Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter.
The Vancouver Youth Choir will bring hundreds of young singers to the Orpheum on May 24 for Village, the largest concert in the organization’s history.
The event will feature singers between the ages of five and 24, with more than 600 performers from all but the youngest groups taking the stage at the Orpheum for the year-end concert.
For founder and artistic director Carrie Tennant, the scale of the concert reflects years of steady growth alongside what she sees as a growing desire for spaces that bring people together.
“We started 13 years ago with 30 singers, and we’ve grown really quickly and really consistently,” Tennant says. “Folks are looking for human connection in their lives.”
Village closes out the choir’s season and brings together its members in a performance shaped by the singers’ own backgrounds and experiences, with music drawing from a range of cultural traditions and languages, including Mandarin, Cree, and Farsi.
Different ensembles perform throughout the evening before all 600 singers come together for a final performance at the end of the night. The concert also includes collaborations with Vancouver folk musician Luke Wallace, whose work Tennant says resonated strongly with both the choir and its broader sense of community.
While the performance itself takes place over one evening, Tennant says the sense of connection audiences see on stage is built gradually throughout the year. Singers rehearse weekly, move through different levels as they grow older, and often mentor younger choir members.
That environment, she says, allows young performers to feel comfortable taking artistic risks.
“If they feel safe and like they belong in that space and that community, they’re willing to take risks and be vulnerable as young artists,” Tennant says.
The choir recently returned from Ireland, where its senior ensemble won the Fleishman Trophy at the Cork International Choral Festival. Tennant says she is especially looking forward to sharing that program with younger singers and Vancouver audiences during Village.
Over the years, the choir has also built a dedicated audience beyond family members of performers, with attendees returning for what Tennant describes as the “joy and artistry” of the concerts. She says audiences are often invited to sing along during the performance.
“It really feels like an intimate concert, even though there’s 600 people on stage and ,2000 people in the audience,” she says. “It’s like a family gathering.”
As Village approaches, the choir is also preparing for its next season, with auditions and interviews for new singers now open. Tennant says upcoming projects include collaborations with Early Music Vancouver, newly commissioned works, and an international tour to Switzerland next year.
Above all, Tennant hopes audiences leave the concert reminded of the importance of joy and connection.
“Putting beauty and joy into the world is important,” she says. “Especially right now.”
The Vancouver Youth Choir’s Village plays at the Orpheum on May 24. Tickets here.