Société Phil du Nouveau Monde | Mozart’s Requiem: The Tradition Continues

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Presenting Mozart’s Requiem is a tradition of the Société philharmonique du Nouveau Monde. Conductor Michel Brousseau, who will be at the helm of three choirs and the orchestra at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica, tells us the story behind his programming of this repertoire staple.

“It’s a recurring event that began some 20 years ago with Jean-Pierre Guindon. Not only was he conductor of the Notre-Dame Basilica choir and artistic director of the sacred music festival with the Quebec Choral Alliance, he was also my predecessor at the helm of the Chanteurs de Sainte-Thérèse. He asked me if I wanted to take part in the festivities with this choir that he himself had founded. There were concerts all day on Saturday, and we gave the closing concert on Sunday evening, performing Mozart’s Requiem. It’s an extraordinary work in both its vocal and instrumental parts, although it’s not entirely by Mozart (Süssmayer, a pupil of the composer, completed the score after Mozart’s death in 1791).”

Brousseau will lead nearly 200 choristers and instrumentalists. The soloists are soprano Ania Hejnar, mezzo-soprano Stéphanie Pothier, tenor Jean-Michel Richer and bass-baritone Alexandre Sylvestre. A native of the Eastern Townships, Pothier has this to say about the upcoming event: “I’ve been working with the Société philharmonique for five or six years now. It’s always a pleasure to work with this great choir. I even went on tour with the orchestra, under the direction of Michel Brousseau, to perform the Requiem. We went to the European cities where Mozart lived.”

For the mezzo-soprano, returning to the concert venue will have a very special significance. “Notre-Dame Basilica and its classical concerts are memories that have a lot to do with my grandfather. On Sunday evenings, I used to listen to Les beaux dimanches with him. It was the first time I’d seen tall women in long dresses on television. I must have been 6 or 7 at the time, and it wasn’t yet part of my imagination. The first time I came to sing at the basilica, when I arrived backstage for the rehearsal, I experienced it for real and saw myself in the living room with my grandfather. I said to myself: Tonight, I’ll be the one wearing the dress.”