The Guelph Chamber Choir seeks a new permanent Conductor and Artistic Director. Founding Conductor, Gerald Neufeld helms several concerts in this transition year and two guest conductors, selected through an extensive search process, will each rehearse and present a full concert of music they have selected with the choir before a final decision is made. In February, conductor Charlene Pauls presents Glory: music of light and joy, but first up is Patrick Murray with a concert entitled Haven: music of protection and peace on Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 7:30 pm at St. George’s Anglican Church in downtown Guelph.

Conductor/composer Patrick Murray is Lecturer in Choral Studies at Western University, and past conductor of the University of Illinois University Chorus, Yale Marquand Chapel Choir and FAWN Chamber Creative (Toronto). Having grown up in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, Patrick is excited to be returning to make music in the local community.

Patrick has selected music that speaks to our need to come together in safety and comfort. The first half of the program features selections from Dietrich Buxtehude’s passion week cantata cycle Membra Jesu nostri (the limbs of Jesus) alongside a variety of musical traditions that resonate with similar themes, including a spiritual, a shaker hymn and Healey Willan’sbeloved anthem, ‘Rise Up, My Love’. An ensemble of string players performing on period instruments will accompany the choir, along with organist, Christopher Dawes. The second half of the concert features music on Requiem themes, including Canadian composer Matthew Emery’s Missa Brevis Boreal, selections from Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien, and the premiere of Patrick Murray’s own, ‘Lord, grant us’.