Welcome


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

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

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

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

Saturday, June 18, 2011

You are what you sing!

Hello Everybody!

Identity
You are what you eat. That’s not new.  I’ve been thinking about my own identity in terms of, “You are what you say, read, and write,” and “You are what you google”( more to come on that another time).

Now, I’m thinking about the choir’s identity. What is the York Region Community Choir? Who are we?

I think we can determine the identity of our choir by what we sing.

Discos and Rockers
When I was in high school, we were labelled according to the music we liked: rockers and discos.  There were also fashions and hairstyles that went along with them. Fuzzy dice! Some people fit very clearly into one or the other. 

YRCC
Let’s see. Looking at the list of the songs we sang this past season, I’d say we were beautiful, fun and Popular!

We seem to like popular music, popular music from the past, that is. So, we’re also old? No way!

Best Concert Ever
The York Region Community Choir has never had a more successful concert than our spring concert last month. We made a bit more money at our Christmas concert, but all things considered- quality, participation, fun, audience-response and revenue- this one wins.

Best Music Ever
One of the things that I heard repeatedly was that the music was excellent, the best ever.  The audience loved hearing all those well-known melodies. We had fun learning and singing songs we love. Choristers have asked for more familiar songs.  

Next
For Christmas, we’ve decided to include music from different cultures to reflect the diversity of the choir and the community around us. So, we’re continuing to build our identity through our music.

We are more than our music, of course.

We love to bake and eat too! Ok, there’s more than singing and eating, but that’s the topic of another blog, another time. (In another, maybe I’ll talk about how my Book Club is really a Reading and Eating Group.)

Yours in harmony,

Renate

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