“It feels like we’re singing in a cathedral,” – this was the experience of Island Voices at a recent recording session at Shelter Point Distillery.
Because of the excellent quality of the acoustics, Island Voices Chamber Choir has chosen the distillery as the venue for the final concerts of their 20th anniversary season.
Distillations: The Spirit of Song continues to highlight the choir’s breadth and diversity, with music from a wide variety of historical periods and musical genres.
“I’m envisioning this concert as a feather in the cap of our 20th anniversary celebration season,” says musical director, Jenn Forsland. “Beautiful, artistic, playful, and celebratory. I’m particularly excited to sing in such a vibrant performance space.”
For these April 20/21 concerts most of the music is unaccompanied, allowing for the pure sounds of the voices to ring into the rafters and resonate off the stills.
Many choir and audience favourites are on the program – traditional music like Bruckner’s Locus Iste and Rachmaninoff’s Bogoroditsye Devo; folk music from Zimbabwe and the Torres Strait Islands. From Scotland, the touching Loch Lomond.
The choir has brought back two songs from its Shakespeare concert – the bewitching Double, Double, Toil and Trouble and the rousing Kate. More contemplative songs, such as How Can I Keep from Singing and Earth Song will touch hearts, and there are modern works as well -Shari Ulrich’s Changed Forever and Sting’s haunting Valparaiso.
Space in the venue is limited, so for the first time, Island Voices had added a Saturday matinee concert to the weekend, with performances at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 20 and on Saturday, April 21 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 (students free with an adult) and are available at The Music Plant (Campbell River), Blue Heron Books (Comox) and Benjamin Moore House of Colour (Courtenay). For more information call 250.203.0471 (Campbell River) or 250-898-4773 (Courtenay).
