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, March 10, 2023

YRCC 2023 Rehearsal Review March 7th

 We danced and sang with Beatles songs as part of our warm-up. Yay!

The Mad About Mozart small group started today. It was fun, but kind of hard. I'm happy that Lauren is going to be leading the small group ;-) We'll see if we can get recordings, and for now,  here's a YouTube video. Maybe this will help. 



1. Happy Together: Done! The ba-ba section is much easier than it looks. We reviewed the parts, and they're also pretty easy. We'll have all tenors and basses on part 2 with the altos for now. Once we're all together, I might ask one or two tenors to sing part 1.

2. Walking on Sunshine: Done! But, we'll keep reminding the tenor/basses about their part after the key change. Something about the key change pulls them to melody. I'm actually starting to like it that way, but maybe if some of you could sing the tenor harmony, it would be better. 

3. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring: Done! We sang both verses! It's so good. The second verse needs to be looked at because the words are not as well known and fitting them into the melody is a little different. Pay attention to the phrase/slur marks that show you where the syllables go. We'll need to work on dynamics, but it's really very good as it is. 

4. This Little Light of Mine: Fun! Debbie and Blair sang the solos and they were great! This is an important part of our theme of rising like the sun. We feel the light and blue skies because of love, because of God, because it's our nature to cycle through seasons, but, but we have the power to shine our own lights! We shine! Every day, we must decide to let our lights shine, every day. 

5. We Rise Again: Powerful. Marlene does such a great job on the solo that people won't notice if we're a little messy on the oohs and ahhs. And, the choruses, and the key change work so well that everyone will love this song. All you have to do, really, is feel it and sing with passion. I want you to feel that the rising again is not passive, just something that happens in nature, and we are happily aware of it. But, instead, I want it to feel like something that we do with intention and joy. We rise! We get up, get outside, and like the sun, we let our lights shine, and we rise again and again. Happy Together, because we stepped out of our homes, and got in our cars and drove to choir (or walked to choir- Melinda). 

Next week, Tuesday, March 14th

6:30 Mad About Mozart
  • Happy Together
  • Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
  • On Eagle's Wings
  • Walking on Sunshine
  • We Rise Again
Next Tuesday is PIE day: 3.14. Eat pie! I'll probably have a savoury pie for dinner. 
Also, at our church, it's a day to be Public, Intentional, and Explicit (PIE) in our embracing the 2SLGBTQ+ community. I'm on the Affirming Church Team, so I'll be serving pie on Sunday to observe PIE day. So, maybe we'll talk about gender and sexuality at choir?




Next Friday is St. Patrick's Day.  
Make plans to wear green (drink something green?) and have fun! If you have a chance to dance next Friday for St. Patrick's Day, take it.










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