Choir, symphony present evenings of penitential music at 3 parishes

One of the most impressive and innovative musicians in all of Canada is a resident of B.C., Paula DeWit. 

Paula is well known in Vancouver and the Fraser River Valley for the popular concerts and sacred music events she has coordinated over the years, some of the most memorable in the recent history of Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver.

Paula is an extremely competent musician, conductor, artist, and director, leading both choirs and orchestras with her professional conducting credentials – a rare combination in today’s world of music. 

She has authoritative knowledge in historically informed baroque orchestral performance and specializes in a cappella polyphonic works.

With her innate sense of musicality, she navigates with apparent ease through difficult pieces of Baroque and Renaissance music, introducing the energy and vitality of this incredible music to the consciousness of countless listeners. 

She has excelled with the support and encouragement of the local community and has made a tremendous contribution to the lives of many through her music and mentorship.

This mentorship has allowed many young musicians and artists to have an opportunity to start a career in professional music while learning the highest calibre of music with concerts held throughout the Lower Mainland. 

Countless people across Canada and beyond have heard her music at concerts, weddings, fundraisers, special Masses, and all sorts of related events. 

Today Paula keeps busy conducting both the Chilliwack Symphony Orchestra, a professional touring orchestra and nonprofit society she co-founded in 1999 and the Belle Voci A Cappella Ensemble, a vocal ensemble she also founded in 2009.

Throughout her musical career, Paula has been committed to the pursuit of beauty through the making of beautiful classical music, dedicated to inspiring all who listen to the gifted singers and instrumentalists under her careful direction. 

The Role of Sacred Music 

The music itself, when sacred song, becomes a form of evangelization introducing listeners to the inner world of spiritual experience. It is well adapted to the devotion of the heart, calculated to edify the faithful. 

While the divorce of culture from its spiritual foundations is the malady of our day, the disease is not inevitable or incurable and is easily treated with sacred music repertoire. 

Music plays an important function to lead listeners to deeper levels of human consciousness that has not been lost, but in most cases simply obscured by excess layers of other activities, distractions, or negative emotions. 

As people become increasingly aware that something is lacking in the secular culture of today, although they may be still far from positive religious belief, they may still posses a good deal of intellectual curiosity about religion and thus sacred music can become the seed of something more.

For Catholics, sacred music is the highest form of art, a truth articulated by the world’s bishops at Vatican Council II, in keeping with the norms and precepts of ecclesiastical tradition and discipline:

“The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of immeasurable value, greater even than that of any other art…the treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with very great care. Choirs must be diligently promoted.” (cf. Vatican II, SC, 112, 114). 

Paula has conducted monumental Catholic masterpieces such as Mozart’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus, as well as the iconic and ethereal Miserere of Allegri and even modern pieces such as Barber’s Agnus Dei.

Lenten Bach Series

This year in the wake of COVID-19 recovery, Paula has put together an enviable Lenten Bach Series under her direction as a reflective evening of penitential music.

Belle Voci and the Chilliwack Symphony Baroque Ensemble will be hosting an evening of penitential and reflective Lenten pieces at three separate parishes from March 17 to 19. 

The Lenten Bach Series takes its name from the German-born musician and composer of the late Baroque period who is remembered as one of the greatest composters in the history of Western music. 

The concert will include popular works by Bach, with additional bonus hymns by other famous composers such as de Victoria, Purcell, Byrd, Monteverdi, Handel, and more. 

The concert presents a rare opportunity to hear these hymns sung in their original setting, played inside a church for devotional purposes.

Residents from Vancouver will have the chance to attend a concert at Holy Rosary Cathedral downtown while those from the Fraser Valley need not travel to Vancouver to hear the same concert. 

The first concert will be at Holy Rosary Cathedral on Thursday, March 17, at 7:30 p.m. 

The second concert will be at Our Lady of the Assumption, Port Coquitlam, on Friday, March 18, at 7:30 p.m. 

The third will be held at St. James, Abbotsford, on Saturday, March 19, at 7:30 p.m.

These events play an immense role in highlighting the task of the present generation of Christians to recover the lost channel of sacred music and to restore it as a way to access spiritual realities. 

To avoid disappointment, order tickets early. Tickets can be purchased online at chilliwacksymphony.com. 

Sacred Music is Thus Preserved

Sacred music speaks to the soul in all cultures as people naturally search for the transcendentals. 

In nearly all rites, whether Jewish, pagan, or Christian, the elements of public worship have been sacrifice, prayer, ceremonies, chanting and instrumental music. 

In Catholic worship, these arts constitute an organic whole, in which music forms such an immeasurable form of bespoke art. 

Meanwhile, all true religious music is exalted prayer, an effective expression of religious feeling. 

It is only proper that choirs, in the worship of the one true God, should render to him all that is most sublime and beautiful. The homage is expressed not only in words, but also in a combination with sweet sounds.

This has been the case since the foundation of the world, with the natural devotional instinct of humans prompting them to honor divinity by means of song, creating choirs and singing as a means of artistic devotion at the service of divine worship. 

It is rare today to hear a choir of this high level of professional competence. Paula leads the way with her orchestra and choir. Readers are encouraged to attend one of the concerts and to experience a next level evening of culture, art, and beauty.