2026-27 Season
CHROSMOS
Resounding Colours of Creation
Our world resounds with voices raised, united by a common purpose: to sing songs of hope, gratitude, sorrow, and praise. All around the globe, we sing behind the closed doors of our houses of worship, in untranslated languages, following unique cultural rituals, dispersed and isolated from one another.
Our concert CHROSMOS (a word combining ‘cosmos’ and ‘chrome’ or ‘multicoloured’) unites these songs under one global roof: a single concert emphasizing the common human message in our voices raised. Featuring creation and love songs from Muslim, Hindu, Indigenous, Jewish, Pagan, and Christian cultures, CHROSMOS celebrates the common light illuminating the full spectrum of colours we manifest through our singing, uniting us and our world.
Music by Hussein Janmohamed, Reena Esmail, Andrew Balfour, Brian Tate, Laura Jekabsone.
In the second half we give a full performance of Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridson, performed with Robert Dukarm, organ.
Saturday & Sunday, December 12 & 13, 2026, 3.00pm.
St Mary the Virgin Church, 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria.
AEROS
Spirits of the Sky
Our concert in spring 2027, AEROS, celebrates the birds in flight, both those that live around us on Vancouver Island, and those that have flown before, whose spirits soar, inspiring us to love and care for these miraculous airborne beings.
In the first part of the concert, we hear real bird song from around Vancouver Island, collected by our singers as part of our AEROS project with ornithologist and animateur Alex Chen in association with the Special Bird Service.
These beautiful recordings, which take us backwards through the aerial clockwork of the day, are mixed with music about birds from the past, including madrigals, folks songs, and part songs by composers such as Thomas Arne, William Cornysh, folk songs of the distant past, and a new work by our music director, Kathryn Whitney.
The second part of our concert presents a performance of the multi-movement work THE LOST BIRDS by Christopher Tin. One of the greatest works celebrating birds in flight, it reminds us to think of and care for the birds featured in the first half, inspiring us to love, revere, and protect our feathered neighbours.
Saturday & Sunday, May 1 & 2, 2027, 3.00pm
St Mary the Virgin Church, 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria.
Past Concerts
EARTH SONG
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.
Saturday, May 2, 2026
St Mary’s Church, 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria
SUNRISE
In December 2025, the Newcombe Singers and the Newcombe Sunrise Chamber Orchestra took our audience on 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.
To enhance our musical experience, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada arranged TELESCOPES on site at intermission so audience members could view the night sky!
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 finished the concert with a full performance of Ola Gjeilo’s hugely uplifting SUNRISE MASS, performed with our Sunrise Orchestra led by Simon MacDonald.
December 13 & 14, 2025
St Mary’s Church, 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria
OCEAN
A CONCERT AS MOVING AS THE TIDES OF THE SEA
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
