Award-Winning Conductor Carlos Foggin brings rare sacred masterworks to Canmore

​Award-winning conductor, composer and organist Carlos Foggin will lead The Sun, the Stars, and the Queen of Heaven on Sun, Aug 16 2026 at 2 pm at the Shrine Church of Our Lady of the Rockies in Canmore. Presented especially for Marian Week, the concert will feature a professional chamber choir, brass quintet, timpani, organ, Gregorian chant, Scripture and Marian hymns.

For Canmore and the Bow Valley, the concert is an uncommon opportunity to experience sacred music of exceptional artistic calibre in the striking setting of the Shrine Church.

Foggin is known for bringing ambitious sacred and orchestral works to life with musical precision and a deep sense of prayer. For this concert, he has assembled a program spanning nearly a thousand years of sacred music, drawing together ancient chant, Renaissance polyphony, the splendour of brass and organ, and congregational hymns.

"This program will showcase great motets and thousand-year-old chants that are rarely heard anymore,” Foggin said.

He added that he is especially excited to bring the program to Canmore, where the audience will be invited to take part in prayer and congregational song, and to enter into a prayerful celebration of the Office of None—part of the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours—at its traditional hour.

Sacred music by Palestrina, Victoria, Charpentier, Beethoven and Parry will form the heart of the program. Selections include the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, as well as Marian favourites such as Ave Maria, Immaculate Mary and the Gregorian Salve Regina.

​Brass will open the afternoon before those gathered are invited to join in several familiar hymns. The program will then move directly into the Office of None, with psalms, Scripture, prayer and responses.

​Parry’s magnificent I Was Glad will bring the afternoon to a powerful conclusion. The celebrated setting of Psalm 122, known for its ceremonial grandeur, will follow the proclamation of the same psalm during the Office of None.

​Admission is free, and all are welcome. A freewill offering will be collected in support of the concert and sacred music programming.

A pilgrimage in the heart of the Rockies

​Pilgrims from across the Diocese are invited to gather in Canmore and Banff during the Jubilee Year of St. Francis. Participants may come for a day, a weekend or the entire week, building their own pilgrimage at their own pace.

Marian Week begins on Sat, Aug 15, with the Solemnity of the Assumption Mass at St. Mary’s Parish in Banff with Bishop William T. McGrattan at 5 pm. It concludes on Sat, Aug 22, with the Feast of the Queenship of Mary Mass at the Shrine Church of Our Lady of the Rockies at 11 am in Canmore, also with Bishop McGrattan.

Throughout the week, pilgrims may take part in Mass, daily talks, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and other opportunities for prayer.

Marian Week schedule
​
Sat, Aug 15
5 pm – Solemnity of the Assumption Mass at St. Mary’s, Banff, with Bishop McGrattan

Sun, Aug 16
9:30 am – Sunday Mass at Shrine Church, Canmore
10am – Solemnity of the Assumption Mass (St. Mary’s, Banff) with Bishop McGrattan
11:30 am - Sunday Mass at Shrine Church, Canmore
2 pm – The Sun, the Stars, and the Queen of Heaven, conducted by Carlos Foggin
5 pm – Sunday Mass

Mon–Fri, Aug 17–22
11 am – Mass at the Shrine Church, Canmore
12 pm – Daily talk
3 pm – Divine Mercy Chaplet
6:30 pm – Mass at St. Mary’s, Banff
​
Sat, Aug 22
11 am – Feast of the Queenship of Mary Mass at the Shrine Church, Canmore, with Bishop McGrattan

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Concert information

• Sun, Aug 16, 2 pm at  Shrine Church of Our Lady of the Rockies,  Canmore, Alberta - part of the second annual Marian Week in the Rockies, Aug 15–22, 2026. 
• Title: The Sun, the Stars, and the Queen of Heaven:  A Musical Prayer for Marian Week
• Conducted by Carlos Foggin, featuring a professional chamber choir, brass quintet, timpani, organ, Gregorian chant, Scripture and Marian hymns.
• Free admission | Freewill offering​

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Photos from the 2025 Crowned with Stars: A Concert for the Queen of Heaven courtesy of ​Bandi Szakony.