YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 8

 I love my choir! It was so much fun singing together last night and we still got a ton of work done. 

The Pains of Christmas small group had some challenges with timing but we worked it out, mostly by slowing the song down and getting really frustrated and mad at all the pains. Hilarious. I recommend that everyone in that group spend some time singing along with YouTube videos or other recordings of this song to be able to sing/yell your part without needing to look at your music. Here’s a link to a video. We’ll have the lyrics on a couple of music stands but you want to be able to use your prop to clarify what you’re saying. We remembered to have a warm-up for this small group, something we often forget.

Our choir warm-ups included stretching, breathing, rollercoasters,  and mi-may-my-mo-mu, among others.

1. All That Holiday Stuff is done! We’ll need to practise and perfect this, but we learned all the parts and sang it through wonderfully. Melodie did a fine job on the solo. She’s the most devoted fan of Christmas that I know. 

2. When You Believe: We made very good  progress moving backward from the end, learning the section at bar 29, then bar 21, then 11. We sang from 11 to the end! The beginning is a duet, so we’ve done all our initial work. Now we have to get more comfortable with it. You will want to review the Hebrew section, for sure. There are links to each part, plus there’s a link to a tutorial on the pronunciation of the Hebrew words. It’s not the best because it’s the words on their own and not in the song with the rhythm, but it might help you to feel better if you hear each word how it is by itself. I suggest you sing along with a choir, and here’s a link to a choir singing it very nicely and clearly. If they can do it, we can too. 

3. Santa’s Wish: We’ll have to wait until next week to get the music, but I’ll put it on the website so you can look at the electronic version. I played a recording of the Tenors singing this song. I created a choir arrangement based on this: here’s a link to the video. It’s my wish too: the world singing in perfect harmony. 

4. For Unto Us: Wowza! You guys are amazing. I discovered that there are a bunch of people in the choir who have sung this before, and it makes a huge difference for us. Having even one person in each section who has some experience with this is a big help. We reviewed parts from the beginning and added on everything to the end of page 7. We’ll continue to review parts and add on more, and it will keep getting better and easier. I recommend doing some homework on this piece as well. Here’s a link to my YouTube playlist where you’ll find videos of your parts. You can find more by searching YouTube. There are lots of different sounding ones for you to choose from. 

5. Grownup Christmas List: most of us have sung this before, and it will be very easy to get this one brushed up and shiny again. I’m considering using a soloist for the first verse. Think about whether you’d like to sing it. This is our theme. What we wish for, our wish list, changes over the years, over our lifetimes and over generations too. As adults, the older we get, the less stuff we need or even want, and the more we wish for togetherness and harmony, peace in our homes and our communities, and in the world.

Next week: Tuesday, October 15th (right after Thanksgiving Monday)

Christmas Lullaby small group at 6:30  (videos of parts are up on the website)

• Christmas Auld Lang Syne
• For Unto Us
• Grownup Christmas List
• Santa's Wish
• When You Believe

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 1st

October started well, indeed. We had a very productive and thrilling rehearsal. If you missed this one, you'll definitely want to read this and do a little homework to catch up.

First, the Pains of Christmas small group had a blast and did really well with their song. We discovered that the challenge with this one is to come in on time with your part. I think that the props will help, and standing in order, more or less could help too. We'll try out some strategies next week.

Our warm-up was a stretch, dance, and sing-along to Billy Joel's Uptown Girl. Fun!

1. All That Holiday Stuff: we're almost done learning this! What a great job everyone did with their parts, super! I reconsidered having the solo at the beginning, and think it would be fine. Lauren and Robyn were the first to have a go. Please let me know if you'd like to be the Christmas enthusiast for this solo. We stopped learning parts at the bottom of page 11 at the sfp (sforzando piano) with a crescendo. That notation means that we hit the word sleigh hard, with force, and then drop quickly to piano before getting gradually louder and louder again. Drama; the drama leads to the next section which is a kickline (think Rockettes) at double forte (extra loud)! We sight-read to the end. We've got this.

2. For Unto Us a Child is Born: Wow!!! I had planned for us to just walk through this one, singing along to a recording, to see what was going to be challenging and to let everyone know that there are videos of each part by itself to help you learn it. I've put links on the website, but you can go to YouTube and search "For unto us a child is born tenor part", for example, and get a number of rehearsal aids. So, you'll have options with speed and formats you might like better. I suggested that if the sheet music is too small for you to read, you could get someone to enlarge it to regular paper size (8 1/2 x 11). You can legally make a "working copy" for marking up and study. We ended up starting to learn the parts, ahead of schedule! And, we got to my favourite part at the bottom of page 3, the double forte "Wonderful". We sang along to a recording of this at my Thursday singing night as an example of a classical song with la-las (melodies without words that we sing, like the whoas in Uptown Girl. We laughed and sang parts of all the parts.). Here, every section has a turn with a big long oh, on the word born. The sopranos start with one in the 4th and 5th system on page one. What we did to make it a little less intimidating is to focus on the first note of each set of 4. Those sixteenth notes don't have to be super fast and they don't have to be super accurate. If we can all land on the right note on the beat, it will be very good. You'll see that Donna plays that part too, and she will be accurate for us. We were reminded of "Tup Tuppa", our choral version of Bach Badinierie. We laughed learning that, it was so hard, but our conductor Svetlana pushed us and we did it, and it was really impressive.

3. When You Believe: We sang in Hebrew! We got through the whole Hebrew section, ending on "I will sing, I will sing, I will sing!" (my favourite part) at the bottom of page 10 and then we sang to the end. It was awesome. Some people had printed out the Hebrew helper from the PDF side of the Music and Recordings section of the website. Excellent! There is also a video link on the Recordings side to help with the pronunciation if you want. But, we did pretty well on our own. I demonstrated how the ch sound is similar to the French or German rolled R, but softer, in the same way that the F sound is softer than the V sound, but produced in the same way and in the same place in your mouth. (that's called voicing in phonetics, pairs of voiced and voiceless sounds. ch is voiceless). You'll get it, but you can substitute an H sound, maybe a hard or hissing H? Play with your voice. For me, it's more important that you get the notes and the timing right. There are videos of choirs singing our arrangement of this song on YouTube, and I've put a couple on my YouTube playlist. Mona and Robyn sang those solo parts. 

4. Your Song: We learned all the parts all the way through! And now, we're singing with some big dramatic dynamics. I played the version that inspires me, from the YouTube recording of the Vocal Collective, a choir in New Zealand. We listened to their beautiful sforzandos at the ends of most sections. Remember, the sforzando is a forceful accent, a sudden and strong attack, on the beginning of a note which then sometimes goes very soft (sfp) and then louder. You could make a note on your sheet music in pencil. Write SFZ or put an accent on top of the word "v" and a crescendo <. Watch me for my big crescendo arms. We learned the oohs on page 3. The sopranos divide here. The notes are nice low alto notes, but second sopranos can sing those very nicely too. Donna will record parts for this song, so look out for that on the website, coming soon. In the meantime, sing along with the video:

Next week: Tuesday, October 8th*

      *Note: we will be rehearsing in the room across the hall.*

Small group at 6:30: Twelve Pains of Christmas: bring props

• All That Holiday Stuff
• For Unto Us a Child is Born
• Grownup Christmas List
• Santa's Wish
• When You Believe

Our Friend Colby is a Published Author

 How exciting to find out that the nice person you sit next to in choir is a published author! A charming young author is in our midst: our very own bass/baritone Colby! He is a little shy but somehow we got the good news out of him that he's had a book published and he's working on more writing. 

It's always good to strike up a conversation with the people in the choir. They're amazing individuals with lots of stories to tell. Talk to someone at break, someone you haven't talked to yet, and you'll be glad you did. 

Here's a link so you can buy a copy of Colby's book. Support a young author. You can say "I knew him when..."

 The Eagle's Last Flight (2024)

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review September 24

We mostly sang other things, but we did start Christmas. While our winter concert is not a Christmas concert per se, there is so much good music to sing and an expectation that we will be singing some Christmas music, so we do. And, I love Christmas.

The first small group started: The 12 Pains of Christmas. So much fun! There’s still room in this group so you can join next week. Please register on the Events page on our website. (The next small group is already there, so you can sign up for that too. Christmas Lullaby needs people from all sections SATB)

Everyone was happy to see Donna back. "so happy together" We talked a little about how the choir supports people who are going through stuff. Michele very graciously sends cards and flowers when appropriate and Donna was very happy to receive her bouquet and words of support and encouragement when she was recovering from her surgery. You know how to contact your choir friends? You can find their email addresses in the members listing on the website. You'll need to sign in, of course. A brief email message is sometimes the perfect balm. If the person sitting next to you has been missing, you could send a message to ask if they're okay. Let us know if they're not. 

Donna's bouquet

1. All That Holiday Stuff: We will have lots of fun with this. It's pretty easy and charming too. It's the opposite of the 12 Pains of Christmas, where there's a lot of complaining. Here, we're all loving the holiday traditions: candy canes, carollers, Hallmark movies, and even ugly sweaters, all that stuff.  We learned up to page 6. It helps that a whole bunch of people sang this just last Christmas, however, this arrangement is slightly different. The parts are distributed differently in SAB from the 2-part version. And, here we have 3-part harmony in spots. 

2. When You Believe: I decided to attack this one like Your Song, and start at the end. We learned the ending, right after the Hebrew section, at bar 66. But, we started with the big ending "Ah-ah ah!" It's my kind of ending, full of drama and a big piano tremolo. We need to add a high soprano note to get good and loud. (wait till we get to the ending of Holiday Stuff-big and loud and the piano part-wooo!) I love the tenor and bass line in this big "broad and majestic" ending section. If you have some time for homework, please listen to your part. There are videos of parts linked on the website. Look ahead to the Hebrew part if you have time, listening to a recording while reading the words is best. Remember that the ch is like a sh but in the position of an H. Maybe try hissing like a cat, then kind of sneezing: aah chhhh. Then aah chhhh ahh. Then the syllable cha, then meecha, mocha, then meecha-mocha. Start there and we'll work on more next week.

3. Your Song: You're going to be so tired of my "it's a little bit funny" comments. I hope you don't mind (wink). But, it is a little bit funny, the way the timing is different from the Elton John version of this song. You're doing great, though. We learned the section from 62 to the DS al Coda. So, we were able to sing the Segno (page5/6) through to the DS al Coda on page 10, then go back to the Segno and continue to the Coda, the end! It was excellent! I love the Coda! You need to watch on page 11, because the timing is special. At the top of the page, there's a fermata in bar 101. I'll give you a big beat 4 (arm moves up and you sing when it's up in beat 4 position). The piano accompaniment will come in after the sopranos and altos sing beat 4 "how" on beat one "wonderful" of bar 102. Then, bar104 is marked "rit. e dim." which means slow down and get softer. It will be quite slow on "you-ou're in" and then we'll observe that rest like a cut // and the quarter note "the" will come in like a beat 4, like the beat 4 of 101. Watch for the timing of world and the oohs; watch me. It will sound like "wer-er-erl doo-ooh-ooh" and then I think I want a sfz on the final ooh, not p/soft. Sforzando piano (or fp?) then crescendo. We'll do it next week.

4. Song for a Winter's Night: We sang it with soloists: Lauren and Robyn on the first and Blair and Bill on the second. It's going to be so nice! We reviewed page 9, and sang to the end. I found parts videos! You can find them on my YouTube playlist or on the webite. Remember, we're not singing the first page oohs, and we're not singing the oohs under the solos. Everyone starts at page 9, so you can skip over to that on the videos. Also, at the top of page 10, use your notes to sing the words, and on the word "drift-ing", go down to resolve that phrase like an ending. Please spend a few minutes reviewing your part with a video. 

5. We Wish You a Merry Madrigal: Fun! Donna made up accompaniments for us and used a special setting on the keyboard. Love that! I'm hoping to sing that a cappella, without accompaniment, at the concert. Don't worry, we can do it. Many of us have sung this one before, so it will be easy and excellent. At the end, there's a "rit." ritardando, a slow-down, which I will conduct with 4 beats and slow down so that the different timing betweeen the bass clef and treble clef parts will be more effective. Watch me, as usual, at the ending. Observe the dynamics (f/p).

Next week: Tuesday, October 1st

Twelve Pains of Christmas 6:30

• All That Holiday Stuff
• For Unto Us a Child is Born (!!!)
• When You Believe
• Your Song

Opportunity to hear a Steelband in Newmarket

Music lovers, here's an opportunity you don't get every day. 

Mark your calendars. Buy your tickets. 

Saturday, October 26th at Trinity United Church in Newmarket

Caribbean Dinner 6:00 and Concert 7:30

$50 for a Caribbean Dinner Buffet and the Gemini Pan Groove Steelband concert. Tickets are available on Eventbrite (Trinity United Church Steel Pan Concert), or on Sundays at Trinity United Church, or from the church office. There are options to buy tickets for only the concert, and discounts for children and students. 

Gemini Pan Groove will be performing in the beautiful historical Trinity United Church sanctuary. This is their second performance here. Their last one had the audience sometimes blissfully entranced and other times joyfully dancing in the aisles. 

Here's what is said about the band/orchestra on their YouTube page:

Gemini Pan Groove is a program that uses the steel pan as a medium for community development and as a foundation to advance the artform. Our program offers both educational and social components for our musicians. The concept, "each one teach one" gives everyone the opportunity to contribute towards the success of our program. We are a performance-based band that hosts several events per year in partnership with many community groups and individuals. Notable performances include St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 2007, Montreal in 2013, Washington D.C. in 2014, Philadelphia and Montreal in 2015, New York in 2016, Pittsburgh in 2017 and Chicago in 2018. Our wide ranging repertoire gives us the versatility to perform at any type of event, with a mix of calypso, classical, reggae, soca and jazz. Gemini also hosts multiple recitals featuring individual performers, calypsonians and small ensembles.

Learn more about steel pans here.

The Caribbean Dinner will be enjoyed in Trinity Hall ("the gym") before the concert. 

Jerk Chicken, Peas and Rice, Curried Goat, Curried Ckickpea, Roti, Green Salad and Mixed Vegetables

Wine and Beer will be available for purchase.

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review September 17th

September 17, the moon was full, beautiful. It was in fact a special moon, because it was the moon of the Mid Autumn Festival, also called the Moon Festival. It's a big harvest festival, like Thanksgiving, in China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Philippines. I want to wish our friends Stanley and Mona and their families a very happy Mid Autumn Festival and days as sweet as moon cakes and as bright as the full moon. And, of course, I extend my wishes to everyone celebrating.

We had a very successful and satisfying rehearsal! 

We started with another fun warm-up, stretching, moving, clapping and singing along to a recording of the Mamas and the Papas' Monday, Monday.  It's a song we sang a lot when we were meeting on Mondays. There are easy harmonies in the ba-das so anyone can sing along. (btw, on Thursday, My Sing-along Café theme will be days of the week, so we will singing this song for sure! Remember to come at our new early start time: 7 o'clock)

1. Peace on This Silent Night: I thought this would be a fast review, but in fact lots of you hadn't sung this before. Still, you learned it very quickly! There are 2 parts and Soprano and Tenor are on Part l and Alto and Bass are Part ll. However, only the Basses start at the beginning at bar 11 and only Sopranos start at bar 19. Everybody is in at bar 23. At 67, it's soft and only Sopranos on Part l, so Tenors can join Part ll there singing Silent Night softly. Tenors go back to Part l at bar 91, strongly. Everyone needs to watch me to stay together. Pay close attention to beat 1 especially, but watch for every beat on page 11. 

2. Song for a Winter's Night: We spent time on pages 9, 10, and 11 and 12 which are the only pages the whole choir sings. Pages 1-9 are 2 solos and we're dropping all of the oohs. Starting from the very end, the mm on page 12, we learned parts, including the top of page 10 where we used those ooh notes to sing the words that only the Altos were given. We added a note to create an ending, so we move on the word drif-ting. It's going to be so beautiful! 

3. When You Belive: We walked through the song looking at the theme and noticing that we will be singing in Hebrew! I especially love that we get to sing very loudly: "I will sing! I will sing! I will sing!" a couple of times. Singing is our expression of joy and gratitude for all of the wonders in our lives. "Who knows what miracles you can achieve? When you believe, somehow you will." We make our own dreams come true, believing in ourselves and in the support we get from our families and communities. Expressing our wishes through prayer or song or wish lists (letters to Santa) helps us to manifest them. This is going to be a big, beautiful, powerful song. If you have some time, please work on this at home. There are links to recordings of your parts on the website. 

Here's a screenshot of the recordings page of our website. You can see that When You Belive has links for each part and then a recording of a choir singing our arrangement beautifully. The only difference will be that Mona and Stanley will sing solos at the beginning (will need back-up soloists). 

4. Your Song: Last tweek we learned the Segno (pg 5/6) and this time we learned the Coda (pg 10/11) so we can sing through from the Segno to the end for the second time through. I love the Coda! It's so dramatic. Remember to always watch at the endings of any song we sing. This one has changes in tempo and dynamics, so you'll definitely have to watch me. I found a recording of an excellent choir singing our arrangement and I want to emulate what they've done with the dynamics. Please listen to/watch this video. It's so good! There's a link to this video on our website on the recordings page. We also have the accompaniment, but not the parts yet. You can see that the SATB are still in black font, meaning there's no link yet. 

My YouTube Playlist for this season of YRCC songs. I've collected a bunch of videos that I think will help to inspire you and help you learn your parts. 

We had some sad news. 

Jack West passed away. He sang with us for a while and he was Pat McCurdy's brother. He also played saxophone in the Newmarket Citizen's Band.  Here is a link to the obituary and details of the visitations and funeral service and reception, Thursday and Friday at Roadhouse & Rose in Newmarket. 

Next week: Tuesday, September 24th (sorry, we're starting Christmas)

• All That Holiday Stuff
• Song for a Winter's Night
• We Wish You a Merry Madrigal
• When You Belive
• Your Song

Small Group: 7:00 Twelve Pains of Christmas (please sign up on the Events Page)

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review Tues Sep 10

I’m so happy to be back to choir and this season is going to be great! We have so much good music to sing every week, and our concert will be festive, fun, meaningful and satisfying.

We started with a brief physical warm-up, stretches and shakes, and then with more vigorous movement (twisting) and singing as a vocal warm-up with a recording of Do Wha Diddy Diddy! Fun! Many of us knew the words from a past YRCC season, but there’s a lot of repetition so it was pretty easy for everyone. 

Star Canon, which we sang last season, was our first song. It’s our continued theme. We’ll do it the same way. It was excellent. Remember Part l is Soprano/Tenor and Part ll is Alto/Bass, but the 'Small Group' is Tenor/Bass, and the beginning is just Soprano and Alto. 

Your Song: Many of us remember this, and we started learning/reviewing parts on the segno, pages 5 and 6. We walked through how the repeat works. There’s a DS al Coda on page 10. We sing all the way to page 10 there, go back to page 5 at the segno, but skip to the Coda where marked at the bottom of page 6. The Coda starts on page 10 where we left off. It’s the big ending. It’s big, and I love it! We sang through the whole song sight-reading and so we got to sing the segno that we learned twice. 

Song for a Winter’s Night will be a little different from the way it’s written. For one, we’re skipping the first page. There’s a nice piano intro at bar 25 that will be perfect. There will be a soprano or alto solo and then a tenor or bass solo with no oohs to take us all the way to page 9. We learned page 9! I’m going to change the top of page 10 so that we all have words, no oohs. It’s not hard and will be gorgeous.

I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing is fun and easy. We might sing it with the audience as an encore, in which case, we’d have only sopranos on part 1 and everyone else leading the audience eon part 2, which is mostly melody. Or, we'll figure out where the melody is at all times and have all but one section on melody. We sang it with Soprano and Tenor on part 1 and Alto and Bass on part 2. It’s so good!

Why We Sing is always so satisfying, I love it. We’ve had solos at the beginning in the past. We all sang the whole beginning but I might change how we do it this time. We’ll see. I'm also hearing other versions without the descant at the end and it sounds stronger somehow. We'll try it without next time. (ultimately: dream, wish, pray, fine but, it's singing together that provides the best gifts)

We went through the whole binder, looking at all the song selections and how they fit the theme: Wishes and Dreams, what we want at Christmas and throughout the seasons of our lives.

1. All that Holiday Stuff was a small group song last Winter. We’re all singing it. It’s fun and funny, about the joys of the holidays, excitement, happiness of stuff, memories, pop culture and traditional. 

2. Christmas Auld Lang Syne is about all the songs of the season, that we expect and enjoy from year to year. 

3. For Unto Us A Child Is Born: serious, classical, traditional, Prince of Peace is the ultimate Christmas present. 

4. Grown-up Christmas List: Childhood fantasies change to adult wishes for peace above all, right winning over wrong, and love never-ending.

5. I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing: my wish, my thing: the path the way to peace is singing in community.

6. Peace on This Silent Night: “Sing out with gladness: love, peace and joy, goodwill to all” 

7. Song for a Winter’s Night: Canadian content and so beautiful! Our biggest wishes are for togetherness, love, family, not things. The warmth of gathering in the winter. 

8. Star Canon is the theme. 

9. The Twelve Groovy Days of Christmas was also a small group offering in the past. Now we’re all going to sing this song of gifts/things/stuff that people might have wished for in another era. And a message to enjoy the eras as they pass, and treasure the memories.

10. We Wish You a Merry Madrigal is an a cappella song so it has a unique sound in our repertoire and it’s a simple wish for happiness and an invitation to sing along with all the fa-la-las you hear. 

11. When You Believe is a big musical theatre number which was sung as a duet by Stanley and Mona for us in the past. I love the Hebrew section, which is “I will sing, I will sing, I will sing” mostly. I like how it says you can “achieve” miracles when you dream, suggesting that the dream is the spark that you use to inspire your actions. Like Power of the Dream of last season.

12. Why We Sing: obviously for world peace, right?

13. Your Song reminds us that what we can give to our loves, our world, is not a thing, not stuff, but appreciation, to express “how wonderful life is while you’re in the world” in a song. 

I’m also working on an arrangement of Santa’s Wish by the Tenors. It’s a lot of music to learn, so I hope some of you will make time to learn some of it at home so you can help to lead your sections. 

Please go to the Recordings page on the website to find a lot of good recordings to listen to to help you learn your parts. 

For small groups, I have Christmas Lullaby (Rutter) and the Twelve Pains of Christmas (contrast All that Holiday Stuff, pains, stuff that’s annoying).

I’d like to have a couple solos or small groups. What would you like to sing that fits into this season’s theme? 

Next week: 

• Song for a Winter’s Night
• Your Song
• When You Believe
• Peace on this Silent Night

Singing Nights Coming Again Soon: YRCC Sept. 10th, Sing-along Café Sept. 5th

I'm so looking forward to my singing nights returning!

I've had a fantastic summer, but I can feel fall in these past couple days of cool weather. 

With the summer ending, serious life starts again. 

There's going to be an American election this fall, and the Canadian election will follow in 2025. I'm already careful about the news I consume, but I'm bracing myself for the ugliness that we'll see. Michele Obama's speech made me cry, beautiful and strong, but touching so many tender spots. I'll need my singing more than ever. 

I found this in my blog Old Pollyanna, about Positivity and Aging Well:

  Choir night is not just an escape from life, but it's also an embracing of life, a reminder of all the good things. We sing about love and harmony, peace, family, friendship, community, sunshine and stars. We celebrate each other's victories, health, babies, grandbabies, and when we need it we get a comforting hug, a shoulder to lean on.

Both of my singing nights respond to this need to escape and to embrace the good things in life. The cups of tea on Thursdays seem to inspire companionable conversation (also the armchairs and the sofa). I have been working on playlists for my Sing-along Café at Trinity Newmarket on Thursdays and created a new little logo for it too. Presenting, my Singing Teacup:

Found on YRCC Website Members Page: Chorister Guide

 

Here's a link to the website page where I found this, so you can look at the PDF file. This snip is probably not easy to read. 

I highlighted the parts I like best. 

Sneak Peak: YRCC Winter 2024 Shaping Up

If you find yourself needing some choir and Christmas and cool thoughts of winter, you can start looking ahead to our Winter Season.

The list of songs is up on the website under Recordings and Music Scans. The links are going up as soon as possible. Some are already there. I have started populating my new YouTube playlist YRCC 2024 Winter with videos of our songs. 

I'm going to be away for a chunk of August, and when I come back I'm starting a new project, which I hope to be able to tell you about soon. 

I'm happy that I have time now to get a head start on my planning. It's going to be a big busy season. We're learning several new things, and I'm very excited to be looking at the stuff we already have which is new to me, and I'm expecting the music I just bought to arrive soon. 

We had a music selection committee meeting at my house last week and it was so much fun! We chose classical music, pop music, comical music, big songs, little songs, a huge variety in our theme of wishes and dreams. Can hardly wait for you to sing it! 

Go ahead, check out the music already on the website and on my YouTube playlist! More to come soon.

Tenor part of the Handel

YRCC 2024 Summer Break

I hope you're still singing. 

Sing any chance you get. 

Sing in the car on your road trips. Do you have a way to connect your phone to your car stereo? Make a big playlist of summer tunes to sing along with. Maybe I'll make one for you. The radio is good too. I like to listen to country music when I'm driving through the countryside sometimes. 

There will be concerts in parks, free to enjoy. Don't bring a chair. Stand, and move your body as you sing along to the songs you know, even if you only know the chorus: it's a chorus, that's what it's for, singing chorally, together. Sing loud. (Hey, Canada Day sing along with the Newmarket Citizens Band! They're going to do Over The Rainbow.)

There will be live music in bars. If the spirit moves you (either the divine one or the liquid one), then move and sing and that way you'll let the band know that they're doing their job well. Sing with abandon. 

Sing every chance you get. Dance any chance you get too!

My Apple Playlist

YRCC Rehearsal Review May 21 for The Newmarket Citizens Band Concert Sat. May 25th, 2024

 

We're going to look great with this band!

They have the same colour scheme. I'm happy that we don't have to wear jackets over our white shirts or blouses, just a scarf or tie. But, they look pretty snazzy, don't they?

The rehearsal was good! The choir sounded great (18 people, but strong). The band sounded great too, and very loud! Wow. What an amazing experience we're going to have! 

After that rehearsal, we went to our room and went over Seal Lullaby and almost all of our songs, and we're in good shape. There were a good number of little issues, so we should be fine on Saturday.

Looking at this shot of them performing, it's clear that we are going to be in our "Formal Concert Uniform". Long sleeves, white to the wrists, and long pants or skirts, black to the floor. The band's uniform notes also included a reminder to wear black socks/hose and black shoes. 

We are scheduled to be on stage at 5:30 to start sound checks, blocking, how to get on and off stage gracefully, and for a warm-up. I'd say aim for 5:00 to get there, find parking, find the Green Room, and feel settled before we get up on stage. Calendar says 5:15, I think. Order of the show is there. I will talk twice: before we start and after Nella.

You'll want to have water and maybe a snack with you. We'll be there until about 10:00. I forgot to ask if there will be refreshments at the intermission. 

Here's a link again to the call sheet for Saturday. Break a leg!

YRCC 2024 First Seniors' Performance: Wow!

 We had so much fun with the residents at Delmanor in Aurora yesterday!

What a perfectly delighful evening! 

It's always good to sing for and with seniors in a seniors' residence. Delmanor was a beautiful building with pretty rooms and sweet staff and very very nice residents. It was really exceptionally nice there.

We had a good group of YRCC singers, a nice balance of parts, and Donna was in excellent form, even singing along to some of our songs, and adding embellishments to the sing-along songs which made us all sing with more enthusiasm. 

Something wonderful: we had a couple new folks sing with seniors for the first time and they loved it and said they're signing up for more now that they know how much fun it is. Yay! I love that. 

I had promised to put a link to the movie with the mice that I always talk about, the one we have Somewhere Out There from, An American Tail.

Here's a link to the song being sung in the movie. You can also watch the whole movie on YouTube. 

Watch this one too: Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram singing with clips from the movie. So nice, even nicer and more similar to what we do. 

YRCC 2024 Special Rehearsal Tues. May 7th for The Seal Lullaby

Thank you to everyone who worked so hard in that very warm room last night! 

The Seal Lullaby is beautiful, and it was sometimes surprising that the individual parts did indeed sound beautiful when combined with the others. It's a complex choral arrangement but we only have to learn the parts with lyrics. The band will take care of the rest. And, they will accompany us along with Donna. 

We got through the whole thing, but we all agree that we'll need to review our parts on our own for the next couple weeks too. There are videos of individual parts, and of the whole choir sheet music being performed, and of the band arrangement too. I've assembled them all on my YRCC Spring 2024 YouTube playlist. There's a link to that on our website already, but I'm going to provide links here for everything too.                                    

I suggest that you first work with the video of your part. Choose a device that easily moves back and forth along the timeline in a video, so that you can stop, go back, and review a short bit over and over again. 

Soprano Part

Alto Part

Tenor Part

Bass Part (bass 1)

Next, sing along with the recording of a choir with whole choir sheet music.  So, it's like choir rehearsals, where we learn your part and then you sing it with everyone. You can also go over small sections using your cursor to move back and forth in the recording.

Link to Choir recording

After that, sing along with a band recording. I've got a few. Before our rehearsal with the band, I recommend singing along with these band recordings, because there's a different feel to them and we only sing a short part. It would be good if you could be ready to fit yourself in not only by counting bars, but also by feeling how your part works in that context. 

Newmarket Citizens Band recording (from 2018, so the current band will have a slightly different assortment of instruments, and no melody where we will be singing the words.)

We have a half hour from 7-7:30 on Tuesday, March 21st with the band. After that, we'll go and rehearse on our own. We'll want to sing our songs too. I'm sorry we didn't have a chance to sing one of our songs last night. 

YRCC Spring Concert Wish Upon a Star- Resounding Success!

 I wish you all could have heard all of the wonderful praise I heard about our concert on Saturday. I'm so lucky to be the one to receive so many of the accolades! I have to share them with you. 

Wow! The choir sounded magnificent, and the song choices were great, a wonderful variety of songs, the theme was inspiring, the duet was charming, the soloists were impressive, the decorations were stunning, and on and on.

Thank you, my choir! 

We had a few little moments of stress, but the absolutely heavenly moments made up for them. 

You looked marvellous!

Stunning decorations, adorable duet. But, that water bottle-ugh.

YRCC 2024 Spring Concert Run-through Rehearsal Review

 It was perfect!

We had moments of utter perfection and moments where we knew we needed to work a bit harder. When not everything goes perfectly, it's the best. This way, our concert will be our best work, better than our last rehearsal.

On Saturday, everyone must be on stage, and all the baking should be put away by 6:00. Doors open at 6:30, so we will get ourselves in position, have a warm-up and file out down the centre aisle, so that we can file back in gracefully. Let me know if you have a request to review anything.

5:00 - 6:00 is for setting up the bake sale and ticket sales, decorating, and then soloists and small groups. Please let me know if you feel you need another go at your song. Don't forget to bake!

Be sure to get a good night's sleep Friday night so that you have lots of energy and staying power for Saturday night.  Put your feet up in the afternoon if you can.  Eat lightly, but well. Don't drink too much coffee, or alcohol. Maybe plan to have some friends over for drinks after. Hey, invite your friends and family to the concert and then out for drinks, or to your place for drinks, so you don't need a designated driver. 

Remember your uniform, scar or tie, black shoes, etc, and a water bottle that you will not be seen drinking from and that will not be in the way at all. 

Don't forget, Tuesday we meet at Trinity United in Newmarkst to learn the Seal Lullaby. It's such a cool song, and we're just doing the parts with words. The band is playing the oohs. Then, the following Tuesday is our first seniors' visit! There is an order up for all the seniors' performances. Always have all of your music just in case. You can download the sing-along lyrics if you like. There's a link on the same page. 

• Remember your baking for the bake sale.
• Remember to park farther away to give good spots to those who need it most.
• Remember to sign up for seniors' visits- we need a few more people for Bloomington Cove and the Eldon, in particular.
• Remember to hand in your binder before July, after your last performance with us, so that you get your Winter music in September. Peggy and Anne need to file away the music from this season, and will fill up your binders with new stuff. If your binder is missing, it messes them up and you won't have any music in September.

Break a leg, everyone!

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review Tues. April 23

I'm very happy with everything! All the small groups are in good shape. All of our songs are in good shape, and we are ready for our show!

We started at 6:00 with the Rainbow Connection small group, and we did it! We got this together and I'm so grateful to Donna for making those rehearsal recordings! I love this song. Then, we rehearsed Anthem, and the sound of a men's group is a special treat. The song is pretty special too, and the soloists nailed their solos. Excellent. Night of Stars had a rocky start just because we hadn't reheared it in a while. We got it together again, and it was beautiful. I have to remember the slower tempo. Wishin' and Hopin' also took a moment to get back together again, to remember that the second sopranos carry the melody, that the melody is in the middle and not on top, and we added a couple of parts to second soprano. Such a fun, cute song, but I have to be sure to comment on how "old-fashioned" it is.

At break we heard Mona and Stanley's duet, I See the Light. Their performances almost always make me cry. Stanley sings: "Now she's here, shining in the starlight; Now she's here, suddenly I know." This song is about a moment when your dreams change. We talked about how the things we wish for blowing out candles, or on Santa's knee, change over the years. In this song, the lovers find each other and then see things in a new light. Many of us sang along with Marlene's Climb Every Mountain. So good! Some of us dream about reaching those high notes. 

1. Somewhere Out There: Sweet.  Remember the little mice, alone in a new country, but feeling the presence of their sibling looking at the same sky and "wishing on the same bright star". This song should have a sweetness and a lovely hopeful child-like positivity. Our show is about wishes and dreams, the things we wish for, and how our dreams come true, and how wishing, dreaming, praying for things helps us. As always, my big theme is that singing about these things is good for us. 

2. Nella Fantasia: Gorgeous. I love this song, and yesterday, you nailed it. It was so good! This is the big wish, the dream: a peaceful, just world, where we feel- deep down in our souls- free and as light as floating clouds in the caress of a warm wind. 

3. Rewrite the Stars: Solos nailed. Bass clef entries nailed. I love how this song moves. This song is not as positive as all the others. Hope is good, dreaming for a better world is good, and we can change the way we think and act but we can't change everyone and we can't change everything all at once. The ending is not a big happy one. In that movie, the people who are disrespected by the public, in the end they are not accepted by everyone, but they feel empowered, and the people around them understand their value, and we admire their courage, so it's a step in the right direction. We're moving in the right direction, becoming more inclusive, accepting diversity. Performance note: please get your first page set to where you come in, and don't follow along with the solo, so that we don't have distracting page turning going on during the solo. For the second solo, you can clip those pages together for one clean flip.

4. Power of the Dream: We got it! This was the most difficult thing we did this season, our only completley new song. I love how we all pulled together to get this one sounding great. The big ending is going to make us all proud. We are all making it up, creating it together, and I love that! This is the power of the choir. I described my vision to you, and with all your individual skills and talents, working togehter, you made my vision come to life. 

5. Star Canon: Sweet! We're going to walk in up the aisle like celebrants in a wedding, to Canon in D, and once we're all settled on the stage, we'll start singing this. This is our first song, but not the beginning of the concert, as our first song usually is. I will enter first, with Tab, and we're going to start with a thoughtful, even prayerful, and inspiring musical treat for our audience, with Jane's inspiring and impressive decorations to help guide the audience to open their hearts to our offering of things worth dreaming about.

6. Hallelujah: Always a treat. The audience will love this as our ovation song. They will possibly have wished for us to sing this, and we will deliver. 

7. You'll Never Walk Alone: Powerful! This is impressive and a pefect finale. Whatever the stars have in store for us, no matter how many of our dreams get blown away in storms, we have our friends and family, we have Love, God, hope in our hearts. Hope. We keep dreaming. 

We talked about:

The bake sale: bring your baking in smallish, individual portions, but not individualy wrapped. You can bring a tin of cookies, a plate of squares, or a tray of tarts, or a loaf (or strudel, or whatever) cut up and ready for us to put on a platter. There will be a buffet of sweets for our audience. They will make a donation and fill up their plates. It's always a great success. Coffee and tea, water and juice will be there too. The intermission feels like a celebration.

The concert order is available on the website, and there's a printable version there and here that you can download if you like. Please have your binder in order for next week's run-through so we don't have to wait for anyone to find their music. 

We talked about avoiding flipping pages while soloists are singing. We'll need to talk about avoiding other distracting behaviour during small groups and solos too. 

Tickets are still available for you to buy, but only at breaktime next week, and by calling Carol with a credit card. Tickets will be sold at the door too, but we would love to sell as many tickets as possible in advance to help getting people in the door smoothly.

After the concert, seniors' tour and Citizens Band concert: Please sign up on the website, in Events, for all of the Tuesdays after the concert, and for our concert with the Newmarket Citizens Band on Saturday, March 25th. 

Next week, Tuesday, April 30th- early start 7:00

Run-through rehearsal at Trinity Anglican Church in Aurora, like a dress rehearsal without the dress. Everyone will be in place by 7:00. We will walk through the whole show, figuring out where and when to walk, where and when to sit, and all the logistics of the concert, and test out the order of songs to make sure that works. We'll test the sound, working with microphones and the sound technician, Doug.  

When I find out when we can get in, I'll post the start time for small groups and soloists, sometime between 6 and 6:30. 

No dress for our dress rehearsal. Come in comfortable clothes because it will be a long night. We often go past 9:30. For the concerts, on May 4th and on May 25th, our concert uniform is simple: black on the bottom all the way to the floor (long pants or long skirt, black socks, hose, shoes), white on top all the way to the wrists (long sleeves). We have red scarves and ties. If you're new, you'll get one from Lauren next week. 

Upcoming Events Schedule- Sign up Please

There are two places you, YRCC members, can see what's coming up: the YRCC Calendar, and the Events page on the website. 

Here's a screenshot of the Calendar on the Agenda setting. When you click on any of those entries in the calendar on your device, you'll get the times and locations with links to a map view. You can copy things to your own calendar very easily, and there are print options too. I don't recommend printing, because I change things sometimes. Like, I don't know where the rehearsal on the 21st will be. Probably the Old Town Hall, but idk. Timing for the small groups on the 30th is not clear yet. So, I've entered a guess. I'll update it when I know for sure. I add more information as I get it and when I can.

In Week or Month view (see below) you'll get more detail, but keep clicking, and you'll want to click on "more details" when you have that option. 

agenda view

month view after clicking on the blue entry

more detail view

Below, you have a look at the Events Signup Page on the website in the regular (List) view and Calendar view. You need to log in with your password. It's in the Members section. Click on "Show details" (bottom right) to see the whole entry. You can see who else has already registered and you can register too. Please do register for all of the events that you can come to. The Calendar view is very nice. I always forget that it exists. Make yourself at home on our website, click around, snoop in all the places thhat open up. 

Please sign up so that I can see who's coming (or not) and I can plan our performances. 

I'm especially interested in everyone coming for the Citizens Band Concert and rehearsals. Sign up as soon as you can. Thanks!

calendar view of events list

details of event after calendar view- nice

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review Tues. April 16

We're almost there! This was our second-last rehearsal in our room. 

Rainbow Connection small group met 6:30. I was late and things were a bit messy, so Donna has offered to record parts and meet with us early next week. Write the instructions into your sheet music. And, here are the la-las. Write these in too, please. Big harmony on the last note. Choose a Bb, F, or D. 

Warm-ups included light stretching and breathing with light cursing. Breathe in a cleansing breath and let it out with fudge, then cleanse and let out fudgity-fudge, then a big fudging Mc Fudgity fudge. Just now, I tried it and then did it backwards to calm down even more, like a crescendo-decrescendo. If you're having an especially stressful day, don't use the euphemisms; enjoy the power of the four-letter word.  

1. All I Have to do is Dream: sweet and soft for a vocal warm-up. We spent a little time on the timing of the bass clef Oh in the pick-up to E on page 6. Make sure you're only holding the last note of dream for two beats, so you can breathe for half a beat on beat 3 and come in on the and. "and4.1and.." After that bass clef section solo, the passion of the song is higher, so I want to hear a big "Gee whiz", and "need", "die", "love" and "so" should all be accented. We spent a little time on the last page, the oos and watching, as always at the end (and I'll try to remember to to give the sopranos their 1.and2.). 

2. City of Stars: smooth and cool. We remembered that all bass clef singers can sing the optional solo section, just be soft and tightly together. The whole beginning is soft and cool, getting a little stronger at 21, and a little more at 29. We need to empasize "It's love" and the word love in the last line there. At 35 we're quite strong, where everyone is together and it swings so nicely. That section builds up to the "rat-tat-tat on my heart" and then is suddenly soft again with the bass clef voices soft and together, watching for each beat in bar 49. The altos and sopranos are perfect on the ending!

3. Power of the Dream: we're still learning this, but it's gotten very good. We're doing a big Renate-ending where everyone sings the last line: to realize the power of the - dream! Ignore the sheet music there. Bass clef voices can sing the melody or a harmony, even all on one note, if you like. Altos can do that too. Make up a big harmony for the ending. And if we have 6-8 parts on the last note, dream, I will be so happy! This song is at the end of the first half, before we break for the bake sale. If there's a good strong ending, we'll be forgiven if we have some weak spots, and the weak spots might seem like a bit of drama. One more rehearsal for this, so if you're feeling lost still, can you spend a half-hour or so on your part with the recording on the website? Download it so it's on your device. Sing along a few times. Sing the words and adjust for our new inclusive wording. There's a part where a couple sopranos still want to sing the notes as written, adding an extra note. It's at the top of page 3. "And since time began" it's simpler now, a1.2.and3. (not a1.a2.and3). And, sopranos and altos, on page 6, please remember to come in on beat one. There's no pick-up before "Every one of you" (same number of syllables as the original). The rhythm at the top of page 4 is still giving us trouble. I've marked beats 1.2.3.4 on my music to help me with this,  and I circled the words to lean on. Here's a screen shot:

4. Rewrite The Stars: wow! I love this song, and now we've figured out the solos! Lorraine on the first and Tab on the second sounds perfect. The bass clef pick-ups on beat 3 are so good now! (what if we, say you were, no one can, how can you, say that the,...). Remember after Tab's solo, we get more passionate, and it's negative. I'm not the one, it's not up to you, it's not up to me. Stress those negative words, and you'll be sure to fit them in. 

5. Joseph Medley: By request. So much fun and so satisfying! So worth going overtime! 

We talked about signing up for the band concert and the seniors' visits. Numbers are limited, so please sign up on the Events page on the website. Dates, times, and locations are listed there, and they're also entered on the YRCC Calendar. 

Next week, Tuesday, April 23rd- last rehearsal in our room

6:00 Rainbow Connection

6:30 Anthem, Night of Stars, Wishin' and Hopin'

We're going to talk about the bake sale, uniforms, the band concert, and the seniors' tour.

• Power of the Dream
• Nella Fantasia
• Any bits of anything you want: come with requests

Week after next, Tuesday, April 30th- Run-through Rehearsal

We'll be at Trinity Anglican Church in Aurora

You will have your binders in concert order. (see website)

We will start at 7:00

We will sing parts of all of the songs, so we can hear how the concert flows.

We will find out how best to stand, sit, and move, how to enter and exit.

We will have a chance to see how the soloists and small groups will use the microphones. 

Everyone must attend.***

***If you can't be there, be sure to let your neighbour in your section know so that they can leave a space for you and guide you at the concert. 

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review Tues. April 9

I love my choir. Thank you for giving me a wonderful evening of respite from my grief. My brother passed away after a 10-month battle with Leukemia on Monday. I was not sure I would be able to manage choir night, but also needed it so badly. I'm always telling people to come to choir if they're feeling rotten, because I know it's such a good escape. It sure is.

The Rainbow Connection small group met at 6:30 to work through the revised arrangement. It was great. I tried to play my ukulele, but it was not great, and one cute instrument alone is just a little weird. So, we'll just work on the singing. I can conduct. 

Our warm-up involved picking up the music that Peggy brought for us (Thank you, Peggy!), the words for the concert sing-along pieces, Over the Rainbow and Catch a Falling Star. We sang Catch a Falling Star with Perry Como. So smooth. We'll do a straight-up version like we do with seniors, easy-peasy.

1. Over the Rainbow will be a choir and band collaboration. So, we have their arrangement, and I've entered the bar numbers on the lyric sheet so we don't have to worry about the sheet music, or copying it, but can be "on the same page" as the band. If their conductor calls out "Let's go back to bar 21", we'll know where to go. There's a big instrumental section, and after that a repeat at bar 53, and then a little fancy ending, a Coda at bar 54. Donna was so impressive, sight-reading the arrangement for us to sing to. Wow! It was pretty easy for us. For our concert, we'll do an easy straight-up version that everyone will be able to sing easily. 

2. We took a quick look at Seal Lullaby, the choral piece we're singing with the band. We will sing the parts with lyrics, leaving the oohs and ahhs to the band. You can find recordings of your part on YouTube, and I've collected them on my playlist for the choir. (screenshot below). We will have a whole rehearsal to learn this on May 7th. 

3. Nella Fantasia was excellent! All of your hard work is paying off. 

4. Power of the Dream was also very good. We spent a little time reviewing some of the tricky bits: top of page 10, and top of page 11 where it's easy to get lost when your words have moved, the low notes and rhythm at bar 13, and the ending with the bass clef folks singing pretty much whatever feels good, the melody with the sopranos or a harmony, and then the last note, a real Renate ending where you can all choose a good landing note. We just have to repeat this piece a couple more times for your confidence. Sopranos, sing out loud, especially where you're the only ones on the melody. This is big: With support, we can make dreams come true- like Olympic dreams, reach for your own star, but also, the flame burns forever for us to unite in peace. This is our big message along with with Nella Fantasia, a fantasy of a world of peace, justice, honesty, and freedom. Dreams, fantasies, wishes are related to hope, and they're vital to keep us going with positivity toward better futures for ourselves and for the world.

5. Joseph Medley: Wow!!! It's so good! The soloists nailed their solos and we all got it all in one shot. We just spent a quick moment on the timing of the Go, go, gos. From the end of Benjamin Calypso, those la-las, you count La-2-3-4-1-2-3 and 4 and Jo-seph! Go, go, go is "and four and".  Take a quick breath on the beat 3 just before. Bam. It was perfect. 

6. Star Canon: Wow! It's so good. This will be our first song, a sweet hug for our audience, and it will also be impressive. You sound great. Keep the beginning sweet, only getting a little stronger when there are two or more sections singing together. When we're all in, for that last part, it's big and awesome.

7. You'll Never Walk Alone: Our big finale song, this will leave the audience uplifted, inspired, and impressed. We briefly reviewed the tricky second soprano bits. It was fantastic! We would for sure have gotten a standing ovation on that performance. 

8. Hallelujah: Our encore. They're going to be so satisfied! Your performance brought me to tears. Thank you, my beloved choir! 

Next week, Tuesday, April 16th

6:30: Rainbow Connection small group

• Al I Have to do is Dream
• City of Stars
• Nella Fantasia
• Power of the Dream
• Rewrite the Stars

My Singing Night Moved to New Blog

Trinity Newmarket Singers is my new blog for all the singing stuff at Trinity, mostly for the weekly reviews of my Thursday nights, with the list of songs we sang and the stuff we talked about.

YRCC (York Region Community Choir) members are still more than welcome to come to my Thursday nights at Trinity! In fact, My Singing Night has been rebranded as Sing-Along Café , a Community Singing Evening.

We want to share our Singing Nights.  The Thursday evening gathering evolved from a choral singing and sing-along evening to simply singing along to music on my Apple Playlists. We moved from the Choir Room to the Fellowship Room. 

 Armchairs, sofas, a big TV screen for the lyrics, and playlists with themes, tea and cookies or squares (often home made), and good conversation with lovely company, this is our new singing night, a Sing-along Café.

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review Tues. April 2

Another fantastic evening! I was so tired at first from the long weekend, but at the end of the evening I left invigorated, high and happy!

The evening started with Rainbow Connection, the small group at 6:30. Love that song!

Our warm-up included a little twisting, and so many people know the words to Let's Twist Again- fun! We did a bunch of "Maybe my mummy will go to Miami, and maybe my mummy will not". 

1. Hallelujah is always wonderful. We reviewed a few tricky bits that some of us sometimes miss. There are the three alto tricky bits: page 3 "the baffled king composing Hallelujah", page 6 "the holy or the broken Hallelujah", and "with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah". When everyone comes in, there's almost always someone who forgets that our version has a different rhythm on "It goes like this". Circle that if it's you who gets carried away right from the beginning. And, there are often sopranos who go up, up, up in a different way than what's written. Try your best. If someone beside you makes these mistakes in a performance, don't panic. It's not horrible, and everyone loves this song. I promised we'd sing it again at the end of the night if everyone was good ;-) We did, even though we went over time past 9:30. It was so worth it, right?

2. Nella Fantasia is also wonderful, one of my alltime favourites. I know some of you disagree. It's hard, but you're getting it. We spent time on the first page, getting the sopranos together, clear and strong. We reviewed the ahhs for everyone and repeated the in "fondo al l'anima" for everyone several times so that it's strong and clear. There was a brief moment of discussion on the ending of Nella Fantasia, and whether it was a Renate ending or should we add something. Although I appreciate the thought, I do like it, and one thing that I like is how it reminds us of this moment in the first verse, but it's a bigger version of this one. We spend time getting the tenors and basses together at bar 23, and in bar 35. Please review this if you can. 

3. Rewrite the Stars: Wow! We tried a few different soloists and Lorraine and Tab nailed theirs! Can they be our star-crossed lovers? Maybe! We spent time on the tenor and bass entry at the beginning at bar 18. I often yell "one two" here so you come in strong on beat 3 with "What if we". There are a bunch of these pick-ups where the bass clef folks come in before everyone else. It's so important that you do, and do so with confidence and volume. The next one is right there in bar 20: "Say you were". I suggested that you circle all of those in pencil on your music. I have them all circled. The last time we sang this, we added the altos to these bits, but I'm confident that the bass clef sections can do this. This is another of my favourite pieces. If you haven't seen the movie The Greatest Showman, please do. The music is outstanding. The story is beautiful. The love story of the star-crossed lovers is powerful. For this song, see this video. 

4. Power of the Dream: Yes! We're getting it. It's hard, but it's coming together. We spent time just saying and then singing the rhythm of the first couple pages. Those melodies are repeated. We reviewed the top of page 4 "special part every one of us will play" I marked the beats in this phrase. "one" comes on beat 3 and "us" on beat 4. On page 6 "Every one of you, as you come" is a little confusing because of the new words- a little like the Italian and English in Nella. E---vry-one-- of--you. Slow, fast, fast, and 3. The next thing we spent time on was page 8. We'll go over that again. We added a beat at the bottom of the page, changing the 3/4 bar to a 4/4. So, you hold that lst note "can" for two beats in that bar, then rest a beat before coming in on beat 4, for the pick-up "feel the".  The ending will be a Renate ending, with the bass clef voices added and then on the last note, "dream", we'll have a big crazy harmony with everyone singing a note they feel like singing. I love those. It's goinig to be fabulous.

Next week, Tuesday, April 9th

6:30 Rainbow Connection Small Group

• Nella Fantasia
• Power of the Dream
• Sing-alongs: Catch a Falling Star, (Somewhere) Over the Rainbow
• Rewrite the Stars? 

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review Tues. Mar. 26

What a fun rehearsal! Ending with the whole Joseph Medley was so good, and the choir sounded so good that I was dancing on my riser/platform thing. (I want to day dais or pedestal, but that's too grand)

And the elation started right away with the small group singing Anthem so beautifully. It took some work, but in the end it sounded excellent. Second Tenors, watch out for those As. 

We started off before warm-ups listening to The Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre (that's a link to the video with the sheet music). It's so special and lovely, and we're going to sing it with the Newmarket Citizens Band! Yay! I've been listening to it on repeat. I can imagine that it will be very powerful to sing it with a band. And, I think we'll want to sing it ourselves in the future. I have videos of the parts in my YouTube playlist. (There's a link to that playlist on the website so you can find it any time.) It's a piece that lends itself to many themes: childhood, parenthood, home, safety and love, diversity (empathy with others living in other climates, dangerous environments, animals), etc. And, it's a big "Choral" piece, unlike mosot of our stuff. Eric Whitacre is a big name in modern choral music. 

1. City of Stars is ready to perform, we just have to get more consistently confident. There's a little bit of messiness on page 5 that we reviewed in the bass clef: "there in the bars and the crowded restaurants". Tenors and basses, please review that. 

2. You'll Never Walk Alone. I absolutely love this. I love it from the very beginning where Donna has that powerful gospel intro, to the very end which is my kind of really big ending! We spent time on this for all the newer folks who have been patiently following along. We reviewed the swing notation and the different feel of the eighth notes in the triplets and the regular eighth notes, in pairs and alone (at 65, for example). We looked at the second soprano part at bar 31, the special "though your dreams be tossed" and noticed that it helps if you start thinking about staying on the C for "your dreams" at the C on the word "rain". Try that. We divided the sopranos instead of the altos because we always had more sopranos than altos. We maybe could have looked at dividing the altos this time? We also looked at page 7 for everyone. Observe your rests; this is key. Look at all the parts, how they go back and forth. Your part needs to be clear and tight so that the other parts come in at your rests. Look at the accent marks on "never". Punch those. 

3. Power of the Dream. I love this song, but it's not very lovable yet, is it. Have patience. We haven't tackled a piece like this in a long time. We studied page 8 and page 11 and half of page 12. It will come together soon. At the top of page 8, because of the revision of the words, we're going to keep only the B in the pick-up to bar 48. "It's time that we began." So, "it's" will be one syllable. But, we can keep the two syllable "we" in the treble clef (where child had two syllables). Page 11 is cool! The alto line finishes the thought "It's the power of the dream that brings us here" while the rest go on to next section at 66. Interesting transition. We left the ending because I'm writing in notes for the tenors and basses. I need a bigger ending there. It won't be pp, LOL. 

4. Joseph Medley: from Close Every Door to the end, but we didn't review any parts. It was good! And, we sang the whole thing from the beginning, and it was exhilirating. Lauren sang Carol's solo wonderfully, Winston is an awesome Jamaican, and Blair and Winston both sang Colby's King solo. Fantastic. This piece is so much fun and such a great variety of songs! I'm sure our audience will love it too. 

We talked about:

Posters and ticket sales! Lauren and Jane had posters for us to take and post wherever we have space to do so, and we can buy tickets starting now! $20 each and you can pay by cash, cheque (to York Region Community Choir), or credit card (tap, Square). Get your friends and family tickets and if you like, we can hold them at the door for you, as long as they're paid for, otherwise, there will be ticket sales at the door too. 

I had posters for the Sunday, May 19th Piano Recital at Trinity United Church in Newmarket (my church) at 3:00, pefect for an uplifting concert followed by a nice dinner on Main Street. The award-winning Austrian pianst, Cornelia Herrmann will be playing Bach, Mozart, and Schubert. The church recently was gifted a beautiful new piano, so this will be the first of many ways that this piano in this beautiful building will be shared with the community. You can buy tickets at Eventbrite here. 

Next week, Tuesday, April 2nd

6:30 Rainbow Connection Small Group

• Nella Fantasia
• Power of the Dream
• Rewrite the Stars
• Hallelujah