2025-26 Season

Join the Newcombe Singers and the Newcombe Chamber Orchestra for a musical tour of the night sky on the longest night of the year and the powerful sunrise that follows.

A concert filled with dreams, wondering, inspiration, and renewal, our concert sings you through the dreamscape of the darkest night, after which we rise, emerging into the light, with the most important sunrise of the year.

Music includes: Goodnight Moon by Eric Whitacre, Anang! (A Star) by Andrew Balfour, Stars by Erik Esenvalds, and Measure Me Sky by Elaine Hagenberg.

We finish the concert with a full performance of Ola Gjeilo’s hugely uplifting SUNRISE MASS, performed with string orchestra led by Simon MacDonald.

This concert is a collaboration with the Victoria chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, who will have telescopes on hand for live early evening stargazing (weather permitting) for all audience members at intermission.

December 13 & 14, 2025 – 3pm

St Mary the Virgin Church, 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria. $30 general admission, $20 students. Children under 12 free

We are thrilled to be collaborating with Victoria-based Métis artist REBECCA HASS on this very special concert celebrating beautiful music, inspired by and featuring Indigenous voices, about our relationship with the land and the earth we call home.

The concert takes us on a journey in song through the land, sea, and sky that supports us, inspiring our reflection on what it means to live well on our earthly home.

Featuring a new work by Rebecca Hass, commissioned by the Newcombe Singers specially for this concert, the concert also showcases fantastic indigenous choral music by composers Sherryl Sewepagaham, Andrew Balfour, Russell Wallace, and Alex Vollant alongside pieces celebrating the natural world by Charles V Stanford, Ola Gjeilo, Stephen Chatman, and Katerina Gimon.

We hope you will join us for this historic concert, co-curated by singer and composer Rebecca Hass and our Music Director Kathryn Whitney.

An afternoon of hugely uplifting, beautiful and inspiring music that will make your heart sing with the songs of our mother Earth.

May  2 & 3, 2026 – 3pm

St Mary the Virgin Church, 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria. $30 general admission, $20 students. Children under 12 free

Tickets on sale soon!

Past Concerts

OCEAN

A CONCERT AS MOVING AS THE TIDES OF THE SEA

with special guests the EMILY CARR STRING QUARTET
 
Concert Dates: Saturday & Sunday, May 3 & 4, 2025, 3.00pm.

NEW VENUE: St Mary the Virgin Church, 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria BC, V8R 5L7

We are thrilled that so many people joined us for an afternoon of music from above and below the surface!

In the first half of the concert, was about people who work on the waves, live along the shorelines.

In the second half, we heard the Ocean itself singing its own unique ethereal, eternal song.

Featuring The Secret of the Sea by Jake Runestad, sea shanties, Celtic ballads, maritime songs of Stan Rogers, Kathleen Allan, and Andrew Balfour. Also featuring ‘Seal Lullaby’ by Eric Whitacre and the Canadian premiere of ‘Walvisnota’ (Whale Melodies in Afrikaans) by South African composer, Franco Prinsloo.

Artistic Director Kathryn Whitney leads a 70-voice choir with the superb Victoria-based ensemble The Emily Carr String Quartet in this unique and engaging program of richly evocative music.

 

A Collaboration with the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea

Emily Carr String Quartet

We are thrilled to have SOLD OUT our beautiful and interesting winter concert Sunday, December 8, 2024, beginning at 3pm at St Mary’s Church, 1701 Elgin Road.

The centrepiece of the concert is the stunning multi-movement work, Dreamweaver by Norwegian-American composer Ola Gjeilo.

A musical retelling of the famous Norwegian medieval folk poem, the Draumkvedet, Dreamweaver tells the story of a man who goes to sleep on Christmas Eve and has visions of the afterlife. On awakening, he understands that we must all be kind to one another.

We are pairing this exceptional work with pieces on the theme of polar night based on music by the indigenous Sami people of Scandinavia, by the Wendat people of Canada, and by traditional choral music from Sweden and Norway.

The concert features new works by Canadian composers Sarah Quartel and Ramona Luengen

Performed with the Victoria Conservatory of Music Chamber Orchestra and Artist Faculty

with Deeandra Miranda, soprano

Concert Date

Sunday, December 8, 2024, 3pm.  St Mary’s Anglican Church, 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria