Kingston Choral Society presents "The Heart of Winter, A Choral Advent"

After a remarkable 25/26 season, the Kingston Choral Society returns on November 22 with more music that promises to engage and entertain. For the first concert of the season Artistic Director Ian Juby has selected a diverse program of music to celebrate the magic and mystery of Advent, spanning centuries, from Canada and around the world.
The program opens with Haydn’s wonderful Kleine Orgelmesse (“Little Organ Mass”), a 6-movement work scored for violin, cello, bass, organ, soprano and choir. The KCS is thrilled to welcome Canadian soprano Larissa Koniuk to perform the beautiful and virtuosic solo found in the Benedictus.
Next the audience will be treated to a lively and rarely performed Laudate Pueri by Mozart, a movement from his Vesperae de Dominica. The sopranos and altos will be featured in Elgar’s octavo The Snow, accompanied by piano and a lavish violin duet featuring Andrew Dicker and Peter Wowk. The choir performs a joyous and complex version of In Dulci Jubilo a 8 for double choir by Praetorius. Rachmaninoff’s rich and majestic choral music is not often performed in Kingston, and the choir is thrilled for the opportunity to share Bogoroditse Dyevo from the Vespers (our first time singing in Russian!) Also on the program, Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to the Virgin, & Gordon Lightfoot’s atmospheric Song for a Winter’s Night, in a warm and sentimenal a capella arrangement by Robin Salkeld. The performance ends with Elaine Hagenburg’s magnificent The Music of Stillness, inspired by the poetry of Sarah Teasdale: “There will be rest, and sure stars shining Over the roof-tops crowned with snow, A reign of rest, serene forgetting, The music of stillness holy and low.”
This performance will be approximately 90 minutes in length, with no intermission.