Festive Cantatas

December 23 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

Celebratory seasonal music of the 1600s will fill the Chan Centre when Early Music Vancouver presents Claudio Monteverdi’s Christmas vespers. The works featured are from the composer’s 1641 collection of sacred music performed in Venice’s magnificent Church of San Marco, with contributions by his contemporaries Alessandro Grandi and Tarquinio Merula. Eight singers alternate between the simplicity of plainsong, the grandeur of psalm settings, and the intimacy of motets. The instruments, played by the musicians of Cappella Borealis under the direction of David Fallis, include bass viola da gamba, two theorbos, two cornetts, and four sackbuts.

Solstice greetings

December 20 to 22 at the Firehall Arts Centre

Celebrate the advent of longer days with songs of the season, featuring singers Krystel Dos Santos (seen at the Firehall in Chelsea Hotel) and Michael Scholar Jr. (who appeared in The Enemy). The music is interwoven with stories written by students at Strathcona Elementary School.

Christmas Reprise XVI

December 22 at Holy Rosary Cathedral and Queens Avenue Church in New Westminster

At press time, the Vancouver Cantata Singers’ beloved downtown matinee concert of traditional and contemporary songs was sold out, but tickets were still available to the evening’s New West show—in a suitably atmospheric setting for one of the city’s top vocal groups.