The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will kick off its new season this weekend with a performance of “Carmina Burana,” accompanied by the 100-voice Portland Symphonic Choir.

The cantata’s opening and closing chorus, “O Fortuna,” has become so famous that it is routinely used in numerous commercials, films and sporting events.

The orchestra’s musical director, Salvador Brotons, met with the choir’s artistic director, Alissa Deeter, to prepare.

“Maestro Brotons made it a point more than once that we must sing ‘Carmina Burana’ without fear,” Deeter said.

Carl Orff’s popular work takes its name from a manuscript that contains 13th century poems found in a Benedictine abbey south of Munich. The text has a mixture of medieval Latin and Middle High German poems that were written by defrocked monk

See Full Page