Whitehorse Community Choir seeks Yukon songs
The Whitehorse Community Choir, with the help of Yukon’s arts fund, is underway with a project to develop a full concert program of new and original compositions that reflect the lives, history, diverse cultures, land, and people of the Yukon, and we need your help.
The intent is to support the creation of existing and new cultural works that speak to the unique northern experience, to develop compositions that will challenge the choir and, ultimately, to take this music to performance on a national stage.
The first phase of the project will be the commissioning of 15 choral music pieces about the Yukon for a world premiere in the Yukon in spring 2015. The second phase is to further refine these songs into a concert program and apply to perform them on a national stage at the 2015 PanAm games in Toronto.
As part of the first phase, we are currently searching for any and all songs, lyrics, and poems, both existing and new pieces about the Yukon by Yukoners. We welcome all Yukon artists; men, women, and children of all ages, the francophone community, First Nations, artists from the communities, etc. Anyone can apply.
We are asking the people of the Yukon to help us with this. We will be placing ads in different papers, using social media, using radio ads and doing interviews to collect as many songs about the Yukon that we can by January 10. After going through a juried process, the songs with the best fit will be submitted to both well-known choral composer/arrangers and a number of Yukon arrangers.
Fifteen of these songs will then be chosen and prepared for the choral stage. An established composer, Stephen Chatman, will mentor the Yukon composers in a group and individual basis to arrange and refine their work for choral presentation. The world premiere for the concert program will be prepared during the winter of 2015 and presented in May 2015 to Yukon audiences and possibly on the national stage in the summer of 2015.
What we will need is a copy of the song (preferably digital), the lyrics, and the sheet music, if available. If you do not have all of these, contact us anyway and we will try to find someone to help you.
Please respond to susannehingley@hotmail.com or by mail to 42 Firth Road, Whitehorse, Yukon, Y1A 4R6. If you have questions, please talk to me at 335-7775 by January 10. Once the submissions are collected and juried, the composers of the chosen 15 songs will be contacted, and then the contract and licensing process will begin.
Please help us put together a collection of fantastic Yukon songs.
Susanne Hingley
Whitehorse