50 Shades of Gray

Professional chamber choir Voces Boreales and its artistic director Andrew Gray invite you to an innovative evening of vocal music. You will enjoy an experience that blends musical excellence, the hallmark of our choral concerts, with a more ‘jazz-club’ vibe that will be relaxing and friendly.  

50 Shades of Gray—an intriguing title for a choral concert—explores the ‘ecstatic’ and ‘sensual’ in choral music from across the ages. It also falls on the eve of the artistic director’s 50th birthday. 

It also includes the world premières of two Canadian works. The first, commissioned by Voces Boreales, is by young composer Rebecca Gray (no relation). The second, Isaac Page’s Closure, came to Andrew Gray's attention last June during our annual Emerging Composers Workshop.

The varied repertoire from Monteverdi to Whitacre provides many colours, not just greys! It includes texts from The Song of Songs, St. Teresa d'Avila, E. Pauline Johnson (CA), Octavio Paz, and Christopher Gudgeon (CA). The programme includes works by Cooke, Daniel-Lesur, Grieg, Monteverdi, Sibelius, Willan and Whitacre.

We continually try to enchant our audience and offer a slight change in our usual concert format for this occasion.  We invite you to join us, seated around small bistro tables with a nice glass of wine/beer; you will share lovely moments peppered with laughter, all underpinned with a breathtaking performance by Voces Boreales.