The Upper Canada Choristers and conductor Laurie Evan Fraser set the perfect tone for the holiday season with a concert titled Christmas Cheer, Friday. December 7, 8 p.m. at Grace Church on-the-Hill, 300 Lonsdale Road (Spadina-St. Clair area).
Tickets are $25, children and teens free when accompanied by an adult. Tickets can be reserved by calling 416-256-0510 or emailing info@uppercanadachoristers.org. More info will be posted at http://uppercanadachoristers.org. Patrons are invited to bring a non-perishable item for the Daily Bread Food Bank.
The program will offer holiday favorites and less familiar repertoire – among them Hodie Christus Natus Est from Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, and a set of Christmas selections by John Rutter, including his delightful musical fable Brother Heinrich’s Christmas, with narrator Valerie Abels; bassoonist Christian Sharpe and pianist Hye Won Cecilia Lee.
The 40-member mixed choir also takes its audience on Craig Courtney’s captivating Musicological Journey Through the Twelve Days of Christmas, with each verse reflecting a different musical period of western classical music.
Cantemos, the choir’s accomplished Latin ensemble, will deliver baroque Latin American repertoire with bassoon continuo – Convidando este la noche by Mexican composer Juan Garcia de Zespedes (ca 1619-1678), and A este sol peregrino by Tomas Torrejon y Velasco (1644-1728) from Cuzco, Peru.
Cantemos and the main choir wrap up their Christmas presence with a rousing a cappella version of We Wish you a Merry Christmas, arranged by Arthur Warrell.