Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Sing In A Choir The Georgetown Choral Society is looking for eager new singers! Forget about whether or not you think you can sing, here are some great reasons to do it anyway!! It’s good for your heart! Singing is an aerobic activity so beneficial for your heart and …
We were excited to resume in-person rehearsals on March 14 at the Christian Reformed Church. It was appropriate that the pieces we rehearsed were William Dawson’s “Ain’-a that Good News” by and Allister MacGillivray’s “Here’s to Song”. We were delighted to welcome new recruits but we are looking for many more. So if love to …
Greetings, dear GCS, Many of you will know the highly-suspect tradition that the month of March ‘comes in’ and ‘goes out’ under opposite weather conditions, i.e. ‘In as a Lion’ – ‘Out as a Lamb’. With the pace of news these days – and with today’s rather nastier weather, it may be pretty hard for you …
Greetings, dear GCS, In conclusion of our month-long Black History Month observance it is my particular pleasure to share a performance of a work we will rehearse in-person next week, William L Dawson’s arrangement of the spiritual ‘Ain’t-a that good news.’ Songs about one’s heavenly reward are a common theme in spirituals – so entrenched …
Greetings, dear GCS, While attending a summer course in 2002 at Westminster Choir College (Princeton New Jersey) I had the opportunity to meet and briefly study with Moses Hogan, one of the world’s foremost arrangers of spirituals for choral use. Hogan died just a few months after that time at the age of 46. Hogan represents the …
Greetings, dear GCS, and Happy Valentines Day! As many of you know, February is celebrated in many countries as Black History Month – and this week my offering definitely links with that observance, but first I am going to tell you about another celebration, World Music Day, which will be celebrated this June 21st for the 41st …
As we age, each one of us grows a list of dates of infamy – those dates upon which fell some event of scope and/or scale that indelibly locate themselves in our memory – the “where were you when” dates. Some of these events may be deeply personal, such as the meeting of our spouse, …
This warmer, brighter last day of January feels like the perfect day for Ontario to cautiously relax COVID restrictions – and the perfect day for a bit of choral inspiration – but the calendar being what it is, it’s not quite so perfect for the offering I’ll share with you today. Last Monday, if you …
The former Soviet republic, now the nation of Ukraine, may be very much on your mind this week, as it is on mine. Ukrainians form Canada’s eleventh largest ethnic group and represent the world’s third-largest Ukrainian population behind Ukraine itself and Russia. I wanted to share this clip from the National Academic Ukrainian Folk Choir, “My Thoughts” …
This week’s clip comes from the remarkable public media system in the USA – a Minnesota Public Radio based website called YourClassical.org, and a little corner of that called Choral Stream, which funnels mainly American content into a very diverse playlist and archive of choral performances. One of Choral Stream’s most popular videos, this one appeared in …
