From:
Singing in ‘The Peg’:

The Dynamics of Winnipeg Singing Cultures During the 20th Century

Muriel Louise Smith Doctor of Philosophy

University of York Music

September 2015

Pages 184 - 186 of the report

https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/12353/1/2016_03_22%20Smith_dissertation_final.pdf

The Winnipeg Singers

In the early 1970s, Harold Redekopp, the music programmer at CBC Radio in Winnipeg, asked William Baerg, choral director and CMBC music professor, to found a choral group to provide concert broadcasts of a professional standard. Other major Canadian centres had or were establishing professional chamber choirs: Tudor Singers of Montreal active from 1962 to 1975, Vancouver Chamber Choir founded in 1971, and later, the Elmer Iseler Singers of Toronto, established in 1979. *79

Not to be outdone by other regional CBC stations, the Winnipeg Singers was founded first as a 30-voice choir, later reduced to a 20-24 voices, and devoted to the ‘exploration of sacred and secular works of all eras’. *80 The choir is historically connected to Winnipeg’s English choral tradition, tracing its origin to the 14-voice madrigal choir the Oriana Singers, formed in 1936 by composer and conductor W.H. Anderson. In 1942, the choir renamed as The Choristers grew to 20 voices, and began weekly national CBC radio broadcasts performing secular music. A decade later, in 1952, the broadcast title of the Chorister programme was changed to Sunday Chorale and the repertoire altered from secular to sacred, reflecting the new image. This format continued until the programme was cancelled in 1974. Over its 38-year history, the choir, under its various names was directed by three men, all of whom were educated in the British choral tradition: composer and choral director W.H. Anderson (1942-1955), organist Filmer Hubble (1955-1969), and composer and tenor Herb Belyea (1969-1974) (Winters, 2013). Many of its choristers were also of the Brito-Canadians community such as Belyea’s sister-in-law, the respected Winnipeg singing teacher Phyllis Thomson (b. 1934). For over fifty years of CBC sponsorship, the purpose of each of its choirs, with the Winnipeg Singers being the most recent in the lineage, has remained the same, to present choral performances of the highest quality possible.

In 1973, only two years after the Winnipeg Singers were formed, CBC shifted its emphasis, moving away from studio-recorded programs towards the transmission of live public performances, signifying an end to state funding for the choir. *81 The group continued to flourish, developing a four-concert season supported by various sources of funding, private, corporate and provincial.

In their home city, the Winnipeg Singers achieved recognition as ‘a first-rate choir... [with] some of the very finest singers [in] the city’ (Harris, WFP, 28 Oct 1985,19 (D)) and has twice won the Healey Willan Award for choral excellence, a competition for amateur choirs sponsored by Canada Council (1985 and 1987). The choir gained national recognition through radio broadcasts, an international tour in Germany and Austria, including holding the position of choir in residence at the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria (1989), an extensive tour of Western Canada (1989), and a performance at the Toronto International Choral Festival (2002).

The Winnipeg Singers is still considered to be the premiere chamber choir in the city. The choir’s success was and continues to be dependent in part from its leadership. From its inception in 1971 until 2003 (the period of this research), the directorship remained almost entirely in the hands of a series of Mennonites, William Baerg (1971-1983), tenor John Martens (1985-87), a joint directorship between bass/educator Mel Braun, and tenor/educator Vic Pankratz (1988-1999), and conductor/educator Rudy Schellenberg (1999-2003), and the non-Mennonite Wayne Ridell (1983-1985). In 2003, Russian-born conductor Yuri Klaz assumed the role (www.winnipegsingers.com).

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the directors maintained the choir’s high standard of performance, enhancing the repertoire, and expanding their audience appeal. The repertoire is broad, from well-known classical works, – Poulenc’s Gloria, Rachmaninoff’s All Night Vigil (Opus 37), Haydn’s Teresa Mass to the twentieth century compositions of Wilhelm Stenhammer and Veljo Tormis.

They continue to perform works by Canadian composers – Lionel Daunais, Eleanor Daley, Saul Irving Glick, Murray Schafer and have commissioned new music including works by the Manitobans Michael Matthews, Sid Rabinovitch, and Leonard Enns. The choir has performed with many different groups, including, but not limited to the local French-Canadian group Les Danceurs de la Riviere Rouge, the Tudor Singers, Elmer Iseler Singers, Vancouver Chamber Choir, Manitoba Chamber Choir, Hymn Sing chorus, and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. A total of four records have been produced, two, O Praise ye the Lord (1997) and Prairie Voices (1998), under Mennonite directorship.

The influence of these conductors on Winnipeg singers over the last quarter of the twentieth century is significant and has been crucial to the continued high standard of performance of many choirs in Winnipeg. As an example, Vic Pankratz, in his role as the music teacher at Westgate Mennonite Collegiate, encourages choral singing through the numerous choirs in his school, funnelling his best and most interested students into Prairie Voices, Winnipeg’s internationally recognized youth choir, age 18-25, a choir he directs in the community. *82 In 2013, choristers who had aged out of Prairie Voices started a new choir, Horizons, under the joint director-ship of Scott Reimer and Leanne Cooper- Carrier, both of whom are from the Mennonite choral tradition, trained by Schellenberg, Braun, Friesen and others at either the University of Manitoba or Canadian Mennonite University. They are the next generation of the directing, conducting lineage that began in the early twentieth century in the Mennonite colonies of rural Manitoba. Over the generations and alongside the changes in Mennonite ways of thinking, engagement with the broader world, attainment of higher education, and maintenance of the principles of excellence, stewardship and outreach have shaped Mennonite musical ideals. Choral leaders working within and outside the Mennonite community with Mennonites and non- Mennonites alike have, and continue to make a strong impact on Winnipeg choral culture.

Footnotes:

*79 The Tudor Singers was founded in 1962, but was reorganized as a chamber choir of 17-24 voices in 1975.

*80 There are some discrepancies in dates depending on the source.

*81 The Winnipeg Singers continued to be involved in CBC-promoted activities when invited, e.g. its participation in the CBC Winnipeg Festival of 1975, with a concert of ‘Great Choral Music of the Church’ (Great Choral Music..., WFP, 17 May 1975, 106 (E)).

*82 Prairie Voices was founded in 2000, by Elroy Friesen at the behest of some of his former high school students. The group has received several awards for excellence, the most recent in 2014, where they won a gold medal, Champions Competition, Mixed Youth Choir category, in Riga, Latvia, at the 9th International Choir Games.

Past artistic directors (according to the above article - which is not correct):

William Baerg (1971-1983)
Wayne Ridell (1983-1985)
John Martens (1985-87)
Mel Braun and Vic Pankratz (1988-1999)
Rudy Schellenberg (1999-2003)
Yuri Klaz, 2003-present

Corrected via Mel Braun:

William Baerg (1973-83)
John Martens (1983-93)
Wayne Ridell (1993-95)
Mel Braun and Vic Pankratz (1995-99)
Rudy Schellenberg (1999-03)
Yuri Klaz, 2003-present