Where Waters Meet
Dead of Winter and the Canadian Chamber Choir
Sunday, October 4, 2026 at 3PM
Desautels Concert Hall
Conductors: Julia Davids and Mel Braun
A powerful collaboration featuring the Canadian Chamber Choir on their Manitoba tour. This program highlights the works of four acclaimed composers: Carmen Braden (Yellowknife, NWT), Sherryl Sewepagaham (Cree-Dene, Little Red River Cree Nation), Cris Derksen (NorthTall Cree), and Andrew Balfour (Cree – Winnipeg).
The afternoon features individual sets from each choir, culminating in a combined ensemble performance. We are thrilled to welcome the University Singers as guests for Sherryl Sewepagaham’s work, and local Inuit throat singers Aleatra Sammurtok and Zeann Manernaluk , will join Dead of Winter for a special presentation of Quamaniq.
The Canadian Chamber Choir (CCC) is Canada’s only truly national choir, with singers from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia to the Northwest Territories. Through performance and education, CCC creates, celebrates, and communicates Canadian identity, while fostering community through the shared experience of choral singing.
In 2025, the choir celebrated its 25th anniversary. Touring bi-annually, CCC brings together a roster that blends founding members, seasoned artists, and rising voices from across the country. Since 2004, the ensemble has been led by Artistic Director Dr. Julia Davids.
The Canadian Chamber Choir has been praised by the Montreal Gazette as a “national treasure… with an unheard-of degree of excellence” and has received JUNO Award nominations in 2016 for Sacred Reflections of Canada: A Canadian Mass and in 2026 for Where Waters Meet: Sherryl Sewepagaham + Canadian Chamber Choir.
Dr. Julia Davids has led the Canadian Chamber Choir as artistic director since 2004. A founding member of the CCC, she has championed choral excellence through performances, education, and mentorship across Canada. She is Stephen J. Hendrickson Director of Choral Activities and Chair of the Music Department at North Park University in Chicago, where she teaches conducting and vocal pedagogy. Co-author of the award-winning book, Vocal Technique – A Guide to Classical and Contemporary Styles for Conductors, Teachers, and Singers, Julia is an acclaimed conductor, educator, and clinician whose work has earned national recognition, including two Juno-nominated recordings with the CCC.
Sherryl Sewepagaham, a dynamic Cree-Dene artist from Little Red River Cree Nation, Northern Alberta, blends her heritage with artistry, composition, and education. She is a doctoral student in ethnomusicology and devoted over two decades to music education from kindergarten to grade 6, infusing Indigenous musical traditions. Her compositions enrich Cree narratives celebrated in national choir commissions and international performances with the acclaimed trio, Asani.
Founded in Winnipeg in 1996 as Camerata Nova by composer Andrew Balfour, Dead of Winter is a vocal ensemble driven by innovative programming and immersive concept concerts. Each season, we bring audiences together through early and Baroque music, original compositions highlighting cross-cultural storytelling, and a warm community gathering during the holiday season.
Baritone Mel Braun is a versatile performer well-known to Canadian audiences for his many broadcasts and performances of the Masterworks of Bach and Handel, having appeared with Tafelmusik, Calgary Bach Festival, Winnipeg Baroque Festival, Pro Coro, and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, among others. New Music performances, another of his interests have taken him to Banff Centre, Manitoba Opera, Winnipeg’s New Music Festival, Groundswell, and Toronto’s New Music Gallery. As a recitalist, he is renowned for his creative approach to Art Song, his most recent project a re-imagining of Schubert’s Winterreise in collaboration with pianist Laura Loewen, Winnipeg rock band VVonder, and Governor-General award winning poet Hannah Green.
As a teacher, Mel heads up the Vocal program at the Desautels Faculty of Music, a program noted for its collaborative and holistic approach to training young singers. Many of his students have gone on to significant careers as performers and educators. Among Mel’s many initiatives at the Faculty, the most recent is the Micro-Certificate in Songmaking, a course that trains local Singer-Songwriters in Songwriting, Music Production, and the Business of Music.
As a music director, Mel looks after the operatic ensembles at the Desautels Faculty of Music, as well as being Co-Artistic Director of Winnipeg Dead of Winter Ensemble, an ensemble devoted to Indigenous/Settler collaborations that premieres new works by renowned Cree composer Andrew Balfour.
Andrew Balfour is a self-taught composer/conductor/singer/sound designer with a large body of choral, instrumental, electro-acoustic and orchestral work. Andrew specializes in creating ‘concept concerts’, many influenced by his love of baroque and early music and infused with Indigenous subject matter and collaborators. The Globe and Mail contributor, Carol Toller, says, “there are things you expect to hear from a classical-music composer like Andrew Balfour: that he grew up singing in a church choir. That he began playing an instrument at an early age – in his case, trumpet. That while other kids were grinding out guitar licks, miming Bruce Springsteen or David Bowie (he grew up in the 1970s), Balfour was air-conducting Beethoven.” All have contributed to what he has become today: a highly sought-after composer who fuses classical-music tradition with Indigenous texts and themes to create works that range from shimmering soundscapes to unsettling sociopolitical commentary.
