Dear Friends of Cantata Singers,

The first concert of our 40^th anniversary series was dedicated to our rich Canadian choral legacy. You may think that contemporary composers are dedicated to discord and strange harmonic progressions. That may be so with the avant garde; however, the repertoire that I chose expresses beauty of melodic line, natural harmonic progressions and natural rhythms that keep both singer and audience awake and on the edge.

We opened the concert with the full-bodied sounds of master choral musician Healey Willan's Gloria Deo per immensa sæcula and followed it with Margrit Cattell's two lovely Songs for Mary. (Margrit is a former member of the Cantata Singers of Ottawa.) Our special guest artist, Sandra Graham, joined the choir for Imant Raminsh's sumptuous setting of Ave Maria. She was also featured in Ottawa composer Robert Fleming's famous and moving The Confession Stone.

The audience and we were honoured when, as a last-minute gift to the choir, former Cantata Singers member Robert Anderson left his seat in the audience to conduct his joyous Psalm 100. Ottawa's John Gordon Armstrong's lovely arrangement of local composer and lyricist Joanne Estelle's Child of the Manger helped get us in the Christmas mood.

Other great Canadian composers Ruth Watson Henderson, Lionel Daunais, David L. McIntyre, Connie Kaldor, Allister MacGillivray, Srul Irving Glick and Donald Patriquin rounded out our programme.