Local award-winning choir Nove Voce presents Winter, Fire and Snow, a concert on Saturday featuring songs, music and soundscapes created by composers that all showcase the many facets of a northern winter.
The show is set for Feb. 8 at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church at 7:30 p.m. and will feature the 26-member choir along with a string quartet made up of local symphony musicians.
"We don't do soundscapes as often but we are kind of becoming known for doing some weird pieces," Robin Norman, Nove Voce Choral Society director, said. "I always think that because the girls always create beautiful sound, if you don't change it partway through a concert it can become boring. I don't ever want to minimize their talent because it's very beautiful but you can be listening and be like 'okay, that's the same again, that's a lovely lovely song', so we did a piece last year that was one of our top pieces and it was a Basque witch chant, which was very growly and it seemed very different as people were making noises."
A piece Nove Voce will perform at their upcoming concert is called Fire by B.C. composer Katerina Gimon and it explores what sounds a human voice can express.
"So it's just completely out there," Norman said. "So we try to put one or two of them in every concert so there's just something really different."
Another B.C. composer whose music will be featured during the concert is Bruce Sled, whose piece called Ice is designed to depict creaking, cracking ice in a winterscape.
"What we're planning to do is have people in the aisles making the sounds while others will be on stage," Norman said. "So we're excited about that."
During the concert, seven Canadian composers will be featured, something that's important to the Nove Voce Choral Society, Norman said.
"We live in such an amazing community here in B.C. and the composers are doing so much interesting stuff," Norman said. "We're finding music that is really in our own backyard and it's all about supporting our own people and our own economy and that's so important."
Other winter-themed pieces that will be performed during the concert include Northern Lights which details explorers first seeing the Northern lights over the Arctic, Winter, Fire and Snow made famous by Celtic Women and Song for a Winter's Night by Gordon Lightfoot.
Joining Nove Voce during the show will be Gabrielle Jacob and Sean Robinson on violin, David Dahlstrom on cello, Morris Scarpino on bass and Anna Scarpino on flute.
“Having so many talented artists to work with in town makes planning any concert more interesting and more fun,” Norman said. “It adds such a variety of sounds and textures to any piece. We love singing Tundra with Maureen Nielsen at the piano but add a string quartet and it becomes even more glorious.”
Tickets for Winter, Fire and Snow are $20 at Books & Co., 1685 Third Ave. Doors open at 7 at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, 3590 Dufferin Ave., and the show starts at 7:30 p.m.
