News
Christmas in Canada
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Stratford Concert Choir celebrates the spirit of Christmas with song and spoken word
The Stratford Concert Choir (SCC) will kick off the festive season with Christmas in Canada, a joyous concert to celebrate Yuletide traditions, at St. James Anglican church on November 29, 2025 at 7:30.
SCC Artistic Director Alexander Cann is always on the lookout for ways to program Christmas concerts. About a dozen years ago, he came across a book called Sleds, Sleighs and Snow: A Canadian Christmas Carol by Anne Tempelman-Kluit.“ was looking for something that would enliven a Christmas program or connect with a Christmas choral concert audience today. Thats why it really caught my attention,” he said.
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In Sleds, Sleighs and Snow, Tempelman-Kluit gathered together a diverse collection of stories – to paint a picture of the Christmas experience across Canada. “ central idea is combining the story of our history as a nation and connecting it with the tradition of carol singing,” said Cann.
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The music features a sequence of characterful a cappella arrangements by well-known Canadian conductor and composer Jon Washburn, as well as classics by other great Canadian composers like Healy Willan, Mark Sirett, and Derek Holman. Organist Stephen Boda and pianist Paula Ortelli will be on hand to accompany the choir, and audience, in many Christmas favourites.
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The readings span Canadian history from the early 1700s to the present day, featuring vignettes and reflections on Christmas Day from all corners of our country. There is a retelling of a party on Ellesmere Island in 1908 involving an athletic competition in frigid temperatures; a generous feast and raucous dance hosted by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1841 Manitoba; and cherished memories of the splendidness of a single orange for a youngster growing up in Depression-era PEI.
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“s even a local story near Stratford from the present day,” said Cann. “ program really tries to connect everything, to grab a snippet of how people experienced Christmas on that day across Canada. Their reflections are sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching.”
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Bringing those stories to life will be a variety of readers, some of whom are well loved by Stratford audiences, including author and musician Kelly Walker, former CBC broadcaster Judy Maddren, and Blyth playwright Duncan McGregor.
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“Our concert is a celebration of Canadian history and culture,” said Cann. “I’m sure the audience will come away buoyed by the spirit of the season.”
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The Stratford Concert Choir presents Christmas in Canada at St. James Anglican Church, 41 Mornington St., Stratford, on Saturday November 29, 2025, at 7:30 p.m.
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Tickets available online at stratfordconcertchoir.org or at Blowes Stationery, 34 Wellington St., Stratford.
Welcoming our new Artistic Director, Alexander Cann​
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Stratford Concert Choir is delighted to welcome Alexander Cann as our Artistic Director for this coming 2025-2026 season. He brings a wealth of experience and love of music covering a wide range of styles and history. We are excited to work with him to bring you a great musical variety, some familiar, some older, some new works, and together looking forward to exploring more by Canadian composers.
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Born in Toronto, Cann attended the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and has degrees from McMaster and McGill Universities. He is known for his extraordinary musicality and is an accomplished and multifaceted music leader as a choral conductor, pianist, and teacher.
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Cann has served as Artistic Director of Hamilton's Bach Elgar Choir since 2010. Their performances, since 2019, include three substantial works for choir and orchestra by contemporary Canadian composers: Stephen Chatman’s Magnificat, James Rolfe's Open Road, and Jean Coulthard's Quebec May.
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His achievements include two innovative film projects: 2019’s critically acclaimed original soundtrack for Fritz Lang's film, Metropolis; in 2023 and 2024, Space Journey, an original film project combining cosmic imagery with a live soundtrack of French and British choral masterworks. Cann has developed innovative and entertaining programs, such as Baroque Opera Choruses, Canadian Folksongs, and Music from World War One.
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We look forward collaborations with outside groups, a vision shared by Cann. Our first joint venture is sharing the stage with the Stratford Symphony Orchestra for Handel’s great masterpiece - Messiah. This year we have added a Sunday afternoon performance to our usual Saturday evening time, December 14th and 15th. Start your Christmas season with this wonderful celebration!
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Cann is also a founding director of the Three Choir Festival, a rotating choral festival featuring Bach Elgar with the Georgetown Bach Chorale and Oakville Masterworks Chorus. The most recent concert, in October 2024, featured the Festival Chorus in Handel’s Coronation Anthems as well as Cann as a soloist in Bach’s Concerto for Three Harpsichords in C Major. He has been the Director of Music at Melrose United Church since 2013.
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We are excited to invite you to join us in our coming season. We see exciting times ahead under Cann’s leadership. He is creating a variety of programs that you will find st enjoyable and entertaining.
Join us in song
Have you ever noticed how music can transport you to a different place, another time, or perhaps even an altered frame of mind? Listening to Gordon Lightfoot’s Sit Down Young Stranger album replays fond memories of early courtship days with my wife, Yvonne.
Any genre of music can work wonders this way. Stéphane Potvin, Director of the Stratford Concert Choir (SCC), remembers his first choir experience in college, learning a Mozart Mass, then going grocery shopping with his school mates and singing one of the fugues on the way to the store. “It was glorious”, he says.
Scientists, of course, have been busy figuring out an empirical, measurable reason for why we should enjoy music. Apparently there’s a neurological basis for all this. The human brain is hardwired for tunes. There are six neural centres that respond to sound. One of these is devoted exclusively to music.
Studies have also shown that endorphins and dopamine are released when we listen to music. Endorphins increase feelings of wellbeing and foster social closeness. Dopamine gives us highs when we do something pleasurable – chocolate, sex, drugs (legal, of course!) - you name it.
Here’s the most interesting take-away from all this research. If you listen to music, you get a high. If you perform music with others, such as in a choir, you get a greater high. If you sing in a large choir, you experience an even greater high. It’s like dopamine on steroids. So who needsdrugs? Or chocolate for that matter, although that might be going a bit too far. All you need to do is sing together. As one SCC member puts it: “I feel a sense of joy and connection that is hard to replicate”. Another says: “Sharing in the making of music with friends old and new…is good for the soul”.
Naturally this involves some practice and dedication but you are part of a supportive group under the guidance of an amazing director. There is work to do but there is also humour, banter, and immense satisfaction. You will be introduced to beautiful music you had no idea existed. When the songs come together there is a “wow” moment. “It feels like riding a wave”, as one choir member so aptly describes it.
Well, you are in luck. By sheer coincidence, the Stratford Concert Choir (SCC) needs more voices and is holding auditions in late May, early June and late August. These auditions are welcoming and non-threatening so there is nothing to fear; you don’t need to be a professional singer. So give it a try; there is little to lose and so much to gain. To find out more about the choir and to register for an audition go to: http://www.stratfordconcertchoir.org/join
