Thursday Nights On Hold for the Holidays

 

YRCC Post-concert Seniors' Tour Winter 2024

I'm so happy with yesterday's performance at the Renoir! The choir, a good number of you and a lovely balance of parts, sounded excellent, maybe better than on Sunday. I think we were all more relaxed and having fun, and it liberated your sound. Those seniors were very lucky. I love my choir!!!

I am so happy that I agreed that we could do Song for a Winter's Night with everyone singing the two solos. It was beautiful, not as dramatic/special as with the soloists, but it was lovely to have everyone singing. It sounded pretty and powerful, and seeing everyone enjoy that song was heartwarming. The seniors' visits do this for us; liberating and heartwarming.

As always, I had tons of wonderful praise from our audience, praise and gratitude. They loved being able to sing along! You could see it and feel it, but they also expressed it. 

Remaining Senoirs Tour: I need more sopranos, but more everything really, for the upcoming visits. Please sign up and come to sing. You will be so happy that you did! However, of you're sick, you can't come into a seniors' residence/care home. Don't feel bad, just let me know and I'll cancel your "registration" so someone else can take your place. It's fun and easy with lots of sing-along Christmas/winter/holiday songs. 

Binders: Don't forget that you need to return your binder and all music by December 20th. If you can't do that at a seniors' visit, you will need to drop it off at Anne Copsey's house: 402 Silken Laumann Dr., Newmarket. There's a bin by her front door.

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review November 19

This past rehearsal was unexpectedly upstairs in the sanctuary at Trinity Anglican in Aurora, where we have our concert! It was cool to be there and Donna got to play a nice real piano, but the pews are not the best place for a choir to sit. So, luckily, Melinda was there to help and together with the tenors and basses who were there early, we gathered the chairs that were here and there and set them up for rehearsing. We did have a chance to use the "stage" for a couple things, but we were still working on stuff quite a bit, so there weren't enough opportunities. Thank you to everyone who helped to move furniture and make the rehearsal work. We spent our time on cleaning things up and made excellent progress.

1. All That Holiday Stuff: Both soloists were excellent. Sopranos, make sure you're ready to come in on beat one of bar 54 at the page turn from 7 to 8. "All that stuff" is special there. Have fun with this song; it's meant to be light and a little wild. 

2. Your Song: Be sure to read the notes you've made about the tricky spots. We've gone over them so many times. You got it on the second try, but at the concert, there's only one shot. 

3. 12 Groovy Days: It's even more fun than All That Stuff, a little crazy and funny. The sign holders are: 8-track=Nadine, 2 shoes=Lynn, 3 headbands=Colby, 4 bugs=Robyn, 5 rings=Jane, , 6 suits=Blair, 7earrings=Peggy, 8 disco balls=Philip, 9 blankets=Kit, 10 doorbeads=Lauren, 11insence=Winston, 12 lamps=Kim. I thought that would be a big challenge, but they did great! It's going to be very effective. (wait 'till you see the actual signs Jane made, which I regrettably left at home). Watch me to stay in time at the Complete Disco section. 

4. Song for a Winter's Night: The soloists are excellent, and we did pretty well on page 9 and 10, but I think we'll have Donna play our parts as we sing instead of singing a cappella. 

5. Santa's Wish: This will be fine. It's a lovely story and it introduces our encore song, which is a huge theme in our concert. Our soloists will have the most work, but they're going to be great. 

6. I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing: I confused the poor Tenors. They stay on Part l with the Sopranos throughout on this song. No moving. Alto and Bass on Part ll. Remember the "that echos on" part is the Tenors on the first echo and Altos and Basses on the second one. Everyone sings the first one. 

Please keep checking the website and calendar for updates about where we're supposed to be and what time, and all that. We do announce things at rehearsals, but there's always a chance you'll miss that moment, busy talking or looking at your music. 

The concert order was emailed to everyone. If you missed that email, let me know. But, you can also pick up the order from the website. 

Next week, Tuesday, November 26 is our run-through rehearsal at Trinity Anglican in Aurora. We run through the whole concert to make sure the order works, to make sure we're standing, sitting, walking with ease and grace, and so that the sound guy, Doug, can figure out how to make us sound best. People who will be using microphones: soloists, small groups, duets, will be coming early-6:00 please. All others come at 7:00 and be prepared to stay late, as late as 10:00. This rehearsal prepares us for the show next Sunday, so we feel confident and look spiffy and polished. 

Put your binder in concert order, so that when you arrive at 7:00, you can get on stage and be prepared to sing one song after the other without searching for the music. It's got to be handy. You might want to put a flag/sticky note on the songs that come after we sit and stand up again, and after intermission. Make sure the flags will not be visible to the audience. 

Tuesday, November 19th 2024: YRCC Rehearsal Moved again

This is a good move and a small one. Trinty Anglican is moving us upstairs to the sanctuary.

That's where we will be performing, and where we're meeting next Tuesday as well!

I've sent an email to everyone. 

See you soon! 

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review November 12

The small groups made excellent progress but we ended up starting a little late. We did a very quick physical warm-up, seated, did a couple rollercoasters for a vocal warm-up and started on our work. We did a lot of work!

1. We Wish You a Merry Madrigal: we hadn't sung this in ages, but it was very good! We sang it with accompaniment and then without. We did it! I'd like us to perform this a cappella, to provide the audience with a very different sound. It's a cool little piece. We seem to have lost the parts recordings, so I've inserted by link a recording of a concert performance of ours. Remember to watch at the end, as usual. I conduct in two throuout  (cut time,   ), except for the 3/4 section which is one beat per bar, but the last bar is in four (common time  ). 

2. Peace on This Silent Night: Beautiful and pretty easy. It's in 2 parts. l is ST, ll is AB most of the time. At the beginning, Tenors start alone, then Sopranos are alone at 11. Everyone comes in at bar 23 with a crescendo to bar 27. At the quiet section at 67, S is alone on part l and everyone else sings part ll, Silent Night, softly. We'll ask the audience to sing along at 91, so Tenors have to join Sopranos on part l. I'll cut the audience off for our ending. 

3. Song for a Winter's Night: Lauren wasn't able to sing her solo, but luckily we have a back-up and Robyn did a great job. Bill was absent again, so I asked Philip to try the second solo, and I'm so glad I did. It was excellent. It's so good when someone with a voice I like is willing to sing a solo! Philip will be that soloist, with Bill as back-up. We worked on page 9 again, reviewed the Alto part again. Altos, you can look at your part with the recording on the website for homework. At the top of page 10, the oohs that we turned into words should be very soft and fade away. The Alto melody can be strong. I changed my mind about the last line. All Sopranos can sing that, softly, instead of having the soloists come back for that line. The last note is now an ooh instead of a mmm, and louder. We can try a sfz?

4. I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing: Easy-peasy Part l is Sopranos and Tenors, Part ll is Altos and Basses. We don't have parts recorded, but it's not difficult and many of you know it well. It will be our encore song. There's one part where Sopranos and Tenors divide, at bar 81, the echos part. Tenors have a 3 beat rest in bar 82, then come in with an echo. The Altos and Basses do that last echo. Watch out for dynamics, when to sing louder or softer. 

5. Santa's Wish: Every time I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing comes up in this song, sing melody. Disregard the notes with harmonies. Simple is good. All you need to do is pay attention to when you sing and when you don't sing. The Storyteller will be Melinda with Jane as back-up. Jane did an excellent job singing that solo! The Santa role will go to Colby with Winston as back-up. Winston did a fine job as Santa, very convincing. 

6. Grownup Christmas List: This is going to be Robyn's solo. Cathy is the back-up. Just remember that the solo goes all the way to the first chorus, and that first chorus is very soft. Then at the repeat, the Sopranos and Altos take that note "As" (as children we believe, second verse) and the Tenors and Basses come in on beat one with oohs. The second chorus can be louder, and every subsequent chorus is louder still. We reviewed the bottom of page 7, bars 40 and 41 (tricky) to the end. We have recordings of all parts on the website. 

7. Why We Sing: Cathy will be the soloist. Kim is back-up. Solo goes from the beginning up to the pick-up to 26 where everyone comes in quietly. This will be very dramatic. Just before this we sing When You Believe, with its big drama and big ending. Then we start this soft and clear so that they listen to the words, and we do a straight-up powerful version, with no descant, but a good loud ending that should give us a standing ovation. 

8. When You Believe: Sang it right through to the end but didn't have time to review any parts. It's going to be fantastic!

Wow, did we ever get a lot of work done! 

Next week, Tuesday, November 19th

6:30: Tenors and Basses sectional help 7:15 Christmas Lullaby

Next week is our last learning week. So, we'll get any last messy bits cleared up. Think about what you'd like to review. We will be meeting in the basement of Trinity Anglican in Aurora, where we have the concert, and where we were rehearsing while our room was being renovated. Take a look at the YRCC Calendar, it's been updated. Buy your tickets and pay for your poinsettias. Remember to get your friends and family booked, hook them in with a dinner invitation. They'll be full from the bake sale so it'll be a light dinner. 

• All That Holiday Stuff: Soloist is Melody, back-up is Kit (we need to give her a chance to rehearse it). 
• Your Song 
• Santa's Wish
• Twelve Groovy Days
• Christmas Auld Lang Syne?
• Star Canon??
• When You Believe?
• Song for a Winter's Night?

The week after next is our run-through rehearsal, where we sing the whole concert, small groups and soloists and everything, making sure we can enter and exit with grace and we know where to stand and sit. I'll  make sure you have the concert order before then. Beware: it has happened that when we go through the order, something doesn't work and I have to change the order. Don't panic. For the concert, you'll need to have your binders in concert order. And you will have the final order by the end of the run-through rehearsal. No scrambling to find the music on stage! Small groups and soloists come early to work with the stage and microphones.

NOV/DEC YRCC Schedule: Check our Calendar regularly

Please keep checking the YRCC Calendar for info on where you're supposed to be for the next little while. 

Here's a link

Here's a screen shot:

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review November 5

I’m feeling very positive about our upcoming concert. I have to admit, I was feeling a little frightened. I was worried that we wouldn’t have enough time to get all of our songs in shape for performing in less than a month. But, I’m happy with the progress we made yesterday. I was thinking I’d have to scrap Santa’s Wish in addition to For Unto Us. We still have work to do, for sure, but we’re going to be fine.

Partly, the time I spent with the Alto section in our early rehearsal starting at 6:30 helped me to feel better. Those Altos are truly a special group of singers. A little bit of focus on the tricky bits in When You Believe and Song for a Winter’s Night, Groovy Days, and Your Song made a huge difference. Well done, team!

Christmas Lullaby was also much better in our short rehearsal before choir. One thing that made a difference was standing up closer together. Also, having Donna there was a huge help. 

1. After a brief stretching and stress-releasing physical warm-up, we went straight to work on Why We Sing. This is our finale piece, and one we’ve done very often. So, we need to shake it up a little. We’re going to have a soloist on the first section, where we sometimes had 4 soloists. Just one clear voice singing those words will have a special power and tenderness at the same time. We will use little lights on this song, right after When You Believe which introduces them. The soloist alone will hold the light up, and the rest of us will join in after. I’d like to add some movement with this too. I have to figure out how and when. I’d like us to move on the chorus, stop for the “music builds a bridge” part, then start at the chorus again. Maybe we sway two times per bar to match the cut time, or just one per bar? I’ve removed the descant for this season. I want this to be clear and strong, not too showy. I think that the descant is cool, but I want a unified sound instead of a fancy one. 

2. Song for a Winter’s Night is so beautiful! We reviewed page 9 and 10, with some time at the page-turn and top of page 10. Remember that you are singing the words that the altos have, just with your notes, and adding a finishing note on the last word, drifting. You need to watch me for the timing of those words. I’ll give a beat for each word, they slow down somewhat, and we need to be together. You can watch the video linked from the website. It's lovely. The soloists were excellent. Both were the back-ups. This is why we have to always have a back-up soloist. 

3. Your Song had a few messy parts that we fixed! I’m very happy with how well we did. At the top of page 4, before bar 36 on beat 4. It's weird how the I comes on beat 4 and then you have a rest on beat one before the rest of the sentence. Maybe listen to the tenors and basses singing "Show" and count show-2-3 "I". Or, sing your oohs: ooh-1-2-3-I/ or ooh-sho-oh-oh-3-I? Also here, we did a little bit of math. Two eighths equal one quarter. The words "not much but it's" are all equal in length (look at the tied eighths) and on they fall on the off-beat. Middle of page 6, Soprano solo on the word "how" of how wonderful life is. You have to come in strong on that beat 4 too. Think "words-2-3-HOW wonderful". That one happens twice. Altos, Tenors, and Basses, please support this timing but observing that rest accurately-don't hold that note too long! You must stop singing to give the Sopranos time to come in on beat 4. Sing with them "I" in your head. We worked on the CODA too. The notes for "Words" needed fixing, and from that moment on, you need to watch me for the timing. Things slow down and speed up and slow down again. That last note is not P as written but a sforzando piano. Hit the note, come off of it to soft and a quick crescendo-diminuendo. Watch. Watch throughout for those sforzandos. Donna has recorded parts for you. Go to the website to download yours and listen to review. Watch the video and sing along. I'll post the video below again. 

4.Santa's Wish: Soloists tried their parts and sounded very good. We're looking at this song as a solo/duet with a choir singing back-up. We're just the back-up vocalists. This is going to be simpler than written. Whenever the choir comes in, we sing the melody, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing and softly at first, only getting "choral" toward the end. Here, we are interpreting "in perfect harmony" to mean peace and unity rather than musical harmony, so unison is stronger anyway. There's a little bit of special stuff at the end, but no harmonies to learn. Please watch the video of the Tenors singing Santa's Wish, below. It's sweet and it will give you the ooh and ahh part. I'm happy that we're going to be able to perform this. 

5. Twelve Groovy Days: It’s a little chaotic, but that’s part of its charm. Jane is making signs to hold up so that the audience gets the words, which are funny and sweet. That will add a little timing craziness which will hopefully put the audience on our side, feeling our challenges and proud of our successes. I’m pleased with the work the sections are doing on their parts, coming in on time. The key changes are something to look at but not worry too much about. Donna has those under control but you need to listen to her and to each other too. We had to review that “leventh day of Christmas” section. (Complete Disco!) If you’re stressed about it, or missed the rehearsal, listen to the recording please. Boogie down, chicka-chicka.

At break, tickets were sold, for cash and cheque, but some of us waited for the Square machine to pay with a credit card next week. Please be sure to invite family and friends to the show! Buy them tickets in advance to make it easy for them. Paid tickets can be left at the door for people. Pay for your poinsettias too with a credit card next week. 

Liz handed out paper to write your top three YRCC choir songs of all time to help the Music Selection Committee choose our 30th Anniversary season music. 2025 is the 30th Anniversary of the YRCC. You can provide input until next Tuesday. 

Robin has booked our seniors' tour! I'll have those entered on the calendar and in the Events section of the website as soon as possible. Please start watching the calendar for details on timing in the next few weeks, and up to the end of the year. 

Remember to hand in your binder before you go away for the holidays! The Music Selection Committee and Peggy and Anne will be working hard to select and order music for the spring and to fill your binder with the spring music. Please cooperate with this huge task by getting your binder in as soon as you're done (after the concert or after your last seniors' visit). 

Next week, Tuesday November 12th Buy tickets and pay for poinsettias

I want to be able to appoint all the soloists and back-up soloists.

6:30 The Twelve Pains of Christmas (please bring props) 

7:15 Christmas Lullaby

• Grownup Christmas List (soloist)
• Peace on This Silent Night
• Santa's Wish (two soloists)
• Song for a Winter's Night (two soloists)
• We Wish You a Merry Madrigal
• Why We Sing (soloist)

(note: All That Holiday Stuff soloist is Melodie with Robyn as the back-up, When You Believe soloists are Mona and Stanley with Robyn and Blair as back-ups)

My Singing Night at Trinity has a new earlier time

My Singing Night at Trinity Newmarket has a new name and earlier time. We sing from 7-8:30. 

But, don't come tonight! We're not meeting because of Halloween. We want to be at home to see the trick-or-treaters. Please consider coming on Thursdays in November. It's a dark month but we can brighten it up by singing together. 

No need to bring anything or prepare in any way. I prepare a playlist and we sing songs that we choose from it, singing along to popular recordings with the lyrics scrolling. It's like karaoke but without the microphones and drinking and divas. It's more like a campfire sing-song. 

Here's the latest poster:

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 29

Another beautiful sound I love to hear: the buzz (and occasional cacaphony) of my choristers chatting and laughing together. We had a coffee social breaktime with treats brought in by the executive and decaf coffee and tea and all the essential snack time accessories brought in by Kit. A few of us wore Halloween costumes. Daphne was the most festive and adorable. 

With Donna and Lauren sick, Renate led the Christmas Lullaby small group alone with the help of a recording. Well, it was not ideal. So, we're going to have the Christmas Lullaby rehearse at 7:15 for the next few weeks. I've updated the calendar. Please take a look.(see below)

I'm so very grateful for Tabatha! Tabatha was asked only hours before our rehearsal if she could step in for Donna, and she came! We are so very fortunate. 

1. Star Canon was our warm-up. We needed to get straight to work. It was very good. I had to remind the Sopranos to watch for the times when they need to come in on beat one, especially on the last two pages where it's a bit of a challenge for them to read the middle line. It's still the top of the choir bracket. The top line is the "small group" which for us is the tenor and bass section. 

2. Christmas Auld Lang Syne is finished! It's such a good piece; so many great melodies in that medley. And, it's fairly easy to learn the harmonies. As I said yesterday, the pianist has the most work, because she gives us all the transitions and the different moods. Thank heaven we can depend on our wonderful accompanists! Watch me throughout, but especially on the last piece, so that we're observing the rests together and slow down together. Something we found challenging: on the Christmas Waltz, there's a part that's very different from the version we sang last year. On page 10, bars 85 and 86: true 2-3 and. The and comes in much sooner that what you want to sing. It's right on beat one of the next bar. Watch out for the very long Christ-mah-ahss at the top of page 13. We have to all get to the s together. Watch me. 

3. 12 Groovy Days also gives a lot of bang for our buck. It's tons of fun and not a ton of work. We spent time on the grooviest section, starting at the pick-up to 63: Complete Disco! is what it says. And, I was singing the first part wrong. "And on the 'leventh day" (tha levin, not thee eleven). Groovy! Also, we did the ending starting at bar 94 . Sopranos divide on page 15. Watch me for the Boogie Down at the end. Because it's a bit chaotic, we'll hold signs up for each of the gifts, clearly printed words. I think the audience will enjoy it more when they understand what the silly gifts are. 

4. When You Believe is going to be spectacular. Jane asked me if I wanted the tea lights again this year. We had them for our star theme, and it was very effective. I didn't know, had no plan. And then, minutes later I was on Facebook and When You Believe showed up sung by an enormous choir. Toward the end, they all lit up lights! Bam. That's it. We're going to hold up tea lights for the ending. We have a couple bars to turn them on while we sing that very slow and loud Ashira Ashira Ashira and pause before the big finish. This huge group also swayed their bodies. I think we might be able to do that during Why We Sing, which is our finale number. Hold up lights and sway for our last song. Ta-da!

5. For Unto Us a Child is Born. Sorry, it's cut. A few people were disappointed that I decided to put this aside for this year. We will definitely come back to it. We spend quite a bit of time learning it and came very close. However, we are getting close to our concert date and still have lots of work to do. A few people were very happy to not have to worry about this one. I'm looking at Santa's Wish as well. It will be simplified or also dropped. 

INVITE EVERYONE TO OUR CONCERT!
Jane had posters for us to take. I'm posting mine at my church. Do you have a place to post things? Carol had tickets too. Please be sure to buy your tickets as soon as possible, and book your friends and family. Send them an email or a text with the poster pdf here and png here. and maybe write out the details for them to copy. You could also make a calendar event or use our calendar event and invite people from there. If you're on Facebook, invite people to our Facebook Event. Invite them out for pizza after or over to your place after for pizza, or a charcuterie board and champagne,...

Next week, you can pay for the pointsettias too! This is an excellent way to make the church look festive and fancy, and we get fantastic flowers to take home or to give to our guests. 

We have square so that you can tap your credit cards! (cash and cheques are good too)

Next week: Tuesday, November 5th

6:30 Alto Sectional Rehearsal (7:15 Christmas Lullaby)

• Song for a Winter's Night
• 12 Groovy Days
• When You Believe
• Your Song

Below is a snip of our calendar in the agenda/schedule view. Please take note of the upcoming early rehearsals. Next week the Alto section is coming at 6:30 for special sectional review. Christmas Lullaby is going to take a few minutes of that early time to go over their song. 

The following week Pains of Christmas comes back, and then after that the Tenors get a sectional rehearsal at 6:30. Each week Christmas Lullaby comes a bit early.

At Trinity Anglican, for our run-through, we have small groups and soloists coming early to work with microphones. Everybody comes early so that we can go through the whole show. We might end up going late, so I entered 10:00 as the end time. It will be a long night for us. 

YRCC Calendar

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 22

 I wish you could hear what I hear! The choir sounds beautiful. I know you get worried because you can hear the people around you and sometimes they're not singing or making mistakes (mistakes mean you're trying, you're on your way). But, I hear lots of people getting the parts and I hear all the sections harmonizing and blending together. It's awesome. 

The Christmas Lullaby small group met early and they've finished learning the song. Now, we just have to polish it up and get more practice with it. Rutter songs have a special choral sound which is really pretty, and you are nailing it. 

The choir warmed up with stretches and breathing and rhythm exercises to a groovy version of Your Song by Billy Paul (known for Me and Mrs Jones). We all clapped and snapped on beats 2 and 4 with confidence and some bouncing and dancing. 

1. We sang Your Song beautifully. There were a couple spots where Sopranos (maybe Altos too) didn't come in with confidence consistently. At the top of page 4, before bar 36 on beat 4. It's weird how the I comes on beat 4 and then you have a rest on beat one before the rest of the sentence. Maybe listen to the tenors and basses singing "Show" and count show-2-3 "I". Or, sing your oohs: ooh-1-2-3-I/ or ooh-sho-oh-oh-3-I? Middle of page 6, Soprano solo on the word "how" of how wonderful life is. You have to come in strong on that beat 4 too. Think "words-2-3-HOW wonderful". That one happens twice. The ending is excellent. You're watching and doing exactly what I want you to do! Yay!

2. For Unto Us: It's coming along. We spend time on the last section, bottom of page 7 to the end, with lots of time on the last system of page 8 (pay attention to this line when you're reviewing on your own, especially if you missed this rehearsal) If we get the ending strong, people won't notice -and won't remember if they do notice- messy bits along the way. And, really, Handel is messy, with all the parts doing different things most of the time. 

3.Twelve Groovy Days of Christmas. This was our first time looking at it and we did great! We started at page 13, bar 79, to learn all the 12 days first. It was not too hard. We learned parts up to bar 94, and then we sight-read the whole piece. It's fun and special and I think I want whole sections where solos are indicated, so that it sounds stronger and clearer. We might want to hold up signs with each of the 12 things so that the audience understands what we're singing. So, you can have a non-vocal solo, if you get to hold up a sign.

4. Santa's Wish. We walked through the lyrics to get an idea of what's going on here. It's kind of a solo/duet with choir back-up. There's a storyteller and the Santa character that he/she meets, and the choir joins the Santa part singing I'd like to teach the world to sing, and there are some oohs in a bridge that we all sing. We looked at the parts from 53-68, and sight-read to the end. 

5. The Medley (Christmas Auld Lang Syne): We looked at parts from the beginning to the Christmas Waltz. We're almost done! It's pretty easy and sounds really good.

6. We didn't get to Grownup Christmas List. Please take a look at this at home if you're feeling nervous about this one. It's really good already since many of us have sung this recently.

We talked about: The Website. The executive met last week to review the work we (mostly Jane) did researching options for updating or overhauling our website, the quotes we have from website developers and app providers, and the costs. We decided to continue using Wild Apricot but pay for a re-design with better mobile function. The designers will also teach the admin members how to use it more effectively. We will need to increase our membership fees a little. Starting September 2025, one year will cost $100 (still a steal) and one season will be $60. Considering that many activities cost $20/ evening, this is still a very affordable community program. 

We talked about: spreading the news of the concert. Jane designed posters and tickets, and they'll be available in hard copy next Tuesday. The pdf and jpg/picture versions are attached here and here. 

I've created a Facebook Event that you can send to people on Facebook. Go to the Event, and share from there, instead of the choir's post. That way, people can respond with "Going" or "interested".

For everyone who's not on Facebook, you can send them an email with the poster attached as a pdf or with a picture of the poster embedded in the email (my preference). 

Of course, another nice way to invite people to the concert would be to send them a card in the post with tickets included as a gift. Wouldn't that be deluxe? Invite them to dinner after too! With champagne. I can dream, can't I?

Next week: Tuesday, October 29th     Halloween at Choir

We're having an extended break with social time, coffee and treats! Treats will be supplied by the executive. If you need an excuse to wear a costume, here it is. Let's celebrate Halloween at choir. 

6:30 Christmas Lullaby Small Group

• Christmas Auld Lang Syne
• For Unto Us
• Santa's Wish
• 12 Groovy Days
• When You Believe

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 15

We enjoyed another successful and satisfying rehearsal, ending off with lots of Christmas! It was a cold day that started with frost, and it was a perfect time to start singing more Christmas music. 

The Christmas Lullaby small group met for the first time and were able to get through so much of this beautiful choral piece. It's so beautiful, and the chorus is really very sticky; it sticks in your head. You'll find yourself singing the ave Marias all week long. 

We had a fun warm-up stretching, dancing, and singing along to Lollipop by The Chordettes. We did some rollercoasters and noticed how our range is much wider when we are doing raspberries, lip trills. 

1. When You Believe was beautiful. We sang it with Mona and Stanley singing the solos and the duet. Everyone comes in at bar 11. We reviewed parts throughout, especially the Hebrew section, which we slowed down to get the sounds and the rhythms right. Please do a little homework on this if you find you're having a hard time. There are lots of recordings to sing along with, and there's a video to help with pronunciation too. 

2.  Grownup Christmas List sounds very good with a solo on the first verse. We'll do it that way. Cathy and Melinda went for a test drive on that solo, which starts at the beginning, and then ends on bar 14, just before the key change. Everyone comes in at bar 15 "No more lives torn apart..." Don't come in too strong after that first verse. When we go back to the segno, at the top of page 5, everyone starts on page one on the second verse on bar 7, "As children we believe" and there's an ooh for the Baritones right on beat one. The second time we sing "no more lives", it's louder. We spent some time on the bottom of page 5 at that bridge, especiallly bars 28-31. Another tricky spot was at the bottom of page 7, bar 41 with the triplets, and the big ending. So good!

3. Santa's Wish: This is a new thing that I adapted for choir from a piano solo. I couldn't find a choral version but I really love this song. So, we tested out my arrangement. Notice that a lot of it is focused on two soloists, a storyteller and Santa. The choir joins Santa singing I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing. And there are some pretty ah ah ohs. We just walked through and took some time to think about who would like to sing those solos. Please listen to the song in the video at the bottom of this post. I'd like to keep that slowish, ballad feel, nostalgic and just a little whimsical. 

4. Christmas Auld Lang Syne: A new Christmas medley, well, actually an old one, but it's so old that very few of you have performed it before. It won't be hard. We sang through sight reading it twice! The Sopranos are very lucky and have melody throughout, I think. Altos and Baritones have lots of sections with only 3 or 4 notes. This is energetic and jazzy (swing notation)! The Christmas Waltz which we learned last year is one of the songs. It won't take long to get this performance-ready.

5. We didn't rehearse For Unto Us a Child is Born, but we talked about how useful the recordings are. Winston suggested that you might be able to play with the settings of YouTube to slow down the tempo. Try it out! You can also try out some of the many rehearsal recordings that people have uploaded to YouTube. I've got a couple in my playlist, but there are many more. 

Colby brought a box of the book that he had published! Quite a number of us bought one, and Colby even signed some. So exciting, and I'm so proud of our Colby. 

Here's a link to my YouTube playlist again, and a link to the page on the website with recordings. You'll need to sign in to the website. The recordings of parts for Your Song are there!

Next Tuesday, October 22nd

6:30 Christmas Lullaby Small Group

• Christmas Auld Lang Syne
• For Unto Us
• Grownup Christmas List
• Santa's Wish
• Twelve Groovy Days of Christmas
• Your Song

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