2023-24 Season
The Furusato Dancers
Vannophat Kaploykeo, Cello

Sakura - Songs from the Tree of Life

Few sights lighten our hearts more than the first cherry blossoms (“sakura”) in springtime. The flowering trees that line the streets of our city are a symbol of renewal and hope. They are also a timely reminder of the fleeting nature of beauty, and of the importance of friendship between individuals and nations.

Our Spring 2024 concert celebrates both these trees in their impossible opulence, and the Japanese community who gifted them to the City of Victoria. 

Centred around a rich choral arrangement of the timeless Japanese folksong “Sakura” (cherry blossom), our program also features madrigals, ballads, and other soaring choral monuments to the timeless beauty of Spring.

Music by John Rutter,  Imant Raminsh, Orlando Lasso, Larry Nickel, Akiko Kondo, Clara Schumann, Bob Chilcott, Cait Nishimura, Ro Ogura, Ramona Luengen with poetry by Joy Kogawa.

Featuring the children’s choir of the Victoria Japanese Heritage Language School, the Furusato Dancers, and  Vannophat Kaploykeo, cello

Concert Dates: 

Wednesday, May 1, 7pm, – Sidney, St Elizabeth Church, 10030 Third St, V8L 3B3

Sunday, May 5, 3pm – Victoria. St Mary’s Anglican Church, 1701 Elgin Road

 Tickets: $30. Children 12 and under free.

We are grateful to the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society for their guidance and support of this concert.

Concert Sponsors

We extend our sincere thanks to the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society and the CRD for their generous support of this concert. 

Festivals of Light

featuring A Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten

with harpist McKenna Jennings

Also featuring Frances Rosenberg and Soloists from the Christ Church Cathedral Choristers

Our December 2023 concert, Festivals of Light, brought together music from different traditions that celebrates the return of the light in December. Britten’s stunning multi-movement work A Ceremony of Carols for chorus, soloists, and harp, was the centrepiece of our concert. 

Alongside it, we heard winter music sung by Sikh, Jewish, Polish, and Indigenous people in the darkest weeks of winter. In the tradition of winter sing-alongs, we invited the audience to join us in three rousing carols. Festivals of Light celebrated the similar feeling of hope experienced by the communities who live alongside us when the light begins to return.

Concert Date: Sunday, December 10, 2023, 3pm

Venue: St Mary’s Anglican Church, 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria, B.C.