Four Strong Winds
Join us!
Join SING THE NORTH to sing FOUR STRONG WINDS by Ian Tyson in a stunning arrangement for SATB chorus and piano by Dr Larry Nickel.
Your Special SING THE NORTH Choral Experience
Singers on our project will take weekly full-choir rehearsals and sectionals (all rehearsals recorded to watch at your leisure).
Registration includes everything you need to join us, including your score, field trip, access to the STN members pages, PLUS conducting videos featuring STN Music Director, Kathryn Whitney and the STN Ensemble singers. You also get a full set of Mp3 sound files to help you learn your part.
Virtual Choir Tour to Alberta
The project will also feature a Live Virtual Choir Field Trip on the STN Tour Bus to Vermillion, Alberta, where we will have a personal tour of Chatsworth Farm, a family-run, farm-to-table ranch!
Special Guest
We are joined on this project by special guest artist, Anita Comba, pianist, conductor, arranger, and vice-president of the BC Choral Federation. Anita, a native of Alberta, will be providing a beautiful natural live recording of the piano part for our virtual choir video, plus live recordings of all vocal parts to aid your learning.
We’ll also have a special live session with Anita on how to match her beautifully easy, laid-back live recorded sound.
All are welcome
Join us to sing this heart-warming Canadian classic. Follow the link below to Choose Your Price and join us to sing FOUR STRONG WINDS!
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View our Timetable here (all sessions recorded)
Virtual products do not ship.
Four Strong Winds
Four Strong Winds is a classic Canadian folk ballad that was written by Ian Tyson and recorded by the folk duo Ian and Sylvia.
A significant song in the 1960s folk revival in North America, and inspired by Bob Dylan’s music of the same time, Four Strong Winds was Tyson’s first ever composition. Tyson wrote the ballad in only twenty minutes at the apartment of his then manager, Albert Grossman, in New York in 1961.
The theme of the song is the feeling of conflict when a relationship is nearing its end. There is a wish to stay together, but an acknowledgement that it is time to move on.
With its mention of the cold winters and travelling along prairie highways toward new opportunities, Four Strong Winds has become a Canadian classic and is considered to be an unofficial anthem of Tyson’s home province, Alberta.
SING THE NORTH are singing a beautiful arrangement of Four Strong Winds for SATB chorus and piano, written by Dr Larry Nickel.
Meet Ian Tyson, arr. Larry Nickel
Ian Tyson is one of Canada’s great folk, and later country, music heroes.
A rodeo rider and graphic artist as a young man, he took up the guitar during a time of recovery from an injury. He went on to have a career that has spanned seven decades.
Tyson sang his first concert in the Heidelberg Café in Vancouver in 1956, when he was a member of the band the Sensational Stripes. After moving to Toronto to work as a graphic artist, Tyson began performing with Sylvia Fricker – later Sylvia Tyson – and the two formed the duo Ian & Sylvia, which went on to perform together for more than 15 years, releasing 13 albums of both folk and country music and touring all over the world.
Following their divorce, Tyson hosted a national television program in Canada, the Ian Tyson Show, which was also known as Nashville North. At this time Tyson gave up his folk roots, moving over to country music.
In 1989, Ian Tyson was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.
SING THE NORTH are performing a version of Four Strong Winds that was arranged for SATB chorus and piano by composer and publisher, Dr Larry Nickel, owner of Cypress Choral Music, who also publish Four Strong Winds.
Virtual Field Trip
Chatsworth Farm, Vermillion, Alberta
Just as the lyrics to FOUR STRONG WINDS say, SING THE NORTH is going to "go out to Alberta" to see this very special land filled with big skies, Rocky Mountains, and endless prairie, where the horses, groundhogs, and the buffalo run free.
As part of our project on this piece, the choir will be travelling on the STN Virtual Choir Tour Bus to Vermillion, Alberta, where we will have a special private live tour via zoom of Chatsworth Farm.
At Chatsworth Farm, we will have a personal tour of the livestock - best time of year to see all the baby animals on an Alberta ranch - and will hear how one family runs this thriving business in the middle of the vast Canadian prairie.
Watch the video below to meet the people who keep the farm running, and who will be welcoming you soon live on our special STN Live Virtual Tour!
