Dear Music Lover,

It is my distinct pleasure, as Founder and Artistic Director, to invite you to subscribe to the Ottawa Bach Choir’s fifteenth anniversary season of spectacular choral music. Over the last 13 years, the professional ensemble has travelled the world and received national and international recognition. The choir has just returned from China, where it was invited to perform as Canada’s choral representative in the prestigious festival, Meet in Beijing 2016. In 2014, the OBC completed its 4th European tour, which included an invitation to perform in the Bachfest Leipzig 2014 at the Thomaskirche, in Leipzig, Germany, as the first Canadian choir ever to be invited. As the choir expands in breadth, performances in this anniversary season include a Subscription Series, the launch of the choir’s 6th CD and several Special Events. The season opens with a special Fall Garden Party, A Sunday with Bach, at the German Ambassador’s residence. Come discover the best that choral music has to offer!

Lisette Canton
Founder and Artistic Director

This season brought the choir to new heights on the local and international stages. Concerts in Ottawa included The Glory of the Baroque, celebrating inspirational music for the season of Advent with motets and cantatas by Telemann, J.C.F. Bach, Buxtehude, Charpentier and J.S. Bach. The choir explored the music of The Tudors: Hidden Ecstacies, performed reflective seasonal works in the Christmas concert, In the Still of the Night, introduced the popular Venetian Carnival, and culminated the season with Prélude-Europe 2014, which preceded an inspiring 4th European Tour in June, where the choir was invited to perform in the world’s most prestigious international festival, the Bachfest Leipzig 2014, along with other performances in Venice, Lübeck, Groningen and Amsterdam.

Over the past ten years, this professional choir has performed throughout the world and has been acclaimed on both the national and international levels. As the choir moved into its second decade after an amazing tenth anniversary, the choir presented Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) by Johannes Brahms, Masters of the Renaissance, which included a cappella works by two of the period’s most important composers, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Victoria, and the final concert of the season, Baroque Magnificence, which included Bach’s early cantata, Himmelskönig, sei willkommen, BWV 182, Handel’s early choral masterpiece, Dixit Dominus, and Charpentier’s Exaudiat Pour le Roy.

Just back from its Carnegie Hall debut in New York City, performances this season included a Subscription Series, an Intimate Concert Series and the release of a new CD in honour of its 10th anniversary, Cantate Domino. The first concert, Baroque Christmas, included festive works from the German and Italian baroque. To celebrate the choir’s tenth anniversary, Bach’s Matthaüs-Passion (St. Matthew Passion), BWV 244, was presented with an array of international stars. The final concert of the season, Song and Spirit, was performed in advance of the OBC’s appearance at Podium 2012 featuring a newly commissioned work by Ottawa composer, Nicholas Piper. The Choir also performed at Ottawa summer festivals, Music and Beyond and Chamberfest.

The Choir expanded it scope this season by including a Subscription Series of German, French and Italian motets and cantatas inBaroque Masters, Monteverdi – Sacred and Profane and Buxtehude & Bach. The Choir also introduced the very popular Intimate Concert Series and traveled to Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Redpath Hall in Montreal, and New York City where it had been invited to make its debut at Carnegie Hall in Weill Recital Hall. Other performances were held at the Consulate General of France in New York and the “Arts at the Park” Series at Park Avenue Christian Church in Manhattan.

The Choir’s subscription series this year highlighted the 350th year of Purcell’s birth and the 200th year of Haydn’s death with stirring music in Haydn • Bach • Purcell Celebration, performing two festive cantatas by Bach with Ottawa-based international soprano, Donna Brown. Christmas Around the World comprised new and old favourites for the season from around the globe, and the final concert Miserere, presented music for Passiontide from the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods, featuring Victoria’s strikingly beautiful Officium Defunctorum (Requiem).

This season, the choir presented Jesu, meine Freude, a challenging concert of all a cappella music and toured to Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto in its second performance in the Choir & Organ Series. The choir also performed with the Orquesta del Nuevo Mundo in Mexico City and toured Europe for the third time. This time, the choir not only participated in the Motette series for the third time at the Thomaskirche, in Leipzig, but also brought well-loved performances at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London as well as Notre Dame Cathedral, Church of the Madeleine and the American Church in Paris.

This sensational season, the Choir presented an Ottawa debut performance of the Levin version of Mozart’s Requiem in We Will Remember Them on Remembrance Day, a performance of Baroque music and seasonal favourites at the Museum of Civilization, and a new recording, Jesu, meine Freude, of Bach cantatas BWV 4, 78 and the motet, Jesu, meine Freude, with Agnes Zsigovics, Daniel Taylor, Benjamin Butterfield, Daniel Lichti and baroque orchestra playing on period instruments. The choir also travelled to Almonte for a Christmas Potpourri, to Southern Ontario for concerts and workshops in Toronto and finished the season with masterclasses and a performance at Podium 2008 in Sackville, New Brunswick.

The choir’s fifth season treated audiences to inspired performances of some of the most beautiful and moving choral music. Our subscription series included A Taste of the Italian Baroque, a Canadian premiere of Roxanna Panufnik’s Westminster Mass with the Montreal ensemble Musica Orbium, and a European Extravaganza to celebrate the choir’s second European tour returning to sing at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig (Bach’s church), as well as in Bayreuth, Vienna, Salzburg and Munich.

This season brought inspired performances of Bach Cantatas, the St. John Passion and works by French composers, Charpentier and Martin, plus a special Christmas concert to celebrate the launch A Christmas Story. In addition to the main subscription series, the choir was invited to perform in the prestigious Choir and Organ Series at Toronto’s Roy Thompson Hall, the Montreal Bach Festival and travelled to Nova Scotia for performances in Halifax, Wolfville and at the festival Musique St-Bernard.