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, May 31, 2025

YRCC 30th Anniversary Spring Concert Video

Here's a link to the video of the whole concert.

It's huge, so it's not easy to save or share, but I've added it to my YouTube page. 

Hopefully, you'll be able to see it on YouTube. 

In the meantime, we're working on other ways to save and share it.

Enjoy!




Friday, May 23, 2025

YRCC 30th Anniversary Spring Concert Review

 I've been putting off reviewing the concert because we had someone create a video of the whole thing (yes!) and we're figuring out the best way to share it with everyone. 

I had hoped to be able to say something like: "That was one of our best concerts and you can see for yourself. Here's a link to our concert video." But, that's not happening yet. 

I'm looking forward to everyone seeing themselves and hearing how great we sounded and looked. I'm so proud of how professional you looked and moved, what excellent performers you are, especially considering that we're a non-auditioning community choir with many people who don't read music or have any vocal training. I'm so happy to see your hard work paying off. 

And, I want to send the video to people who have moved away or couldn't continue with choir for any other reason. "We're still strong and still singing and wish you all could have joined us. We did get a couple of people from the past to come back for the concert and it was so cool! You'll see Michael in the tenor section and Kevin singing bass and playing the guitar." This video will give us all lots of good memories. 

Some people had been saying that they thought we wouldn't sound as good as we did when we had 60 members and a waiting list. Well, you'll hear it. The smaller choir sounds fantastic, maybe even better. It's still a big choir, and the big choir sound is definitely there. 

We will have the sound recordings up on the website soon. So, look for that on the Concert Recordings Page, and the video will be put there at the bottom of that page when we can figure it out. Future videos can be there too, and maybe we'll decide to have a new YRCC YouTube page. What do you think?

I took a few screenshots while I watched the video. I put them on the Photo Gallery on the YRCC website, so everyone can see them. Here's one that I love:

Carol's solo in Song For The Mira

 


Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Newmarket Citizens Band Concert May 24th


 This concert sounds amazing! There will be dancers. Our experience performing with the Newmarkst Citizen's Band was so cool, and we loved the band. They're excellent.

Spend a lovely evening at the Old Town Hall on Saturday, May 24th. 





YRCC Spring 2025 Seniors Tour has begun

We had our first seniors' performance last night. 

It was wonderful, such a joy!

Here's a bit of my concert script, from our May 3rd  30th Anniversary Spring Concert, where I spoke about our seniors tour:

The concert is exciting, ... thrilling. (But)
We also sing at seniors homes and care homes.
We sing a short program of our stuff and then a good number of sing-along songs from eras past, songs that the seniors can sing too.
Those are always fun and rewarding times.
It always makes my heart sing when I arrive at one of those places, whether it’s more like a hotel or more like a hospital, when I see those black pants white shirts and red ties, it makes me so happy! 
There they are: My Team! 

Well, the team that assembled last night was a winning one. We got ourselves together, managed to have the equipment there (thanks to Melodie and her husband John) and all plugged in and ready, and we gave them a spirited and inspiring performance. The audience of residents was full of vim and vitality. They clapped and sang and showed great appreciation for our efforts. Cedarvale Lodge in Keswick is one of those "more like a hotel" places, a fancy resort hotel. Such a pleasure to sing there. We ended up starting a little late because we each had to register/sign in electronically on one device. It was good to see that they protect their residents and all of us there, but we should have been warned to arrive earlier to get all of us entered into the system. Luckily, our team captain, Lauren, stood by and helped us quickly manage the machine. Even the drive there was nice. 

My heart sang. I love my choir! (thank you, Carol, for the pictures)


I love my choir!