Salt Spring Singers have a special Christmas treat ready for island audiences when they open the doors at All Saints by-the-Sea church next weekend.
Gloria Gloria – From Vivaldi to Brubeck runs at the church on Park Drive on Friday, Dec. 13 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 14 at 2:30 p.m.
“The program revolves around the word ‘gloria,’ which is part of the first message of Christmas from the angelic forces above talking to shepherds below,” explained choir director Don Conley.
Selections from Vivaldi’s beautiful Gloria masterpiece are featured in the concert’s first half, with special guest Cicela Månsson singing the Domine Deus soprano solo in that piece and Deb Smith and Connie Holmes singing the Laudamus Te. Works from contemporary composers Morten Lauridsen and Ola Gjeilo are also in the first half, along with a 16th-century Spanish carol.
Conley said a very special concert selection is “one of the earliest chants of Christmas that goes back to Gregorian chant, which is really quite ancient, that the tenors and basses are going to sing, called Puer Natus Est, and they’re doing such a beautiful job with it.”
Conley has been teaching the group singing techniques from the monks of Solesmes Abbey, which is a place where Conley has spent time.
“They were the ones instrumental in reviving the chant in the mid-1800s and are still considered experts in Gregorian chant.”
The second half will open with gusto thanks to A Christmas Fanfare by Ron Nelson, with guest brass players Simon Millerd, Earl Rook, Marc Sira, John Whitelaw and Jim Raddysh. Instrumentalists Jim Schultz on guitar and choir member John Moore playing tenor sax will also perform in the concert.
Other second-half pieces include Vince Guaraldi’s Christmas Time is Here — the theme from A Charlie Brown Christmas; Charles Ives’ A Christmas Carol; and an Appalachian carol called As Joseph Was a Walking arranged by James Fankhauser and featuring soloist Jean Brouard.
The Gloria theme returns with jazz icon Dave Brubeck’s Christmas cantata called La Fiesta de la Posada, and other familiar seasonal songs will also be shared.
Concert tickets are available through ArtSpring online or at the box office, or at All Saints before the show, if available.