Welcome


Welcome to Renate's Baton. This blog is mostly for and about my choir, The York Region Community Choir.

But, While I'm holding the baton, I'm in charge. So, if I want to talk about other parts of my life, I will. :)

The choir itself is a community and I'm discovering that we have a lot in common with one another besides our love of music and singing.

When I go off on a tangent, there is always a crowd coming along. Join us!

Friday, September 21, 2018

YRCC rehearsal 17-SEP-2018

The first small group met at 6:30 and almost completely finished their song!
Let's Keep Christmas in our Hearts perfectly expresses our theme.

If you have a solo or duet you'd like to do, let me know asap. The theme is peace, heavenly peace, the true meaning of Christmas, and connecting with our heritage/ancestors through music at the holidays.

Warm-ups included Maybe my mummy will go to Miami and maybe my mummy will not :-)

We welcomed a bunch of new folk to choir!
1. Siyahamba is coming together nicely. I spoke to the YRPMC director and they do all 4 endings, and end in English. Instead of doing 2 and 2, they alternate languages.
2. Mansions of the Lord is awesome, and a very sticky melody, stuck in my head for days. We spend some time reviewing the tenor and alto parts, and pointed out the little mistake we made at first (and on the recordings) in the alto and soprano lines where the notes seem to be the opposite of what you'd expect, but actually give the melody to soprano where it belongs.
3. They All Call it Canada: We reviewed the tricky bit at pages 10 and 11. It was very good!
4. 4 Strong Winds: We reviewed the doo-doo part. Very good!
5. We started Grown Up Christmas List. I recommend you move it to right after Go Now in Peace, so that it's in alphabetical order. Some people couldn't find it, but it's just out of order. We sang through once to get an idea of what the arrangement is like. There's a repeat, but it's not too tricky. Sing to page 5, then return to page 2 at the sign. Next time you're at page 5, go down to the Coda on the word "list". There's a bridge, then a key change to the end. We learned parts starting at bar 15. It was great!

Next week:
6:45 Let's Keep Christmas in our Hearts

  • 4 Strong Winds
  • Imagine
  • Hallelujah
  • Grown Up List
  • Peace on This Silent Night

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