Be sure to vote!!! Do your civic duty! But, make sure you can come to choir too ;-)

Voting in the advance polls is so much easier (and faster) than voting on Monday, October 19. You can go when it's convenient for you and of course, you will be able to arrive at choir practice on time on election day!!!

Your Voter Information Card will have the Advance Voting Days information on it. On the card I got in the mail, it says I can go to the Newmarket Community Centre from October 9-12 from noon to 8 pm.

You can vote at Elections Canada starting now until October 13! The Newmarket-Aurora office is at 17315 Yonge St. (on the east side of Yonge just beyond the light north of the Admin Centre where we practise). To vote there before October 9th, you need to know who the candidates are and you will get a Special Ballot Voting Kit. The official Advance Polling starts on October 9th, and they use regular ballots.

The hours when you can vote at the Elections Canada Office are:

• 9:00 am - 9:00 pm Mon. to Fri.
• 9:00 am- 6:00 pm on Sat. 
• 12:00 - 4:00 pm on Sun.

Isn't that amazing?! No excuses! Go and vote!

For more early voting  information and info on other ridings you can call 1-866-256-2872 or go to the website, elections.ca. It's very easy to use.

DON'T FORGET TO BRING ID!

Wow! Another great YRCC rehearsal! Sept.21 was super. Sept.28: what to expect

(* I have a water bottle that was left behind in the Soprano Section. It's grey and black.)

Sept. 21 was super!

Our warm-ups included, swaying and clapping and singing A-men and Hallelujah.

1. We started with A-men and all sang the Tenor melody line on page 7. When we got the hang of it, we sang all the way through and it was sounding very good. I've asked for a few 2nd Sopranos and a few Altos to join the Tenors on page 7, and might need them to do the A-mens with them too. They're just too far outnumbered. So far, Kit, Trix, Jenne, Carol, and Debbie have volunteered.

2. Some of us had sung Little Tree before, so when we sang through, it was pretty good already! I love, love, love this song. We learned parts up to the bottom of page 5.

3. O Holy Night is amazing! Most of us sang it last winter, but forgot a couple of key bits. We'll review them next week.

4. We continued learning the 12 Days After Christmas. We learned our parts in sections C and D, and reviewed A and B.

5. We had run out of time before singing You'll Never Walk Alone, but everyone agreed that it was worth being a little late for. What a satisfying song to sing!


We talked about small groups and solos. I spoke to the soloists that I had in mind for things, namely Mary-Ellen for O Holy Night,  Kristen for the Sussex Carol, Heather for What is This Lovely Fragrance, and Janet for In the Bleak Midwinter. I might divide the Bleak Midwinter again, as we've done in the past. Still thinking. Haven't spoken to the men yet.

Small groups: I'm still looking for another small group, at least mixed, maybe just men? I found a nice TTBB arrangement of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

A couple of business items:
Equipment Roster will be posted on the website soon. We all take turns helping Lauren set up and take down the keyboard and stuff. 4 people at a time have a 2-week shift. 2 come early and 2 stay late. The 4 decide.
Chair arrangement: someone is needed to oversee the arrangement of the chairs before everyone has arrived. It's harder to move chairs when people are sitting in them ;-) See Lauren if you'd like to take on this role.
Please consider taking over the role of Music Librarian from Trix. You'd have to have room for 4 or 5 tall filing cabinets, and a table or two for the sorting of music and preparing binders. There's also a printer. You will have help when it's time do do the binders, but you see Trix always has extra binders and music in case we have guests, a few bins of things to carry around every week. Talk to Trix and Lauren if you'd like more information about this Executive Role as soon as possible.
Small Group Assistant (Director or Accompanist) starting in January: Help Anne-Marie lead small group rehearsals either by playing parts or directing or taking turns with Anne-Marie.

September 28th

6:45 Breath of Heaven sign up online to join the group.

• Come Emmanuel
• In The Bleak Midwinter
• O Holy Night
• Shine Hanukkah
• Twelve Days After Christmas

Wow! Great start to YRCC's 20th Christmas season! Small groups to form asap. solos?

We had a very successful start to our season!

Our registration went smoothly thanks to the careful preparations of Carol and Debbie, our registrars, and to Trix, our music librarian, and to the large number of members who pre-registered online!

Once we got singing, it was obvious that we'd been looking forward to that first night of singing together. We were amazing!

We sang:

1. Magic of Winter, beautifully with dynamics and everything. Wow! And, people started and stopped perfectly throughout the evening! You watched me! It felt fantastic! Thank you!

2. Button Up Your Overcoat was super and we stayed on the subway very confidently.

3. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring was excellent. You were soft at the beginning and very strong in my favourite section. Thank you!

4. We started learning the 12 Days After Christmas. It's so much fun! A few of us have sung it before, so it's not entirely new, but there are lots of tricky parts. We have to work on getting the words out clearly,especially final consonants. Our audiences need to understand the words we're singing. We sang through the whole piece, and learned sections A and B.

5. We learned a whole new piece!!! A-men! Only 2 or 3 of us have ever sung this song before, but we sang through and learned parts to the whole song! It's fun and groovy. We need to get a feel for the jazzy timing, but it's not hard.

On Monday, September 21st, we will sing:

• A-men
• Little Tree
• O Holy Night
• Shine Hanukkah
• Twelve Days After Christmas

Our first Small Group will start very soon, maybe next week, Sept. 28 if we can manage it. We'd like a group of women to sing Breath of Heaven.  We will not spend much time learning this, as there are a good number of you who know it. 

The Coventry Carol Group will be reunited to sing it again for us.

I'd like another small group to sing one of our songs from the past 20 years. Is there a choir song that you wish we had included which would work as a small group selection? 

- Somewhere a Child is Sleeping

-Noel Nouvelet/Christmas Comes Anew

-We Wish you a Merry Madrigal

-Calypso Christmas

-Mele Kalikimaka

-Carol of the Bells...?

Or, maybe you remember a solo. duet/small group that you particularly liked that might be adapted to a new small group?

- Little Drummer Boy/ Peace on Earth

- Mr. Santa

-Bright Star of Bethlehem

-Christmas Dinner...?

I've asked Trix to sing  Santa Baby, and I am hoping that Anna will sing Ave Maria. 

Another solo and/or a duet would be nice too. If you are inspired, talk to me.

Solo songs in the choir pieces:

O Holy Night (I'd like to hear Mary-Ellen sing the solo again, and alone. Heather b/u)

In the Bleak Midwinter (1/2 Janet? Kristen/Todd b/u)

What is this Lovely Fragrance (2- S&T- difficult, wide range goes quite high Heather and Todd? b/u?)

Sussex Carol (1- strong solid soprano voice: Kristen? b/u?)

Back to Choir soon! Start Date is Monday, September 14th

Choir starts next month! Labour Day is late this year, so we're not back until Monday, September 14th. We have a late concert this year, too: Sunday, December 6th.

What a beautiful summer we've had! I hope you've been enjoying it. I'm sure that music has been a big part of your lives even when your Mondays aren't dedicated to it. Music festivals and concerts in parks are a huge part of summer, and with lots of parties with dance music and pool-side music and campfire sing-alongs, there's music everywhere. I went to a 25th Wedding Anniversary party where the music was supplied by a steel band (2 guys) playing popular songs and dance music by the pool. It was fantastic! What a great, festive summer vibe that provided!

And, I've had Christmas music interwoven in all this.

Our Christmas repertoire was decided in June, and the music has all been ordered. Sapphire and I have done some recording so that you have parts to learn and accompaniments to rehearse with. I'm trying to figure out which soloists will sing which parts, thinking about what to teach first, how long it will take to learn the new things, and getting wonderfully sticky melodies stuck in my head. It's never a problem when it's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, but strange when it's the Magic of Winter, or Button up your Overcoat and Santa Baby! It's always fun when we put the binders together and start singing our favourites. It's better when there are a few of us. It's weird being the only one singing Christmas music in July and August.

I've posted the songs we're singing here on my blog. I hope you enjoy singing them and I hope that people will have fun memories of the older pieces that I've pulled out to commemorate our 20th Christmas/ Winter season. Over the years, we've moved to a more inclusive Winter concert in December, but our earlier December concerts were Christmas concerts, so, this season, the majority of our music is Christmas music. There are some exciting challenges, some fun and easy pieces, and lots of our old favourites too. You can start telling your friends and families about our concert on December 6th in the afternoon at Trinity Anglican Church again. Mark the date on the calendar!

The YRCC Executive for 2015/2016

Introducing 

the Executive of the York Region Community Choir 

for the 2015/2016 Choir Year:

The Executive works together with the Director and Accompanist, and the Reading Committee, to choose music, decide when and where we sing, and make sure people are there to sing and to hear us sing, and take care of our equipment, finances, website and music library.The Executive is elected and the Reading Committee, Conductor and Accompanist are appointed. 

Our President is Lauren Solar (laurensolar@gmail.com). This is Lauren's third year as President. Lauren is responsible for everything happening. 

Our Vice-President is Jane Griffiths (jane.griffiths@rogers.com). Jane is replacing Heather, who is preparing to move to BC. (We wish her all the best! Heather will continue to assist wherever needed throughout the winter season.) Jane's role is to help Lauren and anyone else on the executive when they need a hand.  

Our Public Relations Chair is Roxanne McCormick (roxannemccormick@rogers.com). If you need to contact us regarding advertising, or to book us for a concert, or just need some information, contact Roxanne. The PR role is to keep us connected to the community.  

Daphne Young (youngdc@rogers.com) is our Secretary/Treasurer. If you want to write us a cheque, make it out to York Region Community Choir, and Daphne will put it in our account. We accept cash too. Daphne will keep our paperwork in order, creating and maintaining records like the minutes of our meetings and accounting stuff. Michele Horton supports Daphne and will continue to represent us when we share condolences and congratulations. 

Trix Verge (trix.verge@gmail.com) is our Webmaster and former Music Librarian. She had our music collection in her basement for years and her organizational skills and patient dedication served us well in our greatest period of growth. Trix is the one to go to for help using the website, and she makes sure that it's functioning properly. In her role as Music Librarian Trix had a place on the Executive and always had excellent ideas to contribute.

Lyn Gad recently took over the Music Librarian role. She has several filing cabinets full of music in her basement now, along with tables and a printer, and she makes sure we all have music to sing every Monday, and has extra binders made up for guests, or people who are checking us out. If you have a binder of music that belongs to us and want to know how to get it back to us, contact Lyn! 

Carol Ford and Debbie Hood are the Registrars. They make sure the membership list is up-to-date and coordinate registration in September. They will be calling you if you're on the waiting list. Debbie had our coffee (and tea) equipment and supplies in her basement for many years, and together with Carol took care of our refreshment needs, but has recently passed on that responsibility to Mary-Ellen Scriver ( the alto Mary-Ellen).

Heather Vickers, Teija Cumming and Enid Maize are the Reading Committee. They help choose new music and order it from the publishers, shopping in person and on line. They are chosen for their ability to read music and knowledge of our strengths and weaknesses. They've had a bit of a break during this 20th anniversary year, but will be engaged to find a couple new pieces for the spring season. 

Renate Naghavi (That's me.) is the Conductor/Musical Director of the YRCC. The Conductor chooses a theme and selects music for each season, with the help of the Executive and the Reading Committee, and with input from the Accompanist. The Conductor teaches the music with the help of the Accompanist, and leads the choir in performances. 

Anne Marie Vandekemp has been the Assistant Director, officially and unofficially for at least a decade. Since she is one of the original members of the choir, Anne Marie is consulted on everything from music to venues and managing member politics. Together with Heather Vickers, Anne Marie leads the small group rehearsals. 

Sapphire Navaratnarajah is our Accompanist. She is a talented pianist who helps Renate teach the music and accompanies the choir in rehearsal and in performances. 

Choir Poster: Send it to everyone you know!

Monday, April 13 Rehearsal Review and Monday, April 20 Preview

Monday, April 13
6:30 Musical Medley-We rocked it!

Warm-up was all the movement we learned for Another Op'nin'!
Basically, we're holding our binders on our hips in our left hands, like we do when we walk. When you sing Another Opnin, you hold your right hand out and up, like you're introducing someone on stage. Point up left, centre, right for Philly Boston Baltimo'e. Say Hello: tip your hat. Job: thumb up. Make your future forget the past: point up left sweep hand over forehead (forget). Pain: hold open hand on chest (nobody can see your belly). 4 fingers, point like at a naughty child. 3 fingers, hand on forehead. 1 finger, shrug at your neighbours. Hat: same as say hello. Overture: cup your ear. Cross fingers, hold heart. open the curtain. That's it.

All I Have to Do is Dream: easy as pie, and beautiful!

Moon River: You got it! It now sounds as easy as pie and it's beautiful!

Tup Tuppa: You got it! Enough of you have it that it sounds great! Don't stress it. I need more Altos at the beginning of the second part. You have the melody there. Everyone else should be quieter at the beginning of the second part so we can hear the Altos in their moment of glory.

Yesterday Once More: The ending is so cool. Remember to start to be soft right after the Sopranos sing It's yesterday once more. Both shoobie-doos are soft and the basses come in strong, but everyone else is soft for one smore.

On Eagle's Wings: Stunning

You'll Never Walk Alone: to die for!


Monday, April 20th

6:30 Born This Way
Boogie Woogie Man at break
Solos and duet stay after

• Another Opnin
• Do Wah Diddy
• I'm Always Chasing Rainbows
• Jesu, Joy
• Moon River
• This Little Light
• Tup Tuppa

Monday, April 27th

Run-through rehearsal at Trinity Anglican Church in Aurora.

Soloists and small groups will come early to work with microphones.

Everyone else, be there and ready to start at 7:30, so maybe aim for 7:15? 

7:30 we start from the beginning and run through the whole show. We might finish late. Be prepared to stay a bit longer if necessary. 

Moon River Inspiration

We were talking about how Moon River should flow with more ease now that we've got the hang of it, and not with the intensity that we had when we were learning it. 

Here's a video that Sophie found of a choir singing our arrangement, very beautifully. And, some of them sing and dance! (And we get stressed about snapping!)

The colours and the graceful wave-like movements also help to create the peaceful flowing water effect. We sometimes sound like we're white-water rafting ;-)

Monday, April 6th Rehearsal Review and Preview to April 13th

Monday, April 6th

With less than a month until the show, you should be spreading word around. Send your friends and families a note to tell them to set the date aside. We'll have posters and tickets available next week. 

6:30: Musical Medley- we reviewed B&B, Razzle, DQ, Joseph. Watch for fermatas in B&B and remember the long guests and the short guests. Razzle- dazzle with those rests, sing loud at What if your hinges, and smile while you sing the last Razzle-Dazzle. There were timing issues in DQ. In Joseph, at the back and forth part, Altos sing with Sopanos and Tenors sing with Basses and nobody holds.

We warmed up with Another Op'nin'. We are memorizing this one, so that we can move and do motions with it. We're learning the movements next week, so memorize this week. The movements will probably help with the memorizing. (some people were surprised about the memorizing thing- I told you about it for the first time on January 7th. And, we have rehearsed it several times, and each time I mentioned that we would memorize it. Maybe you were away or talking/not paying attention)

Yesterday Once More went beautifully with Janet singing Lauren's solo. The sopranos fixed there messy bits. We reviewed the ending. I recommend you memorize your "Once More" so you can watch.

I'm Always Chasing Rainbows looks cool! Everyone snapping together is really special. Try hard to learn your part well enough so that you can sing and snap. Watch me for the direction of the snaps. We all have to be together. Remember- they're the same snaps as in Blue Skies and if you can't snap, just move your hand the way everyone else does. Apparently, this is extra hard for lefties.

Tup Tuppa was awesome! The sopranos are very strong as many of you have memorized this song and are carrying the others. Follow your friends; they know the way! The tenors, too, are rocking their part. Sapphire played for the basses the first time. Your part is the hardest. Don't stress too much about it. Just sing something down there.  Sing a third below the tenors, or an octave below the altos at parts and that's cool. Altos are getting stronger every time! Sapphire played for you and it felt great. Be sure to sing out loud when you have the melody on the second half!

Moon River is really, really good! I'm so proud of you! Just one thing here: you sound like you're trying really hard but it needs to sound easy. Think Andy Williams laid-back. You have to try to make hard sound simple. It's not James Bond, it's Breakfast at Tiffany's.

You Raise Me Up!!! Bill is back! Bill was the one who introduced us to this song at the Stephen Leacock Theatre a million years ago. We fell in love and have been singing it as a choir for ever, since then. Bill is going to sing Stanley's solo, the first verse and chorus, and we'll remember that first time, and looking up Josh Groban and discovering a whole world of beautiful music. Thank you, Bill!

Hello, Goodbye! So much fun!


Next week:
6:30 will be Musical Medley again, and the following week will be Born This Way. So, we need to finish the Musical Medley! Boogie Woogie Man will meet at break. Solos and Duet meet at 9:30 for the next 2 weeks.

• All I Have to Do is Dream
• Another Op'nin'
• Moon River
• Tup Tuppa
• Yesterday Once More
• On Eagle's Wings/ You'll Never Walk Alone

Carol Ford found me as a toddler conducting a choir and shared it on Facebook

Monday, March 30th Rehearsal and Monday, April 6th Easter Monday Rehearsal

Monday, March 30

6:30 Musical Medley from start to finish- wow!

Warm-up was Monday, Monday

Yesterday Once More was very pretty. The ending is supposed to be soft. Altos shoobies are soft and Sopranos move down to the second note of "more" softly. Only the bass is strong at the very end. For everyone else, the word "once" comes on beat 2 and lasts 3 beats, then you go down to "more".
Sopranos, you need to pay attention to the following:
pg. 5 bar 29-30 "be-fore" has 4 syllables. Look at "fore".
pg. 5 Shoobie do lang lang, the note is lower than you want it to be. It's actually the same note that you end up on singing "before".
pg. 6 bar 38-39 "had" has 2 syllables.
pg. 6 bar 41-42 "changed" has 2 syllables.

Button Up Your Overcoat gets better every time. The subway works well now, just remember that the sopranos and altos have to be soft enough to hear the tenor and bass "French fries" line.

Tup Tuppa gets better every time! Really, the first time through was amazing, especially the first page! Each section had a turn having Sapphire play their part, and it was really, really good. A number of sopranos have taken the suggestion to not look at their music, but just sing it often enough to memorize it, and it really worked. They were watching me, and I was pretty much directing to the sopranos. The other parts mostly need down beats and up beats anyway, which I try hard to keep clear.

Moon River is so cool! We did an awesome job of learning this one relatively quickly. We went over the Soprano and Alto "oohs" at page 7 (Sopranos divide) and page 8 and 9. The whole song is done and sounding awesome!

We Rise Again is such a treat to sing and to hear! I just love it! Something we have to remember is for the Sopranos and Altos to keep it soft during that first We Rise Again (page 5/6) so we can hear the Tenors and Basses who have cool stuff going on. Also, if we're loud right from the start, we risk sounding noisy and not musical, as that melody repeats and gets louder.

Monday, April 6th. (Easter Monday) 
6:30 Musical Medley

• Another Op'nin'
• Hello, Goodbye
• Chasing Rainbows
• Moon River
• Tup Tuppa
• Yesterday Once More

March 23rd-Rehearsal Review and Preview of March 30th

Monday, March 23rd

Thank you to Jane and Tracey for bringing treats and to Debbie and Carol for taking care of the delicious decaf for our social time at break!

6:30 Musical Medley of Medleys

Warm-up was I'm Always Chasing Rainbows. Sang it twice and then on the third time, we also snapped through the whole song. It was a challenge, but we can do it! We'll stop somewhere on the last line since the timing there is hard.

Shenandoah is so beautiful! We reviewed the oohs at the beginning, and the top of the last page, and the rest was excellent!

We finished Moon River!!! The ending is very cool and we'll review it next week. So happy that we've done so well learning this really tricky piece. Thank God it's a great melody that everyone loves!

Tup Tuppa doesn't seem to be everybody's cup of tea, but I've had enough with the bad attitude I'm hearing. From now on, no more rolled eyes and no more moaning about this charming piece of music (not even joking, Really.)! You will find it much easier if you adopt a positive attitude. The first page is really very good already, and you need to work on the second page. Please listen to and sing along with your part on the website. Some people report that it's easier when they don't look at their music, because to them that's intimidating. When they just listen and sing to the recording, it's easier to just let go and sing without thinking about it.

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring was also intimidating at the beginning, but now it's so good, we can do it in our sleep. We talked a bit about some of the really scary challenges we've overcome together. It's such a great feeling when we conquer a scary piece!

Hallelujah is our reward for all the hard work we do. It's one of our most beautiful and satisfying songs to sing. Our arrangement is the best I've heard. Gerry and Trix did a great job on their solos. When you remember to stay strong on the last chorus, it's magical!

Next week, Monday, March 30th:

6:30 Musical Medley of Medleys

1. Button Up
2. Moon River
3. We Rise Again
4. Yesterday Once More
5. Tup Tuppa
6. Hello, Goodbye/ Monday, Monday/ Eagles Wings? (we'll see what we feel like and how much time we have)

March 16 Rehearsal Review and Preview to March 23

March 16

6:30  Sapphire recorded all the parts of Tup Tuppa on their own. Listen to your part and sing along!

7:00  Born This Way! 

Warm-ups included lots of stuff for paying attention to the conductor and breathing exercises.

Do Wah Diddy Diddy is easy, but you have to pay attention to where you're singing and where you're not singing. Sopranos have to be confident coming in on each section. 

Button Up Your Overcoat is good! We can stay on the subway! It was fine. 

Tup Tuppa is coming along. Each time we sing it, it gets better. Keep on singing it. Use the recordings. 

This Little Light of Mine is fun. We decided to pronounce our Ts carefully on the first page to make a bigger contrast between the "Sunday School" beginning and the groovy gospel part that starts on the third page. Gerry and Kevin sang the solo together and it was great! After the solo section, the chorus is quieter. The end is loud, starting at the key change at bar 68. It's at the page turn, so make a note at the bottom of the page. 

Moon River is so cool! It's pretty hard, but so rewarding! We continued on with the oohs on page 7 and learned pages 8 and 9 and reviewed everything from the beginning. It's coming along nicely, but please have a look at it at home if you have some time. The recordings are up for that, so you can sing along.

Next Week,    March 23            Coffee and Treats at Break! 

6:30 Musical Medley Group

• Hallelujah
• I'm Always Chasing Rainbows
• Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
• Moon River
• Shenandoah
• Tup Tuppa

March 9 Rehearsal Review and Preview to March 16

***Please check your binders and bags for missing Keynote's Choir music, Steal Away. We were given #20-40 and there are 4 missing: #21,24,31,33

Thank you to everyone who participated in our performance on Sunday. I'm very, very proud of you for coming to Roy's funeral and for being so wonderful! You learned new music in half an hour and did a great job with it, and of course On Eagle's Wings was fantastic. Emanda Richards, the Trinity music director sent a nice email thanking us, and the family presented us with a lovely card an an honorarium.
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The Born This Way Small Group met at 6:30 and they've re-vamped their already awesome version of this popular Lady Gaga song! The Boogie Woogie Man group met at break. It's so much fun! We're working on page 7 and the ending. The rest is just a matter of looking at the words.

Warm-ups included stress-reducing stretches.

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring was excellent! It's hard to believe we used to think it was really, really hard!

Tup-Tuppa is really, really hard. I wonder if it will ever feel as good as Jesu? We sang it through, with both repeats, and it wasn't great, but it's getting better. We are planning to re-record the parts so that you only hear your part so that you can try to do more work on it on your own. It's going to come together.

Moon River is a treat! It's not easy, but it's so rewarding! All parts are on the website with only the accompaniment in the background.

I'm Always Chasing Rainbows is coming along really, really well! I'm thinking we might be able to do the snaps all the way through the way it's written. Once we're comfortable with our parts, let's try it!

Hello, Goodbye is getting close to perfect. I think we even got the "no mac" part the last time through!

Monday, Monday is always fun and when the tenors and basses get their "fine" in strong and on time, it feels magical.


Next week, Monday, March 16:

6:30 Sapphire and Renate recording
7:00 Born this Way

• Button Up Your Overcoat
• Do Wah Diddy Diddy
• I'm Always Chasing Rainbows
• Moon River
• This Little Light of Mine
• Tup Tuppa

March 2nd Rehearsal Review

The Musical Medley group met at 6:30 and learned the Joseph piece, and sang the whole thing from the beginning up to that point, then sight-read through I Could Have Danced All Night. Great ending!

Warm-ups included marching and wiggling and All I Have to Do is Dream. It's pretty

Hello, Good-Bye is almost done! We learned Ticket to Ride and Can't Buy Me Love, and sang the whole thing through!

Tup Tuppa is hard, but we have to make it sound easy. Try to relax and have fun. If we have a bit of extra harmony, it will be okay ;-) Here's a link to the video of an orchestra all singing their instruments' parts in the William Tell Overture.

Yesterday Once More is sounding excellent already. We looked at the shoobie-doo lang-langs on page 5, 9, and 11, and the ending. The timing at the end is tricky. We'll look at that again.

At breaktime, the Boogie Woogie group got together and sang it for the first time. (Enid, Lauren, Janet, Debbie, Altos and Sophie S2, Trix S1) Pretty good. Great team. We've to to look at the alto part on page 7 again, and page 8 is not quite what we expected. We'll do it again at break next Monday.

Next week, March 9

1. Hello, Goodbye
2. I'm Always Chasing Rainbows
3. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
4. Moon River
5. Tup Tuppa

Funeral Sunday- Music and details

On Sunday, at Roy Bryson's funeral at Trinity United Church in Newmarket, we will be given the opportunity to sing with the other choirs (Trinity church choir, the Keynotes and the Harmony Chorale). This is voluntary, but I highly recommend it.

Come at 12:15 and we'll try to learn Steal Away. Here is a link to a video of a small choir singing it on YouTube. Here's one without the clarinet. Not sure if we'll have one. If you're looking for other versions, look for the arranger Helvey. I'll see if I can get the music and scan it for you and put it up here or on the website.

We'll be sitting in the congregation, on the far right (north) side in the front.

All choristers are wearing black and white. We will wear our formal concert uniform, which is white on top to the wrists and black on the bottom to the floor (pants or long skirts, and black hose/socks and shoes) plus our scarves.

We will have our black binders with On Eagle's Wings at the front, ready to go.

The library reserves some parking spots in the town lot. Be careful not to park there. The town lot opposite the church by the library fills up. So, you can park on the street (lots of streets allow parking on Sundays) and at Roadhouse and Rose Funeral Home, and down in the town parking lot by the skating rink. There's a stairway up to Main Street that lands you right across from Trinity. Carpooling is probably a good idea.

Feb 23 Rehearsal Cancelled Last Minute!

Sorry, Everyone! Something went wrong and we didn't know until people went to choir that our room had been re-booked. If we had known earlier, we could have found an alternate place to rehearse. As it is, half an hour was not enough to find a place and find everyone, so we just implemented our call tree and called off tonight's rehearsal. So disappointing!

We'll have the Musical Medley small group try again next week at 6:30.

Boogie Woogie Man will have to wait. No worries; it's going to be easy to learn.

If you have some time tonight or during the week, please review your part in Tup-Tuppa. Have fun with the recordings. Sing along to some of the accompaniments.

Listen to the sound recordings of our December concert! Have a great evening!

Family Day Rehearsal and Preview to Feb. 23

Monday, Feb. 16 was Family Day and we had quite a few of our choir family together for a good rehearsal. We did so well that we went right through our break and left early!

The Musical Medley group met at 7:00 and we did all of Dancing Queen with accompaniment! Sapphire was back from her trip and we not only learned Dancing Queen, but did Razzle Dazzle and went straight through to Dancing Queen. It was fun!

We started by warming up with On Eagle's Wings. It's always good. But, try to remember that page 6 is for the Tenors and Basses- all the way through. They have the melody the whole time and we have to hear it.

Another Op'nin' is coming along nicely and most of us have already got it memorized. We'll be walking in with our binders closed and singing this with some hand movements!

We sang all the way through I'm Always Chasing Rainbows! We learned our parts in the Do-do section and the ending, so we have the whole thing now. We'll review the do-do section when everyone is together again. All the parts are on our website. Take advantage and sing along with your part.

This Little Light of Mine is good, but it needs more spunk. We used to clap along with this one. I wonder if we can memorize it and clap, or sway like a gospel choir. We need something. In the "On a Monday" section, pay close attention to the words and notes. There are some pretty chords there but you have to be together. Sopranos and altos should hold back so that we can hear the tenor and bass parts. The loudest part is right after the key change after the second time through "On a Monday" and stays loud up to the big ending.

Button Up Your Overcoat was appropriate. How well will it go over if it's really hot in May? It's a cute and fun song. Don't worry. I think we should try to stay on the subway- not jump off- on page 8, bar 57-58.

We Rise Again was not as beautiful as it was at the concert. Did we forget our oohs and aahs? All the parts are on the website for you to review them if you've forgotten. Kristen did a stellar job, as usual.

Next week, Feb. 23

The Musical Medley group will meet again at 6:30. Boogie Man will meet the following week. (It was scheduled to start but we'll get more people signed up first)

1. All I Have to Do is Dream
2. Hello, Goodbye
3. Moon River
4. Tup Tuppa
5. Yesterday Once More

Feb.9 Rehearsal Review- Family Day we're meeting.

At break, we listened to 2 of the recordings made by the sound guy, Doug Jarvie, at our concert in December. Some people didn't think Welcome, Welcome Winter was us! It was so, so good! You'll Never Walk Alone was spectacular! There will be links to these recordings on our website soon. Be sure to listen to them! There's something special about hearing us without any distractions. The blending is awesome. We sound crazy good!

6:30 Musical Medley was successful, went through Razzle Dazzle (watch out for little rests that make the preceding words short, kind of clipped and crisp- in fact/ you're just/) and started Dancing Queen -fun for the first sopranos!

We warmed up with Monday, Monday. We discovered that a number of us didn't know it and some had forgotten, so we worked on it quite a bit. Now it's better! I love when you sing Fine-Fine-Fine Yeah! Magic wand. Maybe go over the words in the every other day of the week section, you can find me...tongue twisters

I'm Always Chasing Rainbows is  one of my favourites. I love how Sapphire's Fantaisie Impromptu has the melody in it! Wait 'till you hear her play that one! Wow! We will also wow the audience with this song. It's really cool. We just got to the really cool part. We went through all the parts on pages 3 &4. I wonder if we can snap, or if we can have someone snap? Kevin Jaques?

Do Wah Diddy Diddy was better this time. My plan went really well, and the back-and-forth on pages 8 and 9 works even better with the back-and-forth in the other sections. (I forgot to post the plan! Here it is: Page 6, 31-39 is Women only and Page 8, 51-59 is Men only) There's clapping marked at the end on Page 11. I wonder if we can do it, pass your binder to someone or tuck it under your arm? Something to think about.

All I Have to Do is Dream is so pretty and sweet! This will be one of those tunes that lots of audience members will be humming all the way home. Maybe you find yourself singing it during the week? Very catchy. The key is to keep it smooth and easy and we'll work some more on dynamics. The ending is soft.

We had an interesting experience with Hallelujah. It didn't download onto my iPad, or sync, or something. So we didn't have the accompaniment. Trix eventually found it on her phone, when we were done. We know this song so well, we did it beautifully without accompaniment! It sounded good, too! Now we're thinking of how to incorporate an a cappella bit into the song!

I also messed up with the recording of You Raise Me Up, but Trix found a version on her phone. We did great! Stanley's solo was partly a duet, with Anne Marie's voice singing the soprano part on the recording! It was fine.

We'll be very, very happy when Sapphire is back, but we're doing really well without her thanks to all the recordings and Anne Marie's help on the keyboard!

Next Monday is Family Day. If you have plans for the evening, that's understandable. We'll be working on our stuff, and I'll be sure to write down everything we do so you can catch up. There are lots of good recordings up of your parts of many of our songs. They really help!

We won't start at 6:30, but can the Musical Medley people come at 7:00 so we can do some more of Dancing Queen?

1. Another Op'nin'
2. I'm Always Chasing Rainbows (the doo-doo section)
3. On Eagle's Wings
4. Shenandoah
5. This Little Light of Mine

Monday February 2nd: no choir rehearsal.

Snow day- snow night. Stay home and be safe.

January 26th and February 2nd YRCC Rehearsals

Monday, January 26th
6:30 Musical Medley Small Group met and went all the way through Be Our Guest!

1. Do Wah Diddy Diddy was fun, but we had some (not quite supportive and respectful) discussion over who should sing what. It's 2 parts, and Soprano is always on top, on part 1. On page 8, there's an echo thing that we're going to do a girl-boy thing with. Sopranos sing 'I'm his' and Tenors and Basses sing 'I'm hers', then Sopranos sing 'and he's mine' and T&B sing 'she's mine', then Sopranos sing 'well, I'm his and' and then ST&B sing he's mine or she's mine together. Altos join in at 'and the wedding bells will chime'. This same thing happens again on page 10
We'll have to go over who sings what next week. I'll have a more definite plan so that there won't be any discussion about it. We might want to talk about our choir culture though.

2. All I Have to Do is Dream is pretty! We learned the whole thing except the ending! It's not very hard, but the Sopranos have to fight the urge to sing what they want, and just sing what's there. For example, at the top of page 3, the Tenors and Basses sing 'want you-ou', but Sopranos and Altos don't.  That happens every time. Also, at the top of page 5, Sopranos have a special "away".

3.Another Op'nin' is the one we have to memorize. We've pretty much got it already; no worries. For people who read music, please don't worry that we don't sing the opening the way it's written, also the ending. We don't overlap the parts, but sing one after the other to make the echo clearer. It's very fast, so make sure you know where you're going. Remember, we repeat  page7 but jump down to the key change at the bottom of 9 the second time through.

4. You'll Never Walk Alone is still very, very special and fantastic! If you're new, you might want to review your part with the online recording.

We enjoyed decaf coffee with treats at breaktime, and the executive had a brief meeting. One of the things we discussed was contacting former directors and accompanists. If you have contact info for anyone, see someone on the executive. We also discussed creating a memory lane audio-visual display for intermission. I'm now thinking that we could also post things on our website throughout our special 20th anniversary year. If you have old photos, programs, posters, videos or anything, see us too.


Next Week: Monday, February 2nd

• All I Have to Do
• Do Wah Diddy
• I'm Always Chasing Rainbows
• Monday, Monday
• You Raise Me Up/Hallelujah? 

Rehearsal Review: Monday, January 19th

Monday, January 19th
Sapphire and Renate recorded the accompaniments for Boogie Woogie Man, Button Up Your Overcoat, Another Op'nin', Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring and Hello, Goodbye. We also did all the parts for Jesu so you can review them at home :-)
Most of the recordings for this season are already up! Spend some time singing at home- or, how about singing in the car?

Warm-ups included Mi Me Ma Mo Mu.

1. Button Up Your Overcoat was amazing!!! The tenor and bass section was especially strong.

2. Tup-Tuppa was hard. We learned our individual parts for the second half. Wow! 32nd notes are fast! Everybody has challenges in the second half.  Look at your music and divide things up into manageable bits. Which parts are the same, repeated? Mark up your music with pencil. Listen to Sapphire's recordings and listen to versions on YouTube. The more familiar you are with the song, the easier it will be to read your music. The first half is already sounding pretty good after only 2 rehearsals. Trust me. It will be great.

3. Hello, Goodbye is fun and not very hard (Yay!) but we do have some work to do. We started with Penny Lane, with the bm-bm part. We noticed that the bm-bms are supposed to be detached, and that's similar to what we're doing in Tup-Tuppa. If it helps you to detach your pa-pas, think of them as pm-pms. We did say that the Tenor and Bass parts have pa-pa-pum and quite a bit of it sounds like pum-pum.

4. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring got messed up last week when we sang the second verse. So, this week we started with the second verse. No worries. Whatever happened got fixed. It was fine this week :-)
Looking ahead, we want to be very strong on our parts in both verses, and remember to sing very softly at the beginning and to give pages 5 and 6 extra attention. There's a lot of drama there.

5. This Little Light of Mine. We just sang through once, sight-reading, and it was already pretty good! Gerry is going to sing the solo in the section that starts "On a Monday" and that section repeats. Sopranos lead the key change out of that second repeat. We'll have to work on making the many repetitions of the chorus interesting by varying the dynamics.

Monday, January 26th: Social Rehearsal with Coffee

6:30 Musical Medley small group rehearsals start! Sign up and come early to sing special selections of our past musical medleys. 

1. All I Have to Do is Dream
2. Another Op'nin'
3. Do Wah Diddy-Diddy
4. I'm Always Chasing Rainbows
5. You'll Never Walk Alone

Monday, January 12th's Rehearsal Review and what to expect Monday, January 19th.

Monday, January 12th.

Sapphire and I recorded the accompaniment and all 4 parts for Yesterday Once More and the accompaniment for Do Wah Diddy Diddy :-)

Warm-ups included pa-pas and tuppa-tuppas.

1. On Eagle's Wings was beautiful, in part because we reviewed all the "Make you to shine like the sun" bits. Remember to give page 6 to the Tenor/Bass section: they have the melody all through the page. Starting from the top, sopranos especially have to be very soft and pretty and altos have to hold back too, except in bar 48. Bar 48 is the pretty alto "sun".

2. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring was beautiful too. As I've said before, we are singing Jay-zoo. We had some discussion (which I dismissed because we're not discussing it. I have investigated and decided and I have expressed that.) over whether to pronounce it Jay-zoo or Yay-zoo or Yay-soo. I know that the Latin is Yay-soo. The German is Yay-zus. I'm going with a more anglicized, but not totally anglicized form. (There are some who would say: Gee-zoo.) I want the written alliteration to be heard, but only barely, because we're singing very softly. We spent some time reviewing pages 5 and 6, which are the hardest, and sang through the whole thing. We should have reviewed the words for the parts on pages 5 and 6, because we totally messed up on the second verse! If you have some time look over pages 5 and 6, both verses.

3.Yesterday Once More is a theme song. Lauren is the soloist on the first page, Janet is her back-up. Only the sopranos come in at 19 with the tenors. Altos start at bar 14, with Oh. Watch your rests! There are lots of places where only the sopranos or only the altos are singing- sticks up are soprano and sticks down are alto, generally. In the recordings, Sapphire sometimes plays the "other" part for timing. Be careful to know which is your part. Also circle every entry of "Every". Some are slow (quarter notes-you come in on beat 3) and some are fast (eighths you wait 'till beat 4). Be careful with these entries.

4. Tup Tuppa. We sang through the whole first part, with the repeat and it was good! It's hard, but it felt so good to get it that we cheered and clapped! I'm a bit worried for the basses, who have been absent for both weeks, but we will have recordings up soon. Sopranos can sing along with the video I inserted into a blog post from a couple weeks ago, but for the altos, tenors and basses, you'll have to use our recordings. The altos and tenors are amazing! Next week, we move on to the second part.

5. Hallelujah is always beautiful. I forgot to ask the new people how they felt singing it. I know they must have loved it, but I like to hear it. Our arrangement is so satisfying to sing!


Next Week: Monday, January 19th

1. Button Up Your Overcoat
2. Hello Goodbye
3. Jesu, Joy
4. This Little Light
5. Tup Tuppa

Monday, January 5th Rehearsal Review, and Preview to January 12th

Monday, January 5th.
We welcomed 3 new members: Jie, Blair, and Bev!

It was great to be together again, and we spent quite a bit of time talking at the beginning of rehearsal. That's fine (and really nice to see for our first night), but we need to get to work at 7:30 from now on. You can talk before or at break time.

We had a quick warm-up and got to work singing. Here's what you missed if you couldn't be there.

1. Another Op'nin' is fast and has a repeat. Make sure you know where you're going. It's in 2 parts. Tenors join Sopranos on the top and Basses join Altos on the bottom. We will be memorizing this so we can walk and sing and do actions! Start now if you're like me.

2. Monday, Monday is fun! Be sure to start off soft, and you're always soft whenever you're singing bah-dah. (for Sopranos and Tenor/Bass that's a lot) Altos have lots of melody. Be strong! Everybody, go over the words and timing at "every other day,"... "but whenever Monday comes"..., especially the Sopranos.

3. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring! (aka, the easier Bach piece) We learned all of our parts, but we'll review them lots, don't worry. Especially that dramatic middle part "Word of God..." Pay attention to dynamics. We felt a huge difference when we sang the first line softly. It's so much better soft than loud! We pronounce it Jay-zoo, not Yay-zoo.

4. Tup-Tuppa (aka Bach Badinerie, aka the other Bach piece) Everyone wanted to sing Tenor, but, really, each part has its blessings (and curses). This will take some time, but we'll be so proud when we master it!!! It will surprise everyone, even some of us ;-)

5. Hello, Goodbye (aka The Beatles Medley!) Yay! This Beatles Medley is awesome, and not too hard. There are only a few tricky bits, and everyone loves theses songs. Altos and Tenors get some fun bum-bums.

Homework: go to my Bach blog post and listen to that recording of Bach Badinerie. Especially if you're a soprano, try to sing along. If you can have your music in front of you, even better. See if you can figure out what your part should sound like. Sapphire and I have made recordings of your parts and Trix will have them up as soon as possible.

Next week, Monday, January 12th

1. Hello, Goodbye
2. Jesu, Joy
3. On Eagle's Wings
4. This Little Light
5. Tup Tuppa

Choir starts tonight!

It's really cold out there, but the snow squalls have calmed down.
WE'RE ON!
Take care driving and walking. It's slippery. Bundle up!
We have lots of music to learn, so we want to get started.
I'm so excited to have you see your new music!!!

Cross your fingers! Snow on the first night of rehearsals!

Let's hope the snow squalls and ice and mess all clear up by tomorrow night for our first rehearsal!

If things are still awful tomorrow and the forecast is bad, you will get a phone call to let you know that choir is cancelled, and there will be a message on the website and on Facebook. Keep your eyes and ears open. 

If we don't cancel and you feel that you shouldn't go out, don't risk it. You have to decide what is best for yourself. If we have a rehearsal and you miss it, you can visit this blog and I will have a review posted and some tips for what you can do to catch up. 

We're going classical as we look "Bach"

YRCC goes classical!
We're looking "Bach" at the past 20 years of the YRCC and choosing some of our favourite pieces from the past to sing this spring.
Listen to this and get ready to sing it!
Yes, it's a whole song without words.
You'll see.
We've done it before; we can do it again.

We'll also be singing Bach's well-known Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring this season. Listen to the YRCC sing Jesu here.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Just a quick post today to say

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Holiday with family and friends and maybe some rest too. I wish you and yours peace and joy and love for this new year 2015.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again on Monday, January 5th!
We've got a lot of excellent music to sing for our 20th Anniversary Concert in May! We'll have lots of fun and quite a few challenges learning it all. I can hardly wait!

We Are Winter is almost here and we are ready!

Wow! Amazing last rehearsal!

Go to the website and sign in to find the final order and also to find the dates, times, locations, and orders for the seniors' visits and the Probus performance. Here's a link to the website.

Click here to read an old post of mine about performances.

Remember to take care of your voice and try to smile and at least look relaxed. Frowning into your binders isn't attractive. When you look like you're having fun, the audience has more fun. Let's give them a wonderful afternoon. We have lots of beautiful music, some things they've never heard before that will amaze them.

I'm excited to have a few of my friends and family members coming. I hope you have some familiar faces in the audience. It helps. Give someone tickets as a present. It's way better than a box of chocolate or cookies, and we'll have sweets at intermission together!

Don't forget to bake and bring serving-size stuff for the bake sale and mark things as nut-free or with nuts.

GO TEAM!!!

November 24th-Last Regular Rehearsal of 2014

6:30- Sapphire and Renate recorded one accompaniment for spring, and the bass part of Christmas in our Hearts.
6:45 Christmas in our Hearts is so pretty! We reviewed all parts at Fam- lies and friends...

Our warm-up was Magic of Winter. It's a good warm-up because you have to watch carefully for all your starts and stops and work as a team, and it starts off soft and easy. There's a lot of dynamics (loud and soft) and it's really pretty.

Blue Skies. Watch for your snapping starts and stops. Jazz hands at the end on the last word (on). Heather and Janet are the smoothest scat singers anywhere!

Somewhere a Child is Sleeping. Watch out: you'll be tempted to make "Bless all the little children" the biggest part. Hold back a bit here so that you can make "so we might love each other" the loudest part. It will also help if you always make "somewhere a child is sleeping, a child was born on Christmas day" soft and pretty. Bill rocks!

You Raise Me Up is always beautiful, and I think this version of ours is the very best yet! Go, Stanley!

The Hockey Song is so much fun! Gerry is perfect as the announcer! Great! Wayne! Gretsky!

They All Call it Canada will make all the hearts swell with pride in our beautiful country! "My country is my cathedral. The northern sky its dome...When you look up and sing this to the audience, they'll shiver. Sopranos- on page 9, "I call it home" sounds a bit like an ending. Go up there; it's okay.

O Holy Night Both groups of soloists were wonderful! All the ahs and oohs were very good! It's awesome. Just remember that bar on page 6, at 63, the "oh" of "oh hear" is on the second beat, longer than you want it. On the second verse, "oh praise" you do it right every time.

At break, you might have heard Teija and Heather's duet and Trix's solo. Next week you'll also hear the Huron Carol small group and Janet and Kevin's duet.

Next week, December 1st, we will run through the order for the concert. We won't sing all the way through all of the songs, but just enough to feel how it will work. We need to rehearse how to walk in and out, how to get on stage and off stage when the soloists and small groups perform, and the soloists all need a chance to rehearse with microphones. If you can't be there, let someone near you in your section know so they can save a spot for you and lead you on Sunday. There is not much time before our show to go over anything. 

Soloists and instrumentalists come at 6:30 and small groups at 7:00. We start punctually at 7:30, so come before to settle in and take your coats off, etc. 

I'll send out the order as soon as I set it, so that you can put your binders in order for Monday.