Concordia Concert Choir

Director · Performance Overview · Performance & Tours · 2010 Spring Tour Schedule · Auditions & Registration
Repertoire · Recordings · The Art & Work of Choir · Reviews · Chamber Ensemble

The Concordia Concert Choir, under Dr. Joy Berg, is part of the academic program at Concordia University College of Alberta. This mixed choral ensemble is comprised of thirty to forty auditioned singers of university age from various disciplines and interests.  Included as part of the choir is a small chamber ensemble which commits itself to rehearsing and performing additional repertoire with the Concert Choir and independently.  Auditions and registration usually occurs in the fall, but on occasion happens in the spring or summer.

The choir regularly performs on campus for concerts, chapel services, and special events, as well as in the Edmonton area in local parishes for worship and concerts.  In addition, the Concert Choir has sung at professional music and education conferences as well as church-related conferences and gatherings, including the Alberta Music Conference, the Alberta Teachers' Association Conference, and the Lutheran Church–Canada national and regional conventions.  The choir represented Canada at EXPO2000 in Hannover, Germany. 

The choir also spends a significant amount of time on tour, singing in churches, schools or community venues.  The choir has sung in the Winspear Centre for Music in Edmonton, the Parliament Rotunda in Ottawa, the Chemanius Theatre on Vancouver Island, the William Glesby Performing Arts Centre in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, the Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts, and the St. Francis of Assisi Chapel at CFB Petawawa, among other places.  In addition to Canada-wide appearances, the choir has also performed in the United States, Germany, and Scandinavia. 

The literature of the choir includes a wide range of styles and genres that provide an opportunity for vocal growth, musical education, and spiritual nurturing for the choir. The focus has been on sacred a cappella music, from historical traditions to the present day. A variety of rhythmic, melodic, harmonic and timbral resources create interesting and diverse programs.  New works and compositions by Canadians are regularly included in the repertoire. The choir has embarked upon a series of recording projects and been featured on public broadcast. The choir's inaugural compact disc was released in 1996 and sold out.  "O Lord of Life," is a three-year compilation of a cappella selections. The latest CD, "3," highlights the choir's sounds of the new millennium, with themes of the three persons of the Trinity.  The choir has been heard on Choral Concert, Disk Drive, and Music for a While on CBC Radio Two, The Big Breakfast on Edmonton's A-channel, and The Lutheran Hour radio broadcast. The Concert Choir was also a featured choir on The Art & Work of Choir a three-part series on ACCESS-TV. 

Both performances and recordings have received positive reviews from audience members and professional music performers and critics. Cited as one of the "best university choirs in Canada" (Lunenburg, NS Bulletin and Progress Enterprise), the choir has presented concerts described as a "bona fide died-and-gone-to-heaven experience" (Kitchener-Waterloo Record). A choir of "world-class musical ability" (Angermünde (Germany) Uckermärker) presents "a masterful demonstration of virtuosity" with "an infectious happiness" (Verden (Germany) Stadt und Land). Composers have been "very impressed," noting their music was "beautifully sung and very touching" (Morris Kates, Ottawa). On recordings, "delicate moments of sensitive ensemble singing stand out" (Music Alberta Magazine). Recordings have been "a blessing to [radio] listeners" (Mark Eischer, Lutheran Hour Ministries).  The Concert Choir was a semi-finalist in the 2000 CBC radio amateur choral competition.

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