Laudate Singers: MYSTERIUM, A Winter Concert By Candlelight

Laudate Singers proudly present

MYSTERIUM

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 (general)/$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’Äôs 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’Äôs The Lamb by John Tavener (b. 1944), Hodie Christus natus est by Miklˆ„s Csemiczky (b.1954), motets by Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (1839-1901), and such beloved seasonal classics such as Anton Bruckner’Äôs 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’Äôt miss Laudate Singers’Äô annual Free Family Christmas Concert at St. Andrew’Äôs United Church on December 14^th at 3 pm ’Äì a rollicking community event that has also become a North Shore holiday tradition.