It’s likely we’ll never know the origins of song—was it with wind in the trees, birds in the bushes, or the babbling of some primordial brook? But it’s readily apparent that European choral music began with the liturgical chants of the early Christian church. That’s the legacy the Vancouver Chamber Choir will survey in The Source of Song: Gregory’s Gift of Chant, which will take us from the sixth-century days of the pious Saint Gregory the Great through to the seminal works of the 16th-century Italian composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Franz Liszt’s 19th-century innovations, and the neo-Gregorian beauties of the present day’s Arvo Pärt. The a cappella program takes place at Ryerson United Church on Friday (February 12).