The choeur and the quartet

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This article was published 21/02/2023 (1326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Esprit de Choeur is expanding its range.

The Winnipeg women’s choir is dabbling in jazz for the first time this Sunday during a concert, titled Traces of Jazz, at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights with the Ron Paley Quartet.

“It’s good for us,” choir founder and artistic director Valdine Anderson says of stepping outside the contemporary and classic choral music the group is used to performing.

“The (challenge) is to be a little bit looser with the presentation and let the music move you, versus trying to be so strictly attuned to what’s on the page.”

Anderson, an instructor with the University of Manitoba’s faculty of music, started Esprit on a whim with a group of her vocal students in 2011. The ad hoc ensemble entered the Winnipeg Music Festival and enjoyed the experience so much they decided to continue singing together.

Although it’s been 12 years since its founding, Esprit is celebrating a belated 10th anniversary this year — a milestone that was delayed owing to the pandemic.

Over the last decade, membership in the auditioned group has grown from a dozen to nearly 40 trained singers and hobbyists at its height. The choir has toured across the country and internationally, including to Iceland, and has sung with women’s choirs from Vancouver, Norway and the United States. Collaborating with professional musicians and composers has been a highlight for Anderson.

“That’s been a growing experience for us,” she says. “To jump into this genre with Ron Paley and his quartet is going to be yet another boundary that we can kind of expand on.”

Sunday’s concert will include the jazz standards Dancing in the Dark, The Way You Look Tonight, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Amapola; as well as the original song Eternal Line, written by Paley and based on a trio of Shakespeare sonnets.

“I’ve always known how great Shakespeare was, but to write music to three of his sonnets is something I will never forget,” Paley says. “It’s wonderful to hear the singers singing it again because I haven’t heard it in many, many years.”

The last time it was performed, more than a decade ago, Anderson sang the soprano solo.

“It’s really fun and it hasn’t lost any of its poignancy,” she says. “It’s got a lot of intensity to it and a lot of lyricism to it as well.”

Traces of Jazz will see the choir and the quartet performing together and separately. For Eternal Line, Paley will support the soloist with some occasional scatting.

This is the first of two collaborative concerts between Esprit and Paley, the next set to take place during the choir’s following season.

“We are looking forward to it,” Paley says. “Writing for the choir… was an amazing experience; it’s the human voice, you can’t get any more personal.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @evawasney