With approximately 100 auditioned voices, the historic Ottawa Choral Society appears regularly with the National Arts Centre Orchestra under the baton of distinguished guest conductors and with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra in repertoire that ranges from the baroque and classical periods through to the contemporary.

Last Fall the OCS appeared with the NAC Orchestra on two occasions: in Mozart’s Requiem conducted by NAC Music Director Pinchas Zukerman, and in two performances of Handel’s Messiah, conducted by NACO Principal Guest Conductor James Judd.

In addition to its guest engagements, the Choral Society offers an annual subscription series of its own concerts under the baton of Music Director Matthew Larkin. The 2009-09 subscription season opened in November with    Renaissance Men, a programme that included the rarely performed 40-part motet Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis, considered to be Tallis’s crowning achievement, and the Pope Marcellus Mass by Palestrina, as well as other works by celebrated Renaissance composers.

On February 28th, the choir returned to Dominion-Chalmers for “Inner Places” to   perform Franz Schubert’s exuberant Mass In G with its illustrious special guests, the Elmer Iseler Singers, who were celebrating their 30th anniversary. In addition to works by Eric Whitacre and John Tavener which the Iseler Singers performed alone, Larkin directed the Choral Society in an expanded version of his own poignant song cycle wife in winter, which featured two new movements for baritone soloist.

The subscription season concluded in high spirits on Sunday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, with “Grand Mastery!”, a performance of Mozart’s Grand Mass in C Minor. Featured soloists were soprano Laura Albino and mezzo Aidan Ferguson, winners of the choir’s 2008 New Discoveries Auditions for Young Artists, tenor James McLennan and baritone, Gary Dahl. The Ottawa Music Company Orchestra joined the choir for the season finale.

On June 18-19, the choir was part of a performance of Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem (the German Requiem) with the NAC Orchestra, conducted by Pinchas Zukerman. The OCS is also proudly committed to presenting the work of Canadian composers and to introducing young Canadian soloists to its Ottawa public.