All women's choir celebrates 30th anniversary on International Women's Day

Canadian operatic sopranoIsabelBayrakdarian will help the Elektra Women's Choir will mark its 30th anniversary with an event featuring Armenian hymns.

Speaking withNorth by Northwest host Sheryl MacKay, choir founder and artistic director Morna Edmundson said she is surprised and pleased to mark the milestone.

"Kinda hard to believe, we had no idea when we started that it would have this kind of longevity. People back then thought we'd run out of repertoire after a couple of concerts," said Edmundson, referring to collections of choral music able to be sung by an all women's choir.

Edmundson's experience was quite the opposite rather than run out of repertoire, the Elektra Choir found many works throughout history originally intended to be sung by women's voices.

"The music from Venice, with Vivaldi and the orphanages, which were all girls, they wrote stunning music for that ... Then you jump forward to Brahms Brahms had a women's choir."

Edmundson and her founding partner, the late Diane Loomer, created the choir to showcase compositions like those. She says the prevalence of women's choirs has increased in the last 30 years, and she's proud of her choir's role in that growth..

"We knew fantastic women singers and we just wanted to start putting that together," saidEdmundson.

The suite of Armenian hymns being sung was arranged by Bayrakdarian's husband Serouj Kradjian, specifically with his wife and the choir in mind.

Kradjian was also commissioned to write an original song, "Prayer",for the choir.

Edmundson said collaboration when composing is key to success.

"I ask to see it (the piece) when composers think it's finished, and I always say, now we need about a week to go back and forth Sometimes there's notational things, I just know how my singers think, I know what they need to see," said Edmundson.

The event is set forUBC'sChan Centre on International Women's Day, March8.

With files from North by Northwest