Singers are busy preparing for our final concert of the season, Evolve, taking place on Saturday, May 7, 2022 at 3 PM at Pacific Spirit United Church. Evolve will take listeners on a journey through history. Three world premieres (yes, three!) by composers Sydney Guillaume, Katerina Gimon, and Timothy Cunningham have all been long-awaited and we are elated to finally have an opportunity to perform them live. The repertoire will demonstrate the role and importance of music throughout history and how composers have paved the way to challenge the performers, the listener, and society at large. This concert is bound to be one for the Phoenix ages and displays so much of our growth and goals as we close the curtain on our fourth decade of singing together. We hope that you’ll join us whether in-person in Vancouver on May 7 or virtually beginning May 14. 

For tickets, visit our concert page.

Phoenix is so excited to welcome Ashley Bontje as our new choir administrator.

We announced in January that Emily would be moving on after over 3 years in the position and we could not be more thrilled to have found an excellent fit to replace her in Ashley. She has substantial past choral and musical experience and will be a wonderful advocate and liaison for us. We are eager for our entire Phoenix family to get to know Ashley better, but we asked her a few questions so that we could introduce her to you all.

What role has music played in your own personal development?
Music has touched just about every aspect of my personal and professional life. As a kid, my mom taught me and my sisters to sing and my dad introduced us to a wide range of musical genres. I grew up on Long Island, NY, and sang at home, at church, and in school choirs. I studied Music Composition at Stanford and NYU and began my career in fundraising for the arts. I worked on special events at Carnegie Hall, where I helped put on large gala fundraisers until I left the east coast for the best coast. My husband and I moved to Seattle, where I worked for University of Washington’s performing arts center and Providence Hospital, all the while singing in choirs. We moved to Victoria when our first daughter was one, and decided to stay home with her. In Victoria, I joined a choir and started my own non-audition women’s pop choir. It was my first time conducting a choir, and I absolutely loved it. Read more

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Phoenix’s 2021-2022 season is called, Emerge: A Season of Premieres, as we wanted this year to represent various forms of new beginnings and to be able to commission several premieres from talented composers and introduce them to the Phoenix audience. One of those composers is Laura Hawley, whose piece O the Snow, we had the privilege of premiering at our December 11 in-person performance of “Lux.” We are sharing our interview with Hawley now in hopes that this inspires you and your household to tune into the digital broadcast of “Lux” beginning Saturday, December 18 and running through New Years Day 2022.

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Christmas is not only the season of delightfully familiar carols, but it’s also a season of giving and spreading love!

It’s no secret that in Vancouver, the winters are cold and damp and many people do not have access to warm, dry socks, or basic personal hygiene items.

Phoenix as a community values giving back and doing our part to ensure our whole community is thriving.
Because of this, we are partnering with First United Church Community Ministry and Atira Women’s Resource Society to provide new, unopened socks and personal hygiene items for folks in our city who may need them this winter.

Please bring a new, unopened, warm pair of socks or personal hygiene item (shampoo, toothbrush, feminine hygiene, lotion, etc) to our Christmas concerts on December 11, and receive a free ticket to our holiday raffle!

Atira has been on the front lines of the fight for gender equality and supporting women and children affected by violence for over 35 years. They offer housing for women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and across the Lower Mainland, as well as integrated programs such as outreach, family care, and education in order to empower women and work to end all forms of gendered violence.

When you bring an item to donate at our Christmas concerts, you are providing a basic need for the women and children Atira serves. Thank you!

Please visit atira.bc.ca to learn more.

 

 

First United Church is located in the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where their team meets everyday needs including housing and shelter, meals, advocacy, and holistic programming. Their vision is to see a neighbourhood where everyone is celebrated and all people can thrive, and Phoenix is excited to be joining the wonderful team at First United in that this winter.

Donations at our concert will go to the many individuals First United serves throughout the year.

Learn about First United’s programs and work at firstunited.ca 

Why socks?

Like we mentioned, socks are a tremendous need for various organizations and shelters during the winter months in particular, but socks also have a newfound special meaning in our #PhoenixFamily.

We discovered Nicholle Andrews, our artistic director, prefers to conduct without shoes! While it might be silly, this small, personal habit though has inspired us to give back in a special Phoenix way around our Christmas concerts. As a reminder: anyone who bring socks or a personal hygiene item for our service project to our concerts will receive a free raffle ticket as a thank you from Phoenix!

And oh, yes, we will all be singing in our socks at our concert. Feel free to join in on the fun by wearing your festive footwear as well!

We are very excited to announce that our In-Person performance of Passions is now SOLD OUT!! We are very grateful for all our supporters and ticket buyers for putting their trust and investment in us, and we can’t wait to share some live music with you tomorrow night!

Don’t worry though! There is no cap on tickets for our online event, which will be available online from October 30th – November 6th. The online concert will feature live recordings from the in-person event, as well as some pre- and post- recorded extras!

Purchase Online Concert Tickets

As a part of Phoenix’s commitment to accessibility and transparency, we have decided to alter how we sell tickets:

In this 2021-2022 season, all ticket sales for both online and in-person concerts will be sold for only $10.

 

Over the last year we have all become vividly aware of the disparity in our world, and Phoenix is committed to making sure that anyone who wants to listen to the choir can listen to the choir. Historically, we have entertained student and senior discounts but in light of Covid-19 and rising conversations around social equity, we feel it is important to provide each person with the opportunity and the choice to enjoy Phoenix’s performances.

Like many small nonprofits of our stature, Phoenix was sustained by the generous support of our audience in 2020 and 2021. Our gratitude for this cannot be expressed enough.

We are asking those that are able, to consider adding a donation to their ticket price. We have provided suggested donations based on Phoenix’s costs and investment in our programme, however, we offer those as mere suggestions. What’s most important to us is seeing people of all classes, colours, creeds, and communities engaging with the power of choral music. All ticket donations over $25 will be eligible to receive a tax receipt; and for any donation made on an in-person ticket purchase, we would love to gift you with free access to our online concert so that you can share the concert experience with your friends or experience it again yourself from the comfort of your home.

Please know that 100% of donations will go to Phoenix’s operation and production costs as well as allowing for the commissioning of more premieres from underrepresented artists: women, youth, and artists in the BIPOC and LGBTQ communities; as well as developmental opportunities for our singers.

Thank you in advance for your support and excitement for Emerge: A Season of Premieres!

 

Click Here to Learn More About our Season

Click Here to Learn more about our Covid-19 Protocols this season

Phoenix Chamber Choir faced the same excruciating decisions and circumstances of choirs worldwide in 2020 and 2021, and when mere survival was the goal, we thrived. Several virtual choir parodies and successful virtual events put Phoenix on the global stage; and the anguish of political strife, the grief of the pandemic, and the spotlight on racial injustice called us to double down on our values and purpose as a group looking to bring light into the world through music.

We are so excited to build on this and bring you more this fall in our 2021-2022 season:

 

 

The season will include several performances, a tour to Ottawa and Montreal, and will explore deep, complex issues in the way that only music can. Phoenix has proudly commissioned several premieres by a diverse array of composers from across North America to be featured in each concert. We hopefully invite you to experience the power of choral music in both message and experience, whether you are a newcomer or a longtime Phoenix friend.

“As we look toward our new season titled ‘Emerge, a Season of Premieres,’ I am confident that collectively we are going to experience many ‘firsts’,” said Phoenix Artistic Director, Dr. Nicholle Andrews. “During the pandemic we were afforded the opportunity to reflect, both personally and as an organization, and allow ourselves the time to ask who we are and what is our purpose.”

We will perform three concerts in Vancouver before taking our final performance on the road in July 2022. In-person concerts will follow all provincial health guidelines according to the season they happen, but we are elated at the prospect of seeing actual faces light up at the sound of live voices. We remain committed to offering virtual experiences to the Phoenix global audience as well.

‘Passions’ will feature repertoire performed with the intention to evoke a passionate emotional response in both the performer and listener. The world premiere of a commissioned work by Canadian composer Alex Eddington will highlight the collaborative nature of Phoenix.

‘Lux’ will bring light into your holiday season. Performing music from around the world, this concert will also feature the world premiere of a commissioned work by Canadian composer Laura Hawley.

‘Evolve’ will bring the audience on a walk through history. From the music of Hildegard von Bingen to the world premiered of a commissioned work by Haitian/ American composer Sydney Guillaume, Canadian composer Katerina Gimon and the winner of our first Student Composition Competition, Timothy Cunningham, the repertoire will demonstrate how music has both evolved throughout history and composers have paved the way to challenge the performers, the listener and society.

Voyager: our Phoenix Family will embark on a tour to Montreal and Ottawa where we will share the music of our 2021/2022 season.”

 

Tickets and season subscriptions will be available September 1.

 

Auditions

Thank you for your interest in auditioning for the Phoenix Chamber Choir!

Auditions for the 2021-2022 Season are now complete and all openings are currently filled; however we continue to accept audition tapes on an ongoing basis, as we maintain an active sub list in case a singer needs to pull out for any reason during the season.

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In December 2020, Phoenix Chamber Choir premiered an amazing video with over 200 physicians performing virtually together. The Canadian Physician’s Virtual Choir performance of “Ordinary Day” has become not only a viral sensation, but an inspiration to people across Canada and around the world.

For so many physicians, choral singing is a place to forget about the worries of the day and just breathe and do something creative.  The added advantage of singing in your living room (or call-room!) and the fact that no one else in the rehearsal can hear you, is liberating – especially for those who have not sung in a choir for many years!

Over the last 2 months, another 200 physicians came together from all-across the country to create the second Canadian Physician’s Virtual Choir project, and we are elated to announce:

The video is Available Now!

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Phoenix is thrilled to be celebrating Earth Day this year with our Earth Songs concert, for which the vision was cast back in 2019. When the pandemic barred us from hosting our long-awaited concert in 2020, we decided to re-create it as a virtual experience for Earth Day 2021.

When thinking of pieces that were celebratory of our planet and the wonderful gift that nature is to all of us, Stephen Chatman’s Due North quickly came to mind. Read more