A national professional choir is marking its 25th anniversary with a Manitoba tour that will bring together professional singers, local choirs, students and community members.
The Canadian Chamber Choir will tour the province from Sept. 25 to Oct. 5, with concerts in Brandon and Winnipeg alongside workshops, school visits and other community events.
The choir will be joined by Cree-Dene composer and musician Sherryl Sewepagaham, whose collaboration with the ensemble was featured on Where Waters Meet, a JUNO-nominated album recognized in the Classical Album of the Year (Large Ensemble) category in 2026.
The Brandon concert on Sept. 27 will feature music from the album, as well as a range of Canadian repertoire spanning newly composed classical works to songs by Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot.
“It truly will be something for everyone,” said Julia Davids, Artistic Director of the Canadian Chamber Choir and a founding member of the ensemble.
The concert will also feature Brandon’s Deep Roots Community Choir, which will collaborate with Sewepagaham on Nipîy (Water Song), a piece commissioned by the Canadian Chamber Choir. Deep Roots will also perform a song by Canadian folk singer Luke Wallace.
Davids said the collaboration with Sewepagaham has developed over several years, including previous tours together since 2022.
“She is a world-renowned singer and composer who is endeavouring to centre the Cree language and perspectives in choral music,” Davids said.
Sewepagaham will perform some of her own compositions during the tour. Davids said her singing, drumming and attention to the Cree language have brought a distinct perspective to the choir’s work.
“She generously shares her love of music and people through her expressive and nuanced singing and drumming and her careful attention to the Cree language,” Davids said.
The Brandon portion of the tour will begin with a Vocal Spa Day at Knox United Church on Sept. 26. The two-hour workshop, beginning at 7 p.m., will be led by Davids, Sewepagaham and members of the Canadian Chamber Choir.
The workshop will cover vocal warmups, semi-occluded vocal tract exercises, flexible sound and vocal technique, followed by a sing-and-share session with participating ensembles. Registration is $20.
The following afternoon, the choir will perform at First Presbyterian Church with Deep Roots Community Choir. The concert begins at 3 p.m., with admission set at $25 for adults and $10 for students.
The Canadian Chamber Choir describes itself as Canada’s only professional choir with national representation. The ensemble has completed nearly 40 tours to communities across the country, with the Manitoba visit marking its seventh tour of the province.
After Brandon, the choir will travel to Winnipeg for workshops and masterclasses with students at the University of Manitoba and Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute, along with other community outreach activities.
The tour will conclude Oct. 4 at Desautels Concert Hall with a collaborative performance featuring the Canadian Chamber Choir and Winnipeg’s Dead of Winter, formerly known as Camerata Nova.
The Winnipeg concert will include works by Yellowknife composer Carmen Braden, Sewepagaham and Winnipeg composer Andrew Balfour. University Singers will join the performance as guests for Sewepagaham’s work, while Inuit throat singers Aleatra Sammurtok and Zeann Manernaluk will join Dead of Winter for a presentation of Quamaniq.
That concert begins at 3 p.m., with tickets priced at $40.
For Davids, the tour is about more than celebrating the choir’s history.
“We hope that audiences and participants in the CCC tour feel that they’ve been connected in community through singing,” she said.
The choir also hopes audiences will be moved by the diversity of the music and the experience of hearing singers from across Canada perform together.
“But even more, we hope that participants and audiences are truly moved, that there is something unexpected that shines through the vulnerability of the human voice sharing human experiences,” Davids said.
