.jpg)
It all began in 2000 as a choir for recent high school graduates looking for a place to sing.
Fast forward 25 years, and that choir has blossomed into three choirs, and a beloved part of Winnipeg’s choral landscape that shares everything from music of the great masters to new and innovative arrangements.
Prairie Voices, along with its sister choirs Horizon and Bluestem, will be celebrating their 25th anniversary this weekend with a concert aptly titled In the Family. The title doesn’t just talk about the close ties between the ensembles, but also the tight-knit community nature of each group.
For Johanna Hildebrand, artistic director of Horizon, that family nature not only helps to bring the choristers closer together but also allows them to achieve the standard of choral excellence that has become their hallmark. “We rehearse outside of just the regular rehearsal times,” she said in an interview on Morning Light. “For example, last summer, we were asked to commission a big piece in Spain, and so, as the family, we got on the plane, and we went to Spain to sing a commissioned piece. It just felt like a big family trip.”
The longest-tenured director in the history of Prairie Voices Inc. (the overarching umbrella name for the three choirs referred to as PVI), Hildebrand first joined up with Horizon back in 2015. The group had been founded two years earlier to give singers aging out of Prairie Voices (made up of 18- to 25-year-olds) a chance to continue performing together. In 2018, Bluestem was formed for ambitious high school singers looking to participate in choir outside of school.
“It was really exciting to be able to dive into more advanced complicated music,” Hildebrand recalls of her first experiences in Horizon. “It was exciting to have access to composers that I hadn’t had access to before with this top-rate choir that can perform these pieces.”
In addition to having some of the best choristers in the city in their ranks, the PVI choirs have also been led by some of the city’s most well-known conductors. Founded by University of Manitoba choral professor Elroy Friesen back in 2000, the ensembles have been led by Kristel Peters, Vic Pankratz, GiUng Lee and Philip Lapatha. All of these former conductors will be returning to the PVI fold for In the Family as well as over 70 alumni.
Another big part of In the Family will be the unveiling of a new choral work written by former PVI chorister and Juilliard graduate Ben Sellick called “Prairie Anthem”. “It’s about us singing together, no matter what’s happening in the world,” Hildebrand shares.
As the PVI choirs look ahead to the next 25 years, Hildebrand thinks sharing new works like “Prairie Anthem” will become their calling card in the Winnipeg music scene. “We always have our eye on exciting new works by exciting new composers,” she says. “In the future, we’re hoping to expand into even like the more contemporary realm of music.”
“I have noticed that I, as well as all conductors, have a lot more access to composers from all over the world. It’s not just all western European composers anymore. Music is changing, access to information is changing. I hope we can continue to program composers that have a really interesting worldview and a really important worldview.”
While in-person tickets for In the Family are sold out for March 8, choral music lovers can still hear the concert through a livestream option that will be available until March 22. For more information about those tickets, visit the Prairie Voices website.
