Sinfonia Family Christmas

Announcing…

The Music of the Carpenters

Saturday December 20, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Centennial Theatre, North Vancouver
Tickets $35/$30 (seniors)/$15 (students) at 604-984-4484

Featuring
Sinfonia, Orchestra of the North Shore
Monique Creber, vocalist
With
The Michael Creber Band
Mulgrave Community Choir
The CM Singers

Sinfonia, Orchestra of the North Shore, is pleased to announce its annual family Christmas concert, which will feature both traditional hymns and carols (including audience sing-alongs!) and selections from two of the most beloved Christmas albums of all time – The Carpenters’ Christmas Portrait and An Old-Fashioned Christmas. Under the direction of Maestro Clyde Mitchell, Sinfonia will be joined by vocalist Monique Creber and the four-piece Michael Creber Band (Michael Creber on piano, David Sinclair on guitar, Brian Newcombe on bass and Phil Robertson on drums) for an evening of heartwarming holiday classics.

“These have been my favourite Christmas albums for years,” says Monique Creber, whose own singing voice has been described as “eerily similar” (The Province) and “remarkably close in tone” (CBC Radio) to that of the late, great Karen Carpenter. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to perform Richard Carpenter’s beautiful arrangements as he originally wrote them, with orchestral accompaniment.” Backing vocals will be contributed by Joani Bye, Janet Warren, Gord Maxwell and Sean Hosein, with the Mulgrave Community Choir and The CM Singers.

Sinfonia is a professional chamber orchestra based on Vancouver’s North Shore, employing 25 to 40 musicians and performing the greatest works from the Baroque and Classical eras to the present. Founding Music Director Clyde Mitchell is a former Resident Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and is sought after across North America as a conductor, adjudicator and speaker.

Laudate Singers: MYSTERIUM

Laudate Singers proudly present

A Winter Concert By Candlelight

Saturday December 13, 2008 at 8 pm
St. Andrew’s United Church, North Vancouver
and
Friday December 19, 2008 at 8 pm
St. David’s United Church, West Vancouver

Tickets $25/$20 (students/seniors)/Free (age 17 & under)
Call 604-222-3158 or buy online at www.laudatesingers.com

In their annual winter concert, Laudate Singers and artistic director Lars Kaario will explore the beauty and mystery of the season through different settings of O Magnum Mysterium, an ancient liturgical text traditionally sung during Matins on Christmas Day. By shimmering candlelight, the North Shore’s premier chamber choir will perform interpretations of this medieval chant by composers from all over the world, spanning several centuries. Audiences will hear O Magnum Mysterium as put to music by the Spaniard Tomas Luis de Victoria (c.1548-1611), the Venetian Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612), the Englishman William Byrd (1539-1623), the Frenchman Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) and the American Morten Lauridsen (b.1943), as well as the world premiere of a brand new setting by award-winning Vancouver composer Bruce Sled, offering a contemporary Canadian perspective on the text.

The evening will also include Today the Virgin and a setting of William Blake’s The Lamb by John Tavener (b. 1944), Hodie Christus natus est by Miklós Csemiczky (b.1954), motets by Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (1839-1901), and such beloved seasonal classics such as Anton Bruckner’s Ave Maria, the classic Es ist ein Ros entsprungen by Praetorius, Joseph lieber, Joseph mein by Johann Walther and Puer natus in Bethlehem by Samuel Scheidt.  With Mysterium, Laudate Singers once again create a warm, luminous oasis amid the grey days of winter, spiriting audiences away on a transcendent musical journey.

Also, don’t miss Laudate Singers’ annual Free Family Christmas Concert at St. Andrew’s United Church on December 14th at 3 pm – a rollicking community event that has also become a North Shore holiday tradition.

VICO: Imagined Worlds

The Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra proudly presents

IMAGINED WORLDS: PAST & FUTURES UNVEILED

Sunday November 23, 2008 at 8 pm
UBC School of Music Recital Hall (6361 Memorial Road)
Tickets $20 General, $10 Students/Seniors/VICO Members/Groups of 10+
To purchase tickets call 604.739.8047, e-mail info@vi-co.org, or visit www.vi-co.org

In its first major concert of the season, the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra proudly presents the world premiere of a pioneering inter-cultural work by renowned composer/ethnomusicologist Elliot Weisgarber (1919-2001).  Songs of a Thousand Autumns, a choral piece based on classical texts from the 8th century Manyoshu Anthology of the Imperial Court of Japan, and sung in Japanese, was commissioned in 1984 but has never yet been performed in its entirety. The VICO and guest choir Laudate Singers will present the piece in a new arrangement by Mark Armanini, as the centrepiece of an exciting programme that also includes “The Inner Light” (by another pioneer of inter-cultural music: George Harrison of Beatles fame), the world premiere of Habitaculum – Dwelling Place, a new commission for choir and inter-cultural orchestra by Vancouver composer Larry Nickel, and Nasime Shiraaz (from Dreams of the Wanderer) by Moshe Denburg, featuring astounding Iranian tenor Amir Haghighi.

Imagined Worlds: Past & Futures Unveiled offers Vancouver audiences a rare opportunity to learn about the roots of inter-cultural music in BC, and to witness the potential it holds for the future.
The musical programme will be accompanied by a photographic exhibit by Laurie Gish entitled A Living Heritage: the Composers’ Community. The collection, curated by Mark Armanini, includes portraits of pioneering BC composers such as Harry, Frances and Murray Adaskin, Barbara Pentland, Jean Coulthard, Elliot Weisgarber and more. A Living Heritage will be shown alongside recent photographs of VICO performers and musicians by Alistair Eagle and others… images that reveal the people behind the scores and instruments, and tell compelling stories of artistic innovation, documenting the talent and diversity of BC’s leading musicians across several generations.

The VICO is currently the only professional orchestral ensemble in BC (possibly in Canada) devoted to performing inter-cultural music on a grand scale… shedding light on the musical traditions of Canada’s many cultures and the myriad bridges between them.

“Music that sounds like Vancouver looks”
– The Georgia Straight

In the VICO, Western-trained orchestral musicians rub shoulders with performers in musical traditions from all over the world…and fertile ground is created for cross-cultural teamwork between classical, jazz and world music artists. For more information on the ensemble and its upcoming events, please visit www.vi-co.org.

Main Street Theatre: GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS

Main Street Theatre Equity Co-op presents

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS
By David Mamet

Directed by Stephen Malloy
Featuring Ryan Beil, Ian Butcher, Bill Dow, Josh Drebit,
Alex Ferguson, Patrick Keating, Daryl King, Michael P. Northey

November 19-29, 2008 at 8:00 pm (No show Nov. 24)
Little Mountain Studio
196 East 26th Ave. at Main St.
Admission: Pay What You Can ($12 suggested)
Info: 604.992.2313

Stephen Malloy directs a dynamite ensemble cast in David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play about fast-talking real estate salesmen and the lengths to which they will go to make a deal. Ryan Beil, Ian Butcher, Bill Dow, Josh Drebit, Alex Ferguson, Patrick Keating, Daryl King and Michael P. Northey will make Mamet’s rapid-fire dialogue ricochet off the walls of Little Mountain Studio, a small art gallery converted into an intimate performance space. Sparks will fly!

Like so many other creative and ambitious endeavours, this production of Glengarry Glen Ross came about over pints of beer. “We were talking about how we’d love to see more of the contemporary classics – Mamet, Stoppard, O’Neill, Simon, Coward, Albee and others – produced in Vancouver,” says King, who is producing the show with Beil and Drebit. “Nine times out of ten, the ideas that come out of conversations like this remain in the bar with the empty pint glasses. But this time, we decided to forge ahead. We settled on Glengarry Glen Ross because of the power of the writing, the comment it makes on modern business practices, and the strong ensemble feel of the show.” Respected Vancouver actor Bill Dow agreed to join the cast in the pivotal role of Levene, and everything seemed to fall into place with remarkable ease after that.  The result: an explosive evening of theatre in an intimate, unconventional venue…and a rare Vancouver mounting of a modern classic.

Bill Dow (Levene) and Josh Drebit (Williamson); photo by Mike Fly