A musical fanfare in a venue like no other! Join VS as we gather the musical community together in Victoria’s magnificent Christ Church Cathedral. The majestic organ built by Helmuth Wolff & Associés Ltée will, of course, be featured, played by local organist Mark McDonald. From the sublime repose of Fauré’s Requiem to the thundering finale of Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony, generations of choristers, instrumentalists, and solo vocalists will inspire those in attendance.
Christian Kluxen, conductor
Now in his ninth season as Music Director of the Victoria Symphony in Canada, Christian Kluxen is also in his third season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland, following a five-year tenure as Chief Conductor of the Arctic Philharmonic in Norway.
Kluxen has been described in the press as “a dynamic, charismatic figure” who “forms the music with an impressive vertical power of emotion and a focus on the grand form”, conducting “with exemplary clarity and a heavenly warmth”. He is recognized for his sincere and transparent leadership, innovative programming and his bold, imaginative and energetic interpretations, showcased both in his MD and guest work.
Alongside his many and varied commitments with the Victoria Symphony and Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, recent and forthcoming guest engagements include Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Pacific Symphony, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Odense Symphony, and Norrköping Symphony. A fruitful and inspiring relationship with the Arctic Philharmonic, whom Kluxen led for five years as Chief Conductor, resulted in numerous exhilarating performances of a wide variety of repertoire, as well as several acclaimed recordings.
Yariv Aloni, conductor
Yariv Aloni has received praise for his inspiring conducting and music-making. He was appointed Music Director of the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra in 2010, having been involved since 1994 as coach, guest conductor and associate music director.
He is also the music director of the Victoria Chamber Orchestra, Sooke Philharmonic Orchestra, and principal guest conductor of the West Coast Symphony Orchestra.
As a former violist of the Penderecki and Aviv quartets, Yariv Aloni has performed throughout Europe and North America, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Centre, the Louvre, and the Tonhalle, and continues to perform chamber music in various combinations. He has
recorded for United, Marquise, CBC and others. He performs in numerous chamber music concerts, festivals and recital series.
Born on a kibbutz in Israel, Yariv Aloni began studying violin at age eight and viola at sixteen. His viola teachers included David Chen, Daniel Benyamini, and Michael Tree. He studied chamber music at the Jerusalem Music Centre under distinguished artists such as Isaac Stern and the Amadeus and Guarneri Quartets. His conducting studies were under the mentorship of the late János Sándor, former music director of the Budapest State Opera, the Györ Philharmonic Orchestra, and the GVYO.
Mark McDonald, organ
Mark McDonald is an organist, harpsichordist, and choral director based in Victoria. Recognized for his sensitive interpretations of a wide range of repertoire and styles from early music to the avant garde, his recent engagements have included performances at the Pacific Baroque Festival, Edmonton’s Winspear Centre, and St Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle.
Laureate of several international competitions, he was the third-prize winner of the prestigious Arp Schnitger International Organ Competition in Hamburg Germany in 2014. He has also received wide acclaim for his recording of Holst’s The Planets transcribed for organ by Peter Sykes which was a featured broadcast at the Royal Canadian College of Organists’ National Festival in 2020. His diverse career has included performances with orchestras (NYO Canada, McGill Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony), early music ensembles (Victoria Baroque, Camerata Nova), and even Cirque du Soleil.
He holds degrees and diplomas from McGill University, Queen’s University and the University of the Arts Bremen. He presently serves as Instructor of Organ at the University of Victoria and as Assistant Director of Music at Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, one of Canada’s leading centres for Anglican choral music and education.
Danielle Reutter-Harrah, soprano
Danielle Reutter-Harrah has performed professionally as a classical and Baroque singer with leading ensembles around the country, including Boston Early Music Festival, Pacific MusicWorks, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, and Bach Collegium San Diego. In addition to staged operatic works, she is enthusiastic about choral singing and performing with small chamber ensembles. She has been in several pop bands, and loves singing bluegrass and folk music. Above all, she is passionate about works for solo voice and guitar. Danielle received her BM from the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music and her MM from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She lives in Seattle with her family.
Sumner Thompson, baritone
Sumner Thompson is widely regarded as one of the finest interpreters of concert repertoire of his generation, and performs repertoire ranging from medieval to modern, with special emphasis on the musics of J.S. Bach, Benjamin Britten, and Claudio Monteverdi.
He has appeared in North and South America, Europe, and Asia with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Tafelmusik, the Handel & Haydn Society, Blue Heron, Gli Angeli Geneve, L’Harmonie des Saisons, the Boston Early Music Festival, Theatre of Voices, the Hague Philharmonic, the symphonies of Charlotte, Victoria, Memphis, and Indianapolis, Bach Collegium San Diego, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Rosa Barocca, and the Portland Baroque Orchestra, among many others.
On the operatic stage he has appeared as Dr. Caius in Vaughan Williams’ “Sir John in Love” with Odyssey Opera, The Count in “Le Nozze di Figaro” with the Commonwealth Opera, the title role in Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” with Contemporary Opera Denmark, and as El Dancairo in “Carmen” with the Cincinnati Opera.
As a bassist and vocalist he has appeared on many projects including the album “In Motian” by avant-garde jazz bassist Andrew Dow, “Dhara” by Evren Ozan, and “Poesia” with Ghost Circle.
He also appears regularly with Singularity, a musicians collective dedicated to the art of improvised live music.
He is also an avid instrument builder, specializing in electric bass guitars.
Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra
Since its inception in 1986, the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra (GVYO) has given young musicians the opportunity to study and perform masterworks of the symphonic canon. GVYO members, from early teens to mid-twenties, come together from across southern Vancouver Island in a spirit of commitment and camaraderie. Each season, the GVYO prepares three or four programs for performance under the guidance of its beloved Music Director, acclaimed violist and conductor Yariv Aloni, and a faculty of respected musicians.
The GVYO has collaborated with the region’s principal music ensembles and with renowned artists such as Sir Yehudi Menuhin and Ben Heppner. For 37 years, the GVYO has brought symphonic music to thousands of arts patrons, school students and diverse communities such as Bamfield, Haida Gwaii, the Yukon and the Kootenays. Featured in its 25th season in the documentary GVYO: A Work in Progress, televised on Knowledge Network, the orchestra provides community outreach through regular open rehearsals, education concerts and an annual Summer Strings workshop. At the GVYO, expert training, dedicated study, and good fun combine to produce miraculous results – performances of the symphonic repertoire by student musicians, in concerts that delight, enlighten, and inspire.
Vox Humana Chamber Choir and Friends
Vox Humana (Latin for human voice) was founded by organist and choral conductor Sarah MacDonald, now a Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, and Director of Music of the choir there. Starting as a project choir in the 1990s, Vox Humana has developed under the subsequent leadership of Garth MacPhee, Wendy McMillan, Brian Wismath, and David Stratkauskas, who was appointed Artistic Director in February 2022.
Vox Humana has gone from a relatively small group of no more than sixteen voices singing a cappella repertoire to a group of approximately twenty-four singers that frequently collaborates with soloists, small instrumental ensembles, other choirs, and orchestras; since 2004 they have been frequent guests of the Victoria Symphony. New music has taken a central place in Vox’s repertoire, with frequent commissions and an emphasis on Canadian composers, as well as works not yet heard in Canada.
Currently, Vox produces several programmes per season; two of these have become popular annual traditions. Vox in the Stars takes place in the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Saanich, BC. The other is a dramatic reading of Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales, in a concert of seasonal music, along with new carols and arrangements from local composers.
Christ Church Cathedral is not a neutral container for music. It is an active participant. Built to elevate voice and instrument alike, its vaults, arches, and stone surfaces shape sound into something greater than the sum of its parts. This concert, rich in ceremony and communal purpose, unfolds precisely because of that acoustic generosity — and because this city has chosen, over time, to care for it.
The program opens with two short fanfares by Richard Strauss, music that exists to mark arrival and occasion. The Vienna Philharmonic Fanfare wastes no time: brass and percussion simply announce themselves, and the space responds by enlarging even the briefest gesture. The Celebratory Entry of the Knights of the Order of St. John extends that idea, trading punctuation for procession, ritual rather than instant effect. Strauss was a master of public utterance, and in a sanctuary built for resonance, his ceremonial instincts feel at home: spectacle is rendered not as flash but as architecture in sound.
From that outward-facing confidence we turn inward with Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, Op. 48, one of the gentlest and most deeply humane settings of this ancient text. Unlike many Requiems steeped in fear and judgment, Fauré’s music finds its dramatic force in repose and consolation. The Dies irae — that traditional outcry of wrath — appears here in softened form, less a vision of terror than a reminder of mortality. The overall arc is not toward punishment but toward a particular serenity, a philosophical acceptance that feels personal rather than doctrinal.
The soprano and baritone soloists — Danielle Reutter-Harrah and Sumner Thompson — do not present operatic protagonists grappling with fate, but voices within a collective meditation. They emerge from, and return to, the choral texture rather than standing apart from it. Alongside them, the Vox Humana Chamber Choir and Friends, joined by players from the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra, give tangible form to the Requiem’s underlying message: that music, like memory, is sustained through shared effort and generational exchange.
The cathedral organ — built by Helmuth Wolff & Associés Ltée in 2005 — threads quietly through the evening, even when it is not sounding. For two decades it has been a constant presence in Victoria’s musical life, heard not only in concerts but in services, rehearsals, teaching, and private practice. In 2025, Christ Church Cathedral has marked a Year of the Organ, drawing attention to the instrument’s central role as a shared musical resource and to the ongoing care required to keep it responsive, reliable, and alive. It is an acknowledgment that instruments of this scale are not static monuments, but living mechanisms whose vitality depends on attention and stewardship.
That long-term presence lends added weight to what follows after intermission: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3, Op. 78, familiarly known as the “Organ Symphony.” The nickname can be misleading. Saint-Saëns did not write a concerto for organ with orchestral accompaniment; instead, he expanded the symphony itself, using the organ as a structural extension of the orchestra rather than as a dominating solo voice.
Cast in two broad sections, the symphony unfolds with an almost architectural logic. Themes recur and transform, gathering momentum across long spans rather than short gestures. When the organ finally enters in full voice near the end of the work, the effect is not sudden but cumulative — the culmination of musical forces that have been quietly aligning all along. In a space such as Christ Church Cathedral, the sound does not overwhelm so much as envelop, filling the room with resonance that feels earned rather than imposed.
Throughout the evening, conductors Christian Kluxen and Yariv Aloni guide a large and diverse group of performers with an ear for balance and proportion. The challenge here is not simply volume or scale, but integration: ensuring that brass, choir, strings, youth players, soloists, and organ speak with clarity and mutual awareness. What results is not spectacle for its own sake, but a sense of collective purpose shaped by listening as much as by leadership.
Taken as a whole, the program traces a clear arc: public ceremony giving way to private reflection, and reflection opening into shared affirmation. It is a concert that makes a virtue of gathering — of musicians, listeners, generations, and traditions — in a building designed to amplify more than sound alone. In a time when music is often experienced in fragments and isolation, this evening offers something rarer: sustained attention, shared space, and the sense that sound, when carefully made and carefully heard, can still bind a community together.
Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
Vienna Philharmonic Fanfare
R. Strauss
Celebratory Entry of the Knights of the Order of St. John
Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924)
Requiem, Op. 48
INTERMISSION
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)
Symphony No. 3, Op.78 “Organ Symphony”