Adeste Fideles/O Come All Ye Faithful /Peuple Fidele - The Stairwell Carollers, Youtube video

Here's a brand new Youtube video from last year's Stairwell Carollers Christmas carol concert at Knox United church, Ottawa.

Our director, Pierre Massie, created a new arrangement of Adeste fideles/Eng. O come all ye Faithful/ Fr. Peuple Fidele using the traditional Latin, English and French verses.

Pierre has a love for latin verse - many of his original works use latin text. This affinity comes from his treasured childhood memories of Christmas eve Midnight Mass at Paroisse St-Dominique-du-Rosaire in Timmins, Ontario.

Audio: Tom Barnes.  Recorded at Knox Presbyterian Church, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Dec 16th, 2016.
Videographers: Gert-Jan van Heuzen, Andrew Mason
Editing: Pierre Massie

Please DONATE to support our 40th year events! 

All Donations receive a charitable receipt.

A registered Canadian charity, we also help local charities with our concerts and CDs !

The Stairwell Carollers:

Pierre Massie started our a cappella choir in 1977 while he was a music student at Ottawa University. The Stairwell Carollers are ranked among the best of Ontario choirs, winning both the 2010 and 2013 Ontario Music Festival Association competitions. 

Christmas concerts soon!! NEW arrangement of Silent Night - Youtube Video

Ottawa choir, The Stairwell Carollers Ottawa Stairwell Caroller Christmas concerts are starting November 24th!

Here's a live performance of a NEW arrangement of  Stille Nacht / Silent Night  by our director, Pierre Massie.

Purchase our beautiful CDs and help other Ottawa/Gatineau charities reach their goals!

Audio: Tom Barnes.  Recorded at Knox Presbyterian Church, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Dec 16th, 2016.
Videographers: Gert-Jan van Heuzen, Andrew Mason
Editing: Pierre Massie

Visit our website for those concert updates!

About The Stairwell Carollers:

Pierre Massie began our a cappella choir in 1977 while he was a music student at Ottawa U. The Stairwell Carollers are ranked among the best of Ontario choirs, having won both the 2010 and 2013 Ontario Music Festival Association competitions. 

A registered Canadian charity,  local charities are aided with net proceeds from our concert, CD and cookbook sales.

Please DONATE to help with our 40th year celebrations! 

All Donations receive a charitable receipt.

Tutti Thursday - Do You Hear What I Hear? A new choral arrangement! - You tube video

Ottawa choir, The Stairwell Carollers, sing Do You Hear What I Hear, words by Noël Regney and music by Gloria Shayne Baker. 

This is a brand new choral arrangement by Ottawa composer and Stairwell Carollers Director,  Pierre Massie. 

You can listen to us rehearsing this song on our Choral Cacophony Podcast. Our blog post about that Podcast is HERE.

And here we are LIVE in concert...

Audio: Tom Barnes.  Recorded at Knox Presbyterian Church, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Dec 16th, 2016.

Videographers: Gert-Jan van Heuzen, Andrew Mason

Photos: Holly Massie

Video Editing: Pierre Massie

Visit our website for concert updates.

The Stairwell Carollers Backstory:

Pierre Massie began our a cappella choir in 1977 while he was a music student at Ottawa U. The Stairwell Carollers are ranked among the best of Ontario choirs, having won both the 2010 and 2013 Ontario Music Festival Association competitions. 

A registered Canadian charity,  local charities are aided with net proceeds from our concert, CD and cookbook sales.

Please DONATE to help with our 40th year celebrations! 

All Donations receive a charitable receipt.

The Rideau Carol, new for Canada 150 and our 40th - Youtube video

Ottawa choir, The Stairwell Carollers sing The Rideau Carol, a brand new contemporary piece composed by one of our tenors, David Rain.

The carol was inspired by the magnificent Rideau Falls here in our Nation's Capitol.  David encounters the Falls each day on his practice runs training for marathon runs - usually for charity.

The song starts with the sounds of the Falls -- Chut, chut, chut, chut, chut... and goes on to celebrate various seasonal aspects of the beautiful and historic city of Ottawa, Canada.

All our CDs are available  for purchase on our website in both CD form and as MP3 downloads.

Visit our blog or our website for updates.

Audio: Tom Barnes.  Recorded at Knox Presbyterian Church, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Dec 16th, 2016.
Videographers: Gert-Jan van Heuzen, Andrew Mason
Editing: Pierre Massie

If you adore our music as much as we love singing it, you can DONATE to our 40th fundraising goal of $15,000 to celebrate this milestone! http://www.stairwellcarollers.com/Donate.html.  All Donations receive a charitable tax receipt !

Visit our website

About The Stairwell Carollers:

Pierre Massie started our a cappella choir in 1977 while a music student at Ottawa University. The Stairwell Carollers are ranked with the best of Ontario choirs, winning both the 2010 and 2013 Ontario Music Festival Association competitions. 

A registered Canadian charity, we help local charities with our concert, CD and cookbook sales.

Please DONATE to for our 40th year events! 

All Donations receive a charitable receipt.

Berger, secoue ton sommeil profond, A French Christmas carol - Youtube video

Our new 2017 group photo is here! You're going to see some variations of this pic across the web. Pierre likes a black and white version for the website and I love a soft colour version. I'll blog about the photo process later.

Here's a brand new video upload for Tutti Thursday - our first for Christmas 2017 - from last year's concert at Knox Presbyterian, Elgin street Ottawa.

Berger, secoue ton sommeil profond has a lively and uplifting French Traditional melody, with words from Recueil de Noëls anciens au patois de Besançon, 1842. Enjoy!

Buy our CDs and help other Ottawa/Gatineau charities reach their goals:)
Audio: Tom Barnes.  Recorded at Knox Presbyterian Church, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Dec 16th, 2016.

Videographers: Gert-Jan van Heuzen, Andrew Mason

Editing: Pierre Massie

Please DONATE to support our 40th year events! 

All Donations receive a charitable receipt.

A registered Canadian charity, we also help local charities with our concerts and CDs !

The Stairwell Carollers:

Pierre Massie started our a cappella choir in 1977 while he was a music student at Ottawa University. The Stairwell Carollers are ranked among the best of Ontario choirs, winning both the 2010 and 2013 Ontario Music Festival Association competitions. 

Visit our website

Spaséniye sodélal composer Pavel Chesnokov - sung by The Stairwell Carollers, YouTube

Ottawa choir, The Stairwell Carollers, perform The Romantic Sacred piece,  Spaséniye sodélal. Written by Pavel Chesnokov -  Imperial Russian and Soviet composer, choral conductor and teacher.

Get our professional recordings here

All Stairwell Carollers CDs benefit charities and are available on our website in both CD and MP3 formats.

We are an a cappella group, formed in 1977 by director Pierre Massie. The Stairwell Carollers have been ranked amongst the best of Ontario choirs in both the 2010 and 2013 Ontario Music Festival Association competitions.

A  registered Canadian charity, the Stairwell Carollers choir raises funds for local charities through concert, CD and cookbook sales.

Visit our website.

Audio: Tom Barnes.  Recorded at St. Barnabas Church, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, June 5th, 2015.
Videographer: Richard Auger.
Editing: Pierre Massie
Photos: Holly Massie

Back "home" for our final concert of 2016

Last, but definitely not least, our last choir concert of the 2016 season. It was held at our rehearsal and recording home, St. Columba Anglican church on Sandridge rd. Ottawa, Saturday, Dec 17th.

Now that there are so many Stairwell Carollers, the roomy recreation hall downstairs makes a great pre-concert space to warm up.

Packed to the rafters yet again, the concert was the best one of the season!

The clean lines and asymmetry of the church's design combined with an abundance of natural wood make it a wonderful recording venue. Both for CD purposes and live concerts.

Warm sound, warm audience, warm feelings to end our 2016 singing season!

The BIG one -- Knox Presbyterian

On to our 2nd last concert of the season, Dec 16 2016. Knox Presbyterian church on Elgin in downtown Ottawa is the BIG one -- literally. This has become our home in recent years for our biggest concert of the season.  The church has superior acoustics.

Despite looking cool and collected, we were understandably, shall I say - FOCUSED?  I felt bad for our new singers -- a lot of pressure, since tonight they would also be recorded for YouTube! 

As at every concert this season, we sang David Rain's new composition, "The Rideau Carol" but tonight it would be immortalized on video. No, David wasn't a bit nervous...

and Andrew Jones would not be on edge either, since his father's "Gower Wassail" would be recorded for posterity too. Nope. Not nervous. At. All.

That's about the biggest church I've ever been in -- more like a cathedral!

Okay, we were all nervous. It kept us on our toes.

It's where we chose to present this year's charitable gift to the Alzheimer Society of Ottawa and Renfrew County. 

After the concert, we gave out a door prize as a thank-you to our audience. I make up the baskets myself  and fill them with donated products from local retailers. 

Thanks goes out this year to Fabricland on Merivale Rd. Sobey's, Starbucks, Second Cup, Home Depot in Barrhaven and Kit and Kaboodles in Nepean for all the donations of goodies and wrappings and trappings for the 2016 Gift Baskets!

To learn more about the work of the Alzheimer Society of Ottawa and Renfrew County, or to support their Walk for Alzheimer’s fundraiser in May, visit www.alzheimer.ca/ottawa or call 613-523-4004.

Over the years, proceeds from our CD and ticket sales have allowed my choir, the Stairwell Carollers ,to give over $130,000 in music scholarships and donations to dozens of local charities.

Xmas Concert number Four at St. Mark the Evangelist

Our 4th choral concert of the Christmas season, December 9th, 2016,  was at a brand new church - for us, that is! St. Mark the Evangelist on Fisher Avenue, Ottawa is on the west side of Bank street, inside the city without being downtown.

It's a small church that makes a big impression.

And... we were very happy to see they have a large parking area with easy access to the church. 

A good thing, since we basically move ourselves in for the evening. Singers, cloaks, and lighting equipment and risers take up acres of floor space.

Our warmup room was convenient and the church interior gives the impression of a winter chalet nestled in the Swiss Alps.

The concert was very well attended -- a full house with plenty of new faces in the audience! Thanks to the church organizers and volunteers who made it so easy for our first concert in a cozy new venue.

A return to Stittsville for a favourite concert of 2016

Our third Christmas concert of the Christmas season 2016 was Dec 3rd at St Thomas Anglican church in Stittsville, On.

We always have so much fun there! Such a welcoming crowd and the church has great acoustics.

It is also a special place because back in 2014 we had an early Christmas present!  Gord Atkinson, his wife Elaine - and their son and his wife were in the audience.

We were thrilled to meet up with our dear friend, who was there when The Stairwell Carollers name was coined!

We wish Gord and Elaine had been there this year. Unfortunately, though they wanted to see us, they were not well enough to attend.  I spoke to them on the phone and wished them a merry Christmas from all of us.

It is always such a joy to sing for the St. Thomas community. We will definitely be back!

Ottawa Carillon Concert featured Pierre Massie's Compositions and Arrangements

Another fun trip up the Tower for a very special Carillon Concert. This time, our Dominion Carillonneur, Andrea McCrady,  treated Pete with a program all his own!

The elevator was out of service, so we all huffed and puffed our way up to the keyboard room.

A cool stop on the way up was to check out the clock mechanism that runs the Westminster chime strikes. It looks and sounds like a giant music box!

As I mentioned in the post announcing this upcoming concert, Dr. McCrady is gratified that she has found a composer "in her own backyard" whose compositions and arrangements seem so fitting to the requirements of the Carillon.

She played Pierre's Stairwell Carol so beautifully! Here it is! Enjoy! Concert date was Noon, Monday, December 12th, 2016.

Here's an article by the Toronto star about Andrea and her "high-level" (pun intended) job.

Quittez pasteurs, a French carol sung by the Stairwell Carollers - YouTube

Ottawa choir, The Stairwell Carollers, sing the sweet and joyous Quittez pasteurs, a French traditional carol arranged by John Rutter.

This version of “Quittez pasteurs” is included in our “Qui creavit celum” CD now on sale.

All our CDs are available on our website in both CD and MP3 formats. Buy our CDs and help other Ottawa/Gatineau charities reach their goals!

We are an a cappella group, formed in 1977 by director Pierre Massie. Our Ottawa Chorale, The Stairwell Carollers, has been ranked amongst the best of Ontario choirs in both the 2010 and 2013 Ontario Music Festival Association competitions.

A non-profit organization, the Stairwell Carollers raises funds for local charities through concert, CD and cookbook sales.

Visit our blog
or our website for updates.

Audio: Tom Barnes. Recorded at Knox Presbyterian Church, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Dec 11th, 2015.

Videographers: Sébastien Lemay, Kolin Casagrande, Sam Sloan
Editing: Pierre Massie

Trinity United Church - a look back at a bright new venue

We always try to arrive first on concert night. Since Pierre (Pete) is the director, he feels it necessary to set a good example, and he likes to have lots of time to make sure everything will go smoothly for the performance.

Usually, René, bass, and his lovely wife, Michèle, beat us there or we all arrive at the same time.

René is a past choir committee president and now in charge of the Tech Crew.  Michèle has become our go-to girl for Front of House. She is always there to set up and sell CDs and manage all our volunteers (tickets, door, seating etc.) We could not do this without her!

 We arrive at every new venue with a little trepidation -- wondering where we will stand or how well we will hear each other. Every church has different acoustics which is further affected by the bodies of the audience.

A large, bright modern building, Trinity United - on Maitland Avenue in Ottawa - promised to house a large audience, and we weren't disappointed! The Dec 2nd concert was in aid of the Jubilee Foundation.

I couldn't find a single person to take photos of us on stage, so you'll have to take my word for the fact that the church was full. It was, and the audience was mostly new to us. Or, we were new to them. 

Whatever, they were a bit shy at first, not sure about the protocol for our concert (relaxed). But, one song in, a joke or two and Pete had them laughing and smiling. 

Maybe they never saw a choir like us -- no director in front (Pete sings in the tenor section and directs with small movements of his book and his head) -- no invisible barrier to connect with our listeners. 

Our concerts are more intimate and personal than some others since Pete encourages us to look at the audience and each other.

Our choir is like a big family, and Pete and I are there till the end to make sure no singer is left without a ride home.

We leave as we came, with René and Michèle, our arms full of the stuff that makes a concert happen.

Music binders, lighting instruments, cords and duct tape.