If the Earth Could Sing |
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| Elektra | ||
| Artistic Director, Cassie Luftspring | ||
| Pacific Spirit United Church | ||
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Welcome
Thank you for joining us for If the Earth Could Sing, a multimedia concert responding to climate change through art. This program pairs predominantly Canadian choral music with photographs of Canadian landscapes and events. Through image and song, we invite you to journey with us from questioning and crisis toward reflection and hope.
We open with Don Macdonald’s Last Night of Stars, with photography by Mike Grandmaison, whose work appears throughout the program. Next is the premiere of the SSAA arrangement of Dried Up River by Gerda Blok-Wilson, where a barren riverbed serves as a metaphor for ecological loss. Then we present the world premiere of Songs from the Lytton Fire by Andrew Staniland, featuring Jonathan Lo on cello. Set to texts by Meghan Fandrich about the 2021 Lytton wildfire, the work is paired with her images. The first half concludes with Sanctum by Sarah Quartel, a four-movement work exploring landscape as a place of healing and sanctuary.
The second half opens with Unsung: If the Earth Could Sing, a five-movement collaboration by Katerina Gimon and poet Lauren Peat reflecting on the impact of environmental crisis on Canadian landscapes, featuring Jonathan Lo (cello) and Katie Rife (percussion).
To close, beloved pianist Stephen Smith joins us for A Green Voice by Mari Esabel Valverde, in which spring emerges after a period of desolation. Our final piece, Easy on the Earth by local songwriter and eco-activist Luke Wallace, calls us to care for our shared home.
In the spirit of Elektra’s 2025/2026 season theme, “renewal,” we hope this performance invites reflection on our relationship with the Earth, and leaves you with a renewed sense of hope for the future.
With gratitude,
Cassie Luftspring, Artistic Director
Elektra gratefully acknowledges that our work and performances take place on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the lands of the xʷməθkwə ̓yəm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
We offer our gratitude to the Nations and communities who have cared for these lands and waters since time immemorial, and we acknowledge our responsibility to listen, learn, and act with respect as we gather here in song.
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Program
Last Night of Stars
Music and Text: Don MacDonald*
Soloist: Ashley McConnell
Click to read text and notes here.
Dried Up River *SSAA World Premiere*
Music and Text: Gerda Blok-Wilson*
Click to read text and notes he.
Songs from the Lytton Fire *World Premiere*
Music: Andrew Staniland*
Text & Photography: Meghan Fandrich*
4:54 p.m.
Soloist: Danica Kell
Fire at Night
Soloist: Holly Kennedy
Now
Click to read texts and notes here.
Sanctum
Music: Sarah Quartel*
Text: Missa pro defunctis
1. Requiem aeternam
2. Kyrie
3. Agnus Dei
Soloist: Holly Kennedy
4. Lux aeterna
Click to read texts and notes here.
INTERMISSION
Unsung: If the Earth Could Sing
Music: Katerina Gimon*
Text: Lauren Peat*
1. Hurricane
Speakers: Kim Hardy, Maggie Van Seters
2. Grand Lac
Speaker: Isabel Diavolitsis
3. Grassland
Speaker: Maggie Van Seters
4. Mountain Range
Soloists: Kim Hardy, Holly Kennedy,
Ashley McConnell, Danica Kell
5. Glacier
Click to read texts and notes here.
A Green Voice
Music: Mari Esabel Valverde
Text: James Hearst
Soloist: Robyn Van Luven
Click to read text and notes here.
Easy on the Earth
Music and Text: Luke Wallace*, arr. Shawn Kirchner
Soloists: Kim Taylor, Isabel Diavolitsis,
Grace Groot, Stephanie Ching
Click to read texts and notes here.
*Canadian composer, arranger, or text author
Audience photography
To help everyone stay present with the performance, photography during the concert is only permitted when invited by Artistic Director Cassie Luftspring. Please do not use flash.
No audio or video recording is allowed during performances.
Before or after the concert, or at intermission, you’re warmly invited to take photos and capture the experience.
If you share photos online, please tag @elektrayvr so we can see and share the moment.
If you share photos online, please tag @elektrayvr so we can see and share the moment.
Elektra Singers
Soprano 1
Christine Foster, Kim Hardy, Holly Kennedy, Danica Kell, Janine Magaw*, Ashley McConnell, Rachel Nelson, Janet Pritchard, Anna Turunen, Robyn Van Luven
Soprano 2
Bonnie Arthur, Anna Collins, Kaitlin Davis, Isabel Diavolitis, Sophia Fan, Anita Jain, Katy LaVigne, Katrin Lohuaru, Adriane Mallinger, Jill McQueen, Allison Penner, Kim Taylor*, Anisha Varghese
Alto 1
Angela Adam, Grace Groot*, Nancy Johnson, Susan Lam, Shelley Koke, Corinne Norbraten, Alison Stillwell, Patty Wagner, Brenda Wilson, Maggie Van Seters
Alto 2
Stephanie Ching, Maureen Ciarniello, Katherine Duncan, Elisabeth Finch, Tejas Madhur, Caitlin Robinson*, Deirdre Rogers, Stephanie Schollen, Stephanie Stephenson
*Section Leaders
About Elektra
Known as one of Canada’s leading ensembles for adult treble voices, Elektra is acclaimed for its luminous sound, imaginative programming, and commitment to new Canadian music. Under the direction of Artistic Director Cassie Luftspring, Elektra brings clarity, intention, and dramatic arc to programs that speak powerfully to this moment.
Recent projects include the concert film Snewíyalh tl’a Staḵw (Teachings of the Water), developed with ethnomusicologist Dr. Jeanette Gallant and composer Patrick Carrabré, and The Lost Words: A Spell Book – presented as a live concert, tour, and concert film – setting Robert Macfarlane’s texts in tandem with Jackie Morris’s evocative illustrations. Both are available on Elektra’s YouTube channel.
For more about us, visit elektra.ca.
Follow @elektrayvr on Instagram for behind-the-scenes moments, news, and concert photography.
Support Elektra Year-Round
With Gratitude
Elektra would like to acknowledge the support of the following generous donors. This list is complete as of March 1, 2026. If there are any errors or omissions, please contact managingdirector@elektra.ca.
Conductor’s Circle ($5000+)
Elisabeth* & David Finch, Martha Lou Henley Charitable Foundation, Redtree Dental, Dr. Anita Jain, Pam Brewis & Russ Taylor, Elaine Stevens
Legacy ($2500 to $4999)
Maureen Ciarniello*, The Somerset Foundation
From the Heart ($1000 to $2499)
Anonymous, Rosalyn Clark, David Cousins, Morna Edmundson, Grace Gauthier, Bernard Gobin, Felice Luftspring, Sandra & Nicholas Phillips, Diane’s Lingerie
Classic Elektra ($500 to $999)
Robert & Noreen Adams, Bonnie Arthur*, Pete Chamberlain, George Laverock & Jane Coop, Catherine & Roland Haebler, Jenny Li, Robert Mayhew, Chris McHale, Ann Neumann, Peter O’Loughlin, Caitlin Robinson*, Deirdre Rogers*, Grant Rowledge, Andrew Wirtz
Child of Grace (up to $499)
Anonymous, Cornelia Aalhuizen, Angela Adam*, Lorraine Ambrosio, Hilary Aulando, Nazli Azimikor, Sharon Bandstra, Vanessa Borowicz, Mark Brus, Stephanie Ching*, Diana Clark, Ernie Colledge, Sue Contant, Cynthia Craddock, Jane Creed, Christina Crook, Terence Dalgleish, Kaitlin Davis*, Isabel Diavolitsis*, Katherine Duncan*, Kathy Elliott, Annette Faber, Sophia Fan*, Sheila Fee, Bruce Flexman, Christine Foster*, Katerina Gimon, Heather, Grace Groot*, Kristen Groot, Michael Groot, Cricket Handler, Dr. Harden, Don Harder & Laurie Townsend, Kim Hardy*, Wendy Hiebert, Susan Hobkirk, Lynne & John Hulstein, Alison Humphrey, Nancy Hundal, Leighton John, Nancy Johnson*, Susan Kasper, Shelley Koke*, Marie Pier Lachance-Ricard, Susan Lam*, Mandara Lebovitz, Linda Leonard, Katrin Lohuaru*, Tom Longworth, Stephanie Loo, Ken Magaw, Janine* & Mike Magaw, Caroline Malczuk, Adriane Mallinger*, Christine March, Meghan Martin, Jessica May, Ashley McConnell*, Jill McQueen*, Judi McQuern, Jane Mitchell, Rachel* & Isaac Nelson, Garth Norbraten, Luisa Orbegoso, Steve Pearce, David Pel, Allison Penner*, Taryn Plater*, Elizabeth Pritchard, Margot Pritchard, Danice Rigets, Rodrigo Santistevan, Leanne Sawatzky, Joanne Schaap, Ute Schaffland, Stephanie Schollen*, Jason Sherin, Donald Spence, Stephanie Stephenson*, Ali Stillwell*, Kim Taylor*, Anna Turunen*, Donna Unterschultz, Christine Urbanowski, Steve Uyesugi, Robyn Van Luven*, Peter Van Ooyen, John & Maggie Van Seters*, Robert & Jolene Van Seters, Marian VanLaar, Anisha Varghese*, Arusha Vegt, Patty Wagner*, Jennifer & Nancy Whiteside, Galt & Gerda Wilson, Cathryn Wilson, Jason Wrobleski, BFIT Health and Wellness Inc.
Sustaining Monthly Donor Circle
Members of Elektra’s Sustaining Monthly Donor Circle provide steady, ongoing support through recurring gifts. Their generosity helps sustain the choir’s music throughout the year – nurturing new Canadian works, supporting artists and emerging singers, and ensuring that Elektra can continue to create and share extraordinary choral experiences.
Dean Brown, Anna Collins*, Bruce Hoffman*, Danica Kell*, Holly Kennedy*, Katy LaVigne*, Tejas Madhur*, Greg Martin, Corinne Norbraten*, Bea Orbegoso*, Janet Pritchard*, Chris & Paddi Robinson, Paddy Tennant, Jill Tipping
*current Elektra singer or staff
THANK YOU TO OUR VOLUNTEERS
for IF THE EARTH COULD SING
We are deeply grateful for all who supported Elektra behind the scenes, in so many important ways.
Anne Caraan, Liz Landon, Samantha Levy, Helen Patriarche, Michelle Soucker, Rosemary Speakman, Michael Toth, Owen Twaites, Katie Voravong, Greg Wirch, Sophie Wirch
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Artist Biographies
Cassie Luftspring
Cassie Luftspring is a conductor, composer, singer, and pianist with a deep commitment to choral artistry. In addition to her role as Artistic Director of Elektra, she serves as Artistic Director of the British Columbia Girls Choir. Cassie has held conducting positions with leading organizations including the Vancouver Youth Choir, Vancouver Children’s Choir, and Toronto Children’s Chorus, and is the former Director of Choral Studies at the Vancouver Academy of Music. As a professional choral singer, she led the soprano section of the Vancouver Bach Choir and has performed with the Vancouver Chamber Choir and musica intima. An award-winning composer, Cassie is a seven-time winner of the Amadeus Choir’s Songwriting Competition. Her works and arrangements have been commissioned and performed by ensembles across North America. She holds a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from the University of Toronto and a degree in piano and composition from Queen’s University. In 2025, she received the King Charles III Coronation Medal.
Stephen Smith
Stephen Smith is a Vancouver-based pianist, conductor, composer, and arranger. After early studies in piano and organ in his home province, he attended the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, where he earned numerous awards and distinctions in national and international competitions. Since 1990, Stephen has lived in Vancouver, completing a doctoral degree in piano performance at the University of British Columbia and contributing to the city’s musical life as a performer, teacher, and collaborator.
Central to Stephen’s career is his long-standing work with some of Vancouver’s finest choral ensembles. He has accompanied Elektra since 2001, and is also resident accompanist of the Vancouver Men’s Chorus, pianist for the Vancouver Bach Choir, and a frequent collaborator with the Vancouver Chamber Choir and other groups.
Stephen’s compositions and arrangements have been commissioned by choirs across North America, as well as the National Youth Choir of Canada, CBC, and the ACDA Women’s Commissioning Consortium. His work appears on dozens of commercial recordings, including his solo album, Kaleidoscope.
Mike Grandmaison
Mike Grandmaison is an acclaimed Canadian photographer widely recognized for his striking images of the natural world. His work reflects a deep love of Canada’s landscapes and an eye for the moments of light, weather, and scale that make them unforgettable. Mike’s award-winning photographs have appeared in leading publications and have been featured across books, calendars, cards, and postage stamps.
Known for images that capture the beauty and diversity of Canada, Mike brings a distinctive perspective shaped by both science and long experience in the field. He grew up on the Canadian Shield and trained in biology, spending decades working in the biological sciences. That background, paired with a lifelong curiosity about physical geography, informs the clarity and resonance of his work.
With camera in hand, Mike has explored the breadth of Canada for over 45 years, creating an evocative body of photography that invites viewers to look closely, slow down, and reconnect with the places that sustain us.
Jonathan Lo
Canadian cellist Jonathan Lo has performed throughout North America and Europe as a soloist and chamber musician, and has appeared as a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. His chamber music collaborations have led to performances with Geoff Nuttall, Mark Steinberg, Lynn Harrell, Dasol Kim, and Louis Schwizgebel. Additionally, he has worked closely with leading composers of our time such as Osvaldo Golijov, Oliver Knussen, and Shulamit Ran. He regularly performs at Music in the Morning, Music on Main, and with musica intima, Chor Leoni, and the Turning Point Ensemble. He has given masterclasses at the University of Toronto, University of Calgary, and La Jolla SummerFest, and teaches cello and chamber music at the Vancouver Academy of Music.
Katie Rife
Percussionist Katie Rife delights in exploring the array of sounds that instruments can make. Based in Vancouver and active throughout BC, Katie is the principal percussionist of the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and has performed in numerous concerts with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, Redshift Music Society, Music on Main, and Chor Leoni, among others. She holds a Masters of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a Bachelors of Music in Percussion Performance from the University of British Columbia.
Andrew Staniland
Described as a “new music visionary” (National Arts Centre), composer Andrew Staniland has established himself as one of Canada’s most important and innovative musical voices. His music is performed and broadcast internationally, and has been described by Alex Ross in the New Yorker Magazine as “alternately beautiful and terrifying”. Important accolades include receiving 3 Juno nominations, ECMA awards, the 2016 Terra Nova Young Innovators Award, the National Grand Prize in EVOLUTION (presented in 2009 by CBC Radio 2/Espace Musique and The Banff Centre), and the Karen Keiser Prize in Canadian Music in 2004. As a leading composer of his generation, Andrew was recognized by election to the Inaugural Cohort of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists Royal Society of Canada.
Meghan Fandrich
Meghan Fandrich is a neurodivergent writer and trauma-informed editor living on the edge of Lytton, BC, a village in Nlaka’pamux Territory that was destroyed by wildfire in 2021. She is the author of Burning Sage: Poems from the Lytton Fire (Caitlin Press). Meghan is an advocate for survivors of climate disaster, for trauma-informed societal change, and for the power of storytelling to foster strength, connection, and healing.
Katerina Gimon
Katerina Gimon is an award-winning Canadian composer whose uniquely dynamic, poignant, and eclectic compositional style has gained her a reputation as a distinctive voice in contemporary Canadian composition and beyond. Her music has been described as “sheer radiance” (Campbell River Mirror), “imbued…with human emotion” (San Diego Story), and capable of taking listeners on a “fascinating journey of textural discovery” (Ludwig Van). In her music,
Katerina draws influence from a myriad of places — from the Ukrainian folk music of her heritage to indie rock, as well as from her roots.
Lauren Peat
Lauren Peat is a Vancouver-based writer, translator, editor, and facilitator. Her debut poetry chapbook, Future Tense (Baseline Press, 2024), is joined by work published in international magazines and featured in choral repertoires across North America. A former high school philosophy teacher, she now leads creative writing workshops in universities, galleries, bookstores, and public libraries, and works in poetry-in-translation as an editor and translator.
Gerda Blok-Wilson
Gerda Blok-Wilson, a Canadian composer, conductor, and educator, celebrates the transformative power of choral singing. Guided by the motto "If you can talk, you can sing," she creates accessible music for all skill levels. Since 2018, Gerda has focused on publishing works ranging from musicals to advanced choral repertoire performed by renowned ensembles. As Artist in Residence at St. Patrick’s Regional High School and Artistic Director of the Vancouver
Cansing Community Choir, she works with singers of all ages. She holds a Bachelor of Music, Master of Education in Kodály pedagogy and Professional Teaching Certificate.
Board and Staff
Artistic Team
Cassie Luftspring, Artistic Director | Stephen Smith, Pianist
Board of Directors
Stephanie Stephenson, President | Emilie Cox, Vice President | Selina Ma, Treasurer | Bonnie Arthur, Secretary | Holly Kennedy, Director at Large
Administration
Bea Orbegoso, Managing Director | Bruce Hoffman, Marketing Director | Steven Nguyen, Social Media Coordinator | Deirdre Rogers, Librarian
Production
James Ong, Production Manager | Derek Von Essen, Graphic Design | Bruce Hoffman, Projectionist
Honorary Patrons
Nancy Argenta | Isabel Bayrakdarian | Jane Coop, C.M. | Martha Lou Henley, C.M. | Shelagh Rogers, O.C.
Tapestry
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