With help from the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra (PSO), you can celebrate the holiday season by not only hearing your favourite Christmas songs but by being introduced to some you may never have heard before — including some popular festive French tunes.
Taking place at 7:30 p.m. on December 6 at Emmanuel United Church in downtown Peterborough, “Quartom Sings Noël” will see Québécois vocal quartet Quartom perform with the orchestra.
“This is a great way to hear an orchestra for the first time,” says PSO music director and conductor Michael Newnham. “The holiday concerts are very special because they’re usually designed so that somebody who might never have heard a symphony orchestra before would feel comfortable coming. It’s really great for people of all ages and backgrounds — it’s very accessible even for a very young person under the age of 10.”
Formed in 2008, Quartom is an a cappella vocal quartet comprised of classically trained musicians. The founder is baritone Benoit Le Blanc, who began his training as a chorister and soloist with Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal. He then studied at the Université de Montréal, where he obtained a master’s degree in vocal performance. Known as a performer of French and religious music, he has recorded several CDs and has sung with several ensembles.
For fellow baritone Julien Patenaude, music is in his blood. He was introduced to music by his mother Thérèse at four years old and later sang for 10 years at Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal under the direction of his father, conductor and composer Gilbert Patenaude, who founded the Laval Symphony Orchestra. He continued his musical training at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, the University of Toronto, and McGill University, and has since worked as a soloist and chorister with several ensembles in Quebec and teaches, directs, and works in stage production.
Bass-baritone Philippe Martel began his musical training with the Maîtrise des petits chanteurs de Québec before studying administration in university. He registered at the Cégep Sainte-Foy in music and earned a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from McGill University. He regularly performs as a soloist with various ensembles and with the Opéra de Montréal.
The newest member of the group, tenor Joé Lampron-Dandonneau, earned a master’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Victoria before completing vocal studies at McGill University. He obtained a graduate diploma in vocal performance in the class of soprano Dominique Labelle and was a finalist for the prestigious 2019-2020 Wirth Vocal Arts Prize. He has worked with numerous choirs and previously held a position with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.
VIDEO: “Minuit, chrétiens” – Quartom (with tenor Kerry Bursey)
Newnham previously worked with the group in 2019 when he was asked to conduct a holiday concert for the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra in British Columbia and Quartom were the special guests.
“They were absolutely delightful to work with,” he recalls. “These operatically and classically trained singers have beautiful arrangements and are very witty and charming, and the way that they held the audience — absolutely non-Francophones — in their hands for two consecutive concerts in B.C. was extraordinary.”
“These gentlemen just exude charm and they’re brilliant singers. They’re high quality and so I was always looking for the chance to work with them again.”
Instead of the PSO’s usual venue of Showplace Performance Centre, the concert is being held at Emmanuel United Church which, according to Newnham, “is a really great place to do something with the human voice because it projects really well.”
During the concert, the audience will hear Quartom perform French versions of familiar carols, including “Vive le vent” (the French version of “Jingle Bells”), “Minuit, chretien” (“O Holy Night”), and “Les anges dans nos campagnes” (the hymn “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” often called “Angels We Have Heard on High”).
The quartet will also introduce the audience to carols that are popular in Quebec, including “Nouvelle agréable” and “Dans une étable obscure.”
There will also be some English-language family favourites like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “12 Days of Christmas,” as well as less commonly heard carols like the African-American spirituals “Go Tell it on a Mountain” and “Mary Had a Baby.”
VIDEO: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – Quartom (with tenor Kerry Bursey)
As well as accompanying Quartom, the PSO will be performing the waltz from Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty as well as the Carillon and the Farandole from French composer Georges Bizet’s L’Arlésienne suites — classical music that is often heard around Christmas.
There will also be music from Canadian composer Ronald Royer, who researched Canadian Christmas carols and holiday traditions for Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017 and subsequently composed the “Fantasia on Canadian Christmas Carols” for orchestra.
Royer’s piece includes “The Huron Carol,” written by a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons in Ontario in the 17th century and considered the first Canadian Christmas carol, “The Cherry-Tree Carol,” a traditional English carol from the early 15th century that found a new melody and lyrics in Canada, “Il est né, le divin Enfant,” a traditional French carol that travelled to Canada and became part of French-Canadian Christmas celebration, and “La Guignolée,” a French medieval tradition that travelled to Canada with the first French settlers and became popular in Quebec and parts of the Maritimes.
“The Huron Carol we all know, but there are other ones that we sometimes forget about,” says Newnham.
“There’s a big smorgasbord of different things,” says Newnham of the holiday concert. “But this is very much a Canadiana kind of concert. It’s charming, fun, and the orchestra itself is better than ever, so I’m always looking forward to doing things with them.”
While there will be no audience sing-along at the end of this year’s concert, Newnham assures Quartom has ways of inviting audience participation. In addition, a cider reception will follow the concert.
“However people are getting prepared for the holidays, however they celebrate them, they will feel they’re being led in emotionally and spiritually,” says Newnham. “A symphony orchestra does that in a way that I think is extremely special.”
Depending on the seat you choose, tickets are $60.04, $52.84, or $38.42 (all fees included) with student tickets costing $16.79 for all seats. Tickets are available at thepso.org/quartom.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra’s 2025-26 season.
