Chor Leoni Invites Vancouver Audiences to Reflect this Remembrance Day at SHADOWS INTO DAWN

Chor Leoni will open its 24/25 season with Shadows Into Dawn, the choir’s 33rd annual Remembrance Day Concerts, November 11, 2024, on stage at St. Andrew’s Wesley United (1022 Nelson St) at 2pm and 5pm. This cherished annual tradition offers Vancouver audiences a reflective sonic space to contemplate the realities and costs of war through song.

The moving program spans diverse texts and cultural perspectives, featuring arrangements of beloved folk and popular songs like Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin'”, Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”, and “Bonny Wood Green”.

New works from Canadian composers also take center stage. Dr. Roydon Tse sets a Tang-dynasty poem by Du Fu, reflecting on soldiers sent to the frontier to fight for the emperor, while Chor Leoni’s new composer-in-residence, Marie-Claire Saindon, brings to life a text about learning to change by poet and Raymond J. Baughan. Indigenous musician and Vancouver local Russell Wallace, in collaboration with local composer Sam Dabrusin, has arranged “Forgotten Warriors”, a piece originally written for Loretta Todd's National Film Board film of the same name, for the 70 voices of the choir.

“This year I wanted the music to focus on the separations, tearings, and rendings war creates, and examine these tragedies from a variety of cultural and temporal perspectives,” says Chor Leoni Artistic Director Erick Lichte. “A common experience in time and culture is that it is young people who are ripped from home and forced to fight in the name of distant ideologies and leaders. This year’s program focuses on their stories.”

Accompanying the choir will be several local musical guests, including pianist Tina Chang (Vancouver Opera, Arts Club Theatre), organist Michael Dirk (Director of Music, St. John’s Shaughnessy Anglican Church), and trumpeter Katherine Evans (Turning Point Ensemble, Vancouver Brass Orchestra).

“Here, amid so many daily conflicts in so many corners of the world, I feel the power of Remembrance Day is lost unless we acknowledge that we can create change in ourselves and in the world. We must remember, but we must also challenge ourselves to find new ways of thinking, acting, and being– ways which reject war as resolution to conflict. In this way, Shadows Into Dawn will be one of our more hopeful Remembrance Day programs,” adds Lichte.

With its unique blend of folk, popular, and choral works, Shadows Into Dawn will lead Vancouver audiences on a transformative journey—from the shadows of war to the dawn of empathy, understanding, and hope.

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