Of the singers live their moment of glory at the new year’s eve

Photo Martin Alarie
The conductor Louis Lavigueur is a reminder of the order the singers who grow a little too the note. Even if the polyphonic Choir is a choir well rehearsed that plays every Sunday, at least three repetitions are devoted to preparing the concert on Christmas eve. It is a golden opportunity to perform in front of people who rarely come to church.

Vincent Larin

Saturday 23 December 2017 23:38

UPDATE
Saturday 23 December 2017 23:38

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Louis Lavigueur remembers the snipers who were passing with their snipers next to the local practice of his choir during the national funeral for Jean Béliveau in 2014, but ensures that the Christmas day is the most intense of the year.

“It is always a stress. There are a lot more people than usual, ” says the conductor.

Less than 48 hours for new year’s eve, the polyphonic Choir of Montreal gathered for the second of three practices for Christmas eve. Their local is nestled at the top of the cathedral Marie-Reine-du-Monde, the city centre of Montreal, where he will perform for the 46th year in a row.

Photo Martin Alarie

The choristers will sing at a balcony, where they have an unobstructed view of the interior of the cathedral Marie-Reine-du-Monde. Although the latter is five times smaller than the Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome, at the Vatican, it has the same proportions.

To get there, you have to cross a basement crammed with hundreds of religious objects that are sent by churches that close a little bit all over the diocese of Montreal.

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The thirty choristers arrive little by little to deposit their coats and gather in the rehearsal room.

They begin by warming up, doing vocal exercises, and then attack the repertoire they will be singing this Sunday evening.

Photo Martin Alarie

Several choirs have resumed their passion for singing during their retirement. Their participation in the choir keeps them busy and allows them to meet other people.

“Oops oops oops ! Someone didn’t put his winter tires, “says Louis Lavigueur, when one of the singers is pushing a little too much to note on the “Gloria” from the hymn of The angels in our campaigns.

“There is always a part of the Church chants, but there are also classics that should be there every year,” he says. The Adeste fideles, Hallelujah Handel, Holy Night, these are must-sees. “

“To me it is christian Midnight, sung at midnight with the twelve strokes of a bell,” says Monique Desbiens, a member of the polyphonic Choir of Montreal for the past 26 years.

A chorister at the age of 32

Photo Martin Alarie

Several young men who are studying music have been recruited by the chorus as it lacked bass voices, and masculine.

Several young singers emerge through the grey hair.

David Ratelle, aged 32, joined the choir because it lacked the bass voices of men, but then discovered an interest in the religious side of the song, ” he says.

“It is safe to repeat here, in the great cathedral, it makes you want to look at the spiritual side of the thing. This is not any small church, ” he explains.

Photo Martin Alarie

The choir of the polyphonic Choir of Montreal all start
their rehearsals by the rise in temperature of the body and the voice.

By midnight, Sunday, the leaders of the choir cross the fingers that everything goes as planned.

“We are always serving a meal before the midnight mass, and, a year, a singer who had a little too used to drink had lost its partitions. It had a lot annoyed the conductor, ” recalls with a laugh the president of the board of directors of the choir, Ginette Mckercher.