Hey Everyone
In case you missed it – don’t show at HARRRP tomorrow Saturday April 20th as rehearsal is cancelled. It’s too difficult to get all of us together, as many of you are busy with relatives, travel, dinner plans, and/or goofing off on a long weekend. Speaking for myself as a lapsed Catholic, my Easter childhood memories involve an itchy new frock, an overly long church service, and an Easter bonnet seemingly styled to ensure my schoolyard demise. But happily, I’ve clung to the time-worn feast themes of a good home-cooked meal, a noisy gathering of guests, and, well, the chocolate availability is pretty darn good this time of year. Yum.
A make-up practice has been scheduled for this coming Tuesday evening, April 23rd, 6:45 to 8:45, at Delta United Church, 47 Ottawa Street South, upstairs in the Sanctuary. Please, oh please, try to make it – we’re sounding sooooo good, and it would be great to keep our momentum going.
The Saturday April 27th rehearsal at HARRRP is our “dress rehearsal” – the last one before our Sunday April 28th 3pm final concert at Christ’s Church Cathedral. Also, the dress rehearsal is the date chosen for the soprano and alto sections to finalize their raffle baskets – not sure what the tenor/bass sections are up to but I’m keen to see everyone’s final efforts. It’s really quite amazing what wonders collective intelligence can bring about – you guys are awesome.
Oh, and on concert day, wear whatever makes you feel fabulous – anything goes, but do try to get your sheet music into a black noise-muffling folder. As we’ll be standing for our concert’s duration, comfortable shoes are highly recommended – you want to be shifting with the musical beat, not your arch pain.
Bob Edmonds, our faithful Hamilton Sings webmaster, has uploaded numerous additional voice files (courtesy of Hanna and Sue) to the Active Members Page at hamiltonsings.ca. You can now sing along with; Hear The Raindrops Fall, The Earth The Air The Fire, Ghost of Oak Island, The Water is Wide, She The Sea, and Stone and Sand. Additionally, you can print off those beautiful blue concert posters to paper your neighbourhood, as well as a binder copy to adorn your sheet music folder. About a century ago, I was besotted with a boy who had eyes that colour of blue. Oh, will he Sea me? Sigh.
Both Hanna and Sue mention this final detail often, and I’m going to echo it, because it’s very far from trivial: you must, must, must, keep your eyes trained on musical direction at all times. No matter how perfect our pitch, pristine our vowels, or measured our air – we must be unified in our delivery. We can only be unified by keeping our eyes up and focused on Sue/Hanna. If not, we cancel each other out and sound like white noise, rather than the warm, focused choir we’re increasingly successful at being. Believe it or not – you guys are totally up for this! Did I say awesome already?
Enjoy your weekend and see you all Tuesday.
Cheers
Brenda Atkinson
Hamilton Sings Volunteer
