TIX on the square adds a small fee to the price of event tickets. This fee covers the operating costs of this web site and the TIX box office.
I CORISTI CHAMBER CHOIR
Conductor: Debra Cairns
Sorrows of Mary
Lichtenstein’s famous son, Josef Rheinberger wrote a poignant setting of the Stabat Mater text which, along with JS Bach’s cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget ich (BWV 150), forms the centerpiece for this program that explores the sorrows of Mary. Joining i Coristi for these two works is the Onyx String Quartet, an Edmonton group comprised of members of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, organist Jeremy Spurgeon and bassoonist Diane Persson.. The quartet will also be performing works that complement the mood of the concert theme. i Coristi will also be performing a cappella works by Baroque composer Antonio Lotti (Crucifixus), Canadian composers Claude Vivier (Jesus Erbarme mich) and Eleanor Daley (In his Mother’s Eyes).
Exploring the sorrows of Mary through Rheinberger’s poignant Stabat Mater, Bach’s Nach dir, Herr, verlanget ich (BWV 150), Lotti’s Crucifixus, as well as works by Luengen, Daley, Vivier and Møller. i Coristi will be featuring guest artists the Onyx String Quartet, which will join the choir as well as performing a portion of a Beethoven String Quartet, and organist Jeremy Spurgeon and bassoonist Diane Persson, who will perform with the choir.
i CORISTI - The Choir
i Coristi – italian for “The Choral Singers” – is a community-based, auditioned choir of 24 singers from Edmonton, which focuses on choral masterpieces from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century.
Formed in 1994, membership in i Coristi Chamber Choir is by audition and encompasses a broad cross section of the population, including accountants, teachers, medical personnel, computer programmers and administrators. Noted for its unique, varied and eclectic programming, the choir focuses on a cappella masterpieces from the Renaissance to the 21st century presented in three main concerts each season; the choir also performs at seniors’ facilities and various local businesses and gatherings. i Coristi has been heard on national and regional broadcasts of CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio, has performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (the most recent engagement being the Messiah in December 2008), and has toured to Ontario and Manitoba and, most recently, to the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales, where they won fourth prize in the Chamber Choir category. The choir is also honoured to have won second prize (Chamber Choir category) in both the 2006 and 2008 National CBC Radio Amateur Choir Competitions, and is delighted to have been selected to perform at Podium (national biennial conference of the Association of Canadian Choral Communities) 2002 in Toronto and Podium 2004 in Winnipeg. In recognition of the choir’s 10th Anniversary season (2003-2004) i Coristi commissioned two new choral works and released its second CD, Echoes… Ten Years of Song. Songs of the Soul was released in November 2008 in celebration of i Coristi’s 15th anniversary season.
Dr. Debra Cairns, Conductor
A graduate of the University of Western Ontario and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, founding and current director of i Coristi Chamber Choir, Debra Cairns, was born and raised in London, Ontario. She is a Full Professor in the Department of Music at the University of Alberta where she co-ordinates and co-supervises the graduate program in choral conducting, teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting, choral literature, and diction, and until 2008 directed the University of Alberta Concert Choir. Both the Concert Choir and i Coristi Chamber Choir have been heard on regional and national broadcasts of the CBC and have been regular national semi-finalists in the CBC Amateur Choir Competition. A recipient of the Sir Ernest MacMillan Memorial Prize in Conducting (awarded by the Canada Council), Debra Cairns has had articles on the music of the Renaissance composer, Palestrina, published in the Choral Journal and Anacrusis, and has had an edition of Palestrina's Missa Ave Regina Coelorum published by Carus-Verlag of Stuttgart, Germany. In demand both nationally and internationally as a workshop and conference presenter, guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator, her current area of research interest is the relationship of gesture to sound. She serves on many committees both at the University of Alberta and nationally, and is currently President of ACCC--the Association of Canadian Choral Communities (formerly Association of Canadian Choral Conductors). In April 2002 Debra Cairns was nominated for the Syncrude Canada Award for Innovative Artistic Direction in recognition of her work with i Coristi Chamber Choir.
