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MONTREAL, QUÉBEC, April 9, 2024 – PODIUM 2024, Canada’s national bilingual choral Conference and Festival, is the top meeting place for Canada’s choral and group singing arts sector and community.
Presented by Choral Canada and Alliance chorale du Québec, this multi-day celebration will take place from May 16 to 19, 2024 in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, and will bring together hundreds of delegates and thousands of singers and audience members from across the country and beyond who are passionate about group singing.
The PODIUM 2024 Festival will present seven (7) feature concerts showcasing local and international choirs, as well as free public events: Choirburst and the Pop-up Concerts series. On May 20, a special Youth PODIUM day will be held at Salle Pierre-Mercure, featuring the vocal quartet QW4RTZ.
PODIUM 2024 – FESTIVAL PROGRAMME
FEATURE CONCERTS:
Thursday, May 16 at 5pm
Christ Church Cathedral – 635 Saint-Catherine St W, Montreal, QC H3A 2B8
Cultural Landscapes: Babεl (Elaine Choi) of Toronto (ON), Coroncoro Ensamble Vocal (Ana Paulina Alvarez) of Bogotá, Colombia, and Concreamus (Kai Leung) of Toronto (ON) will share the stage in this PODIUM 2024 opening concert.
Thursday, May 16 at 8pm
Church of St. Andrew & St. Paul – 3415 Redpath St, Montreal, QC H3G 2G2
Heritage: The National Youth Choir of Canada (NYCC) 2024, a project of Choral Canada, brings together 31 of the finest young choristers aged 19 to 26 from across Canada, and will conclude its concert tour with Heritage, under the musical and artistic direction of choral conductor Roseline Blain. The repertoire will include numerous French-language works, from Clément Janequin to Robert Ingari, via Gabriel Fauré, Francis Poulenc and Claude Champagne. There will also be an opportunity to hear the premiere of two new works by Quebec composers Ana Sokolović and Katia Makdissi-Warren.
Friday, May 17 at 5pm
Christ Church Cathedral
Home Is Where The Heart Is : Chroma Vocal Ensemble (Mitchell Pady) from Toronto (ON), Proximus 5 from Winnipeg (MB) and Toronto Northern Lights (Andrew Carolan) from Toronto (ON) will share the stage.
Friday, May 17 at 8pm
Salle Pierre-Mercure – 300 Maisonneuve Blvd E, Montreal, QC H2X 3X6
Ahskennon’nia: Songs of Peace: Ahskennon’nia, meaning “peace” in the Huron-Wendat language, lays the musical foundation of this Indigenous-led collaboration featuring Andrée Levesque Sioui (Wendat singer-songwriter), Deantha Edmunds (Inuk soprano), Alex Vollant (Innu baritone and pianist), Choeur des enfants de Montréal (Eun Jung Park), and musica intima vocal ensemble, with Sherryl Sewepagaham (Cree singer-composer) as the concert’s curator and co-host.
Ahskennon’nia will feature Indigenous compositions by Sherryl and Andrew Balfour (Cree), including the world premiere of a new Indigenous choral work commissioned for PODIUM 2024. In the spirit of reconciliation through song, the concert will end with a powerful finale arrangement by Andrew composed and led by Andrée Levesque Sioui highlighting the concert’s collective Indigenous artists, choirs, and collaborators.
Saturday, May 18 at 5pm
Christ Church Cathedral
Choral Awakening : The Chœur des Jeunes de Laval (Philippe Ostiguy) from Laval (QC), Chœur Adleisia (Megan Batty and Virginie Pacheco) from Montreal (QC) and the Holy Heart Chamber Choir (Robert Colbourne) from St. John’s (NL) will share the stage for this concert.
Saturday, May 18 at 8pm
Salle Pierre-Mercure
Lift Every Voice : from Negro Spirituals to Hip Hop will bring together the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, directed by Brainerd Blyden-Taylor, and the Jireh Gospel Choir, directed by Carol Bernard, to mark the end of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent. The concert will feature the diverse and significant contributions of people of African descent to choral music, including Sydney Guillaume, Evelyn Simpson Cureton and Christopher Ducasse, who will conduct his own compositions.
Sunday, May 19 at 3pm
Salle Pierre-Mercure
Connected Voices : For the closing concert of its 2024 edition, the PODIUM 2024 Festival offers an exceptional intercultural dialogue curated and conducted by André Pappathomas featuring all Quebec-based artists, including: Latin American group Canticorum (Rodney Hinojosa), Rwandan group La chorale Singiza (Honoré Iradukunda), Romanian group La Muse (Ioana German), Haitian group Haïti chante et danse (Marie-Claire Léveillée), a quartet of soloists from contemporary classical music, a trio of Quebec folk musicians, and a trio of musicians (violin, cello and vibraphone/percussion). This major creative project will highlight the expressive potential of each language, emphasizing the rhythmic character, textures and consonances of the works written for the occasion.
The Connected Voices project is a reflection on culture and language as sources for sharing our emotions and thoughts. Through improvisation and creative choral workshops before the concert, this collective work favors a context of exchange and reflection on harmonious cohabitation between individuals and communities.
SAVE 20% WITH A FESTIVAL PASS AND ACCESS ALL 7 CONCERTS!
Festival passes and individual tickets: https://www.podium2024.ca/en/
CHOIRBURST:
In an effort to promote the joys of choral and group singing, PODIUM 2024 is offering a free choral marathon on Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19, from 10am to 5:30pm. Over the course of the two days, 30 choirs will perform at Place des Arts’ Espace culturel Georges-Émile-Lapalme.
POP-UP CONCERTS:
PODIUM 2024 is bringing choral and group singing to a wider audience through short pop-up concerts in a variety of venues throughout downtown Montreal.
Friday, May 17
Mezzanine of the Delta Hotel (475 Av. du Président-Kennedy, Montréal, QC H3A 1J7)
12:05 to 12:55pm: Concreamus and Holy Heart Chamber Choir
Christ Church Cathedral
4 to 4:30pm: Voix parallèles 2.0
6:30 to 7pm: Montreal City Voices
Near Salle Pierre-Mercure (exact location to be confirmed)
7 to 7:30pm: Harmonia Choir
Saturday, May 18
Delta Hotel Mezzanine
12:05 to 12:55pm: Toronto Northern Lights and Bach Children’s chorus
2:20 to 2:55pm: Troupe Unik
Christ Church Cathedral
3:40 to 4:30 pm: Les Voizelles and Choeur Ste-Dorothée
6:30 to 7pm: Myriad Ensemble
Near Salle Pierre-Mercure (exact location to be confirmed)
6:40 to 7:30pm: Quorale Quatrevoix and Chorale Les Intrépides
Sunday, May 19
Delta Hotel Mezzanine
12:30 to 12:55pm: Groupe artistique Mawufenuse
Near Salle Pierre-Mercure (exact location to be confirmed)
1:40 to 2:30pm: Anima Musica and Ensemble vocal Extravaganza
YOUTH PODIUM:
Youth PODIUM : Sing-along with QW4RTZ
The concert, presented at Salle Pierre-Mercure on May 20, 2024 at 4 pm, will be the culmination of rehearsals and workshops involving young choristers. Taking advantage of a holiday Monday, the PODIUM 2024 committee wanted to broaden the festival’s program by offering a special choral discovery event for children, featuring the QW4RTZ vocal quartet.
Tickets: Salle Pierre-Mercure
ABOUT CHORAL CANADA
Founded in 1980, Choral Canada is the National Arts Service Organization (NASO) for the choral and group singing arts sector and community in Canada. We are a member-based organization that provides professional development, advocacy, resources, and opportunities to build connections from coast to coast to coast. Our members include conductors/leaders, educators, composers/songwriters, students, managers/administrators, choral industry leaders, choirs/singing groups, and more.
Choral Canada programs include the National Youth Choir of Canada (NYCC), the NYCC Conducting Apprenticeship, Podium, the national Competition for Choral Writing, the National Choral Awards, the National Competition for Canadian Amateur Choirs, our Student Chapter, and the choral journal Anacrusis.
The first Podium conference was held in Kingston Ontario in June 1982 and the first National Youth Choir of Canada program was in 1984.
ABOUT ALLIANCE CHORALE DU QUÉBEC
Founded in 1975, the Alliance chorale du Québec’s mission is to support and promote the practice of choral singing throughout Quebec. It represents, brings together and unites choral groups of all ages and styles. It also represents the professional artists who make up the choral community, promotes their accomplishments, and provides them with the tools they need to progress, and to help all audiences discover and appreciate choral singing. Finally, it encourages, stimulates and supports the next generation of choral singers throughout the province. The organization, which has been in existence for nearly 50 years, currently has over 300 member choirs and more than 1,750 affiliated members.
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