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Beat the Winter Blues Fundraising auction
Winter is almost over and it's time to spring forward with some fun bidding on some great items and activities up for grabs in our Beat the Winter Blues auction. Golf packages, Festival tickets and more to get you looking to the warmth and fun of spring and summer.
Bidding will open at 9 am on February 26th and conclude March 5th with pick up of items on March 7.
Proceeds from the auction will assist the choir in performing with other arts groups in the community and continue to share great choral music.
site active on February 26, 2026
Stratford Concert Choir and Stratford Symphony Orchestra team up to present Mozart’s Requiem
Music lovers are in for a rare treat. On March 21, for the first time in its 40-year history, the Stratford Concert Choir (SCC) will perform Mozart’s Requiem with a full orchestra, joining forces with the Stratford Symphony Orchestra (SSO) for this historic concert.
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“This is one of the most popular, enduring, and marvelous pieces in the repertoire. It’s got a place in the public imagination and in our culture,” said Artistic Director Alexander Cann. “We’re performing it with its complete orchestration, so it’s a big performance.”
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After the success of the choir and orchestra’s performance of Handel’s Messiah in December, Cann and the leadership team of the SCC are confident that there is an appetite for large-scale works in Stratford. “Stratford has two accomplished ensembles and I think we have already proven that when we put them together terrific music results. It’s an exciting time for music in Stratford,” said Cann.
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Mozart composed the Requiem at the very end of his life, while lying on his death bed. At 35 years of age, he was at the peak of his musical facility, and he poured it into his Requiem. The result was an inspiring testament to his relationship with the hereafter, and one of the most revered pieces of music ever written.
Cann says the profundity of the work is difficult to describe. “No matter how we try, our feeble words are inadequate,” he said. “It’s like trying to describe one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. It’s not just anybody who’s laying down in musical form their thoughts about their life in sum total. It’s Mozart. It’s the greatest musician who ever lived who’s doing it.”
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The piece demands a lot from its singers. “The Requiem Aeternum and the Kyrie are justly famous because not only are they bold and musically memorable, they’re also technically extraordinary,” said Cann. “Choirs have to work on this pretty hard. It’s why we started it in September at the first rehearsal.”
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Selecting another piece of music to add to the repertoire for this concert was difficult. “It has to be able to hold its own and it also has to not take away from the Requiem,” said Cann. He chose Handel’s Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day. “This piece is an excellent match because of its buoyant and uplifting mood,” he said.
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Ode for St. Cecilia's Day is the setting to music of a John Dryden poem. “The poem was written at a time in which public concerts were only just beginning to emerge from the direct control of the sovereign,” said Cann. “Handel, writing his accompanying music forty years later, would still have been keenly aware of the fragility of free expression.” His ode is not only a tribute to the power of music but to free speech itself. Cann thinks it is an ideal complement to the Requiem, saying, "It just seems fitting to celebrate the power of music when we honour Mozart."
That power will be on full display when the SCC and the SSO team up to present a concert that is not to be missed. “Mozart’s Requiem is one of the most important pieces of the classical music literature,” said Cann. “You could think of it as a bucket-list piece that you’ve got to go and see. This is an important event!”
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Stratford Concert Choir presents Mozart’s Requiem at Avondale United Church, Stratford Ontario, on March 21, 2026 at 7:30 p.m. 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
