolved to a polyphonic sound to today's contemporary music. “We crossed the point in the 20th century where modern styles relate to ancient music.”

In an attempt to create a fusion of ancient and modern, the male Pro Coro Choir starts off with a chant-based composition of Psalm 98 composed by CBC host Peter Togni, also a jazz player and composer. “It fits perfectly with the underlying chant. It takes us back to the Gregorian chants and overlays them with modern harmonies.”

While Gustav Holst's The Planets is a popular composition, few have heard of Six Choruses, a set that includes an Easter song, a prayer, a lullaby, a drinking tune and a love song.

The 12-voice female choir instead sings Canadian composer Imant Raminsh's Deux Chansons, a set Worthington first heard sung by Toronto's Oriana Women's Choir. “The audience will hear reflections back to a more romantic time, not ancient, but drawn back in history.”

And they will also tackle Voice of the 10th Muse, a work based on Greek poetry. Composer Patricia Van Ness has taken an ancient chant and set it harmonically in a way that is completely contemporary.

Once Perry and his cronies join the fracas, they will all perform a jazzy flavoured version of a William Byrd mass and Renaissance composer Cristobal de Morale's four-part hymn. “The choirs are responsible for the ancient voice. When we let P.J. loose on the ancient music, we don't know what's going to happen because it's going to be improvised.

“This performance will be so unique the audience won't have a similar experience to compare it with. That's what I'd like people to take away — a brand new experience of choral music.”