CE News 26 April 26

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Well, it's the last blog before the shows! How exciting that we will get to see all our hard work come together and that we can share with family, friends and hopefully the rest of our fan club! It is really important to make the dress rehearsal (in you concert attire of your blue CE shirt, black pants/maxi-skirt): so many updates happen at the dress rehearsal where we run through the show and fix things. Please wear comfortable shoes as we will be standing for most of the evening. Call for dress is at 6 pm at St Mary's on Metchosin Road--check the schedule for the updated location and Dress Rehearsal Map (thanks Adriana!). The times that everyone is expected to be at the venue for the shows are listed in the members area under the schedule as well. Stay healthy! We are almost there and really need everyone for the show.

If you haven't sold the show to friends and family....let's get to it. Share with collogues, people at the coffee shop, long lost cousins, everyone. The show will be fantastic and you should be proud of it. Invite everyone you know. Tickets are on the website, at the dress reheasal (Jackie) and at the door. Lets fill those seats.

We (the board) will talk a bit about the upcoming AGM on Tuesday. We'd like to have a BBQ and then sneak in a half hour for the AGM. And maybe some of the next session music will be available????Details will be coming. Sheila will be sharing when and where to turn in your music from this session. I don't have details yet about that, so stay tuned.

Marj, our event planner, is working on a venue for after the show at the JdF. It is always a good time, so please consider attending. It gives us a chance to debrief the show as well as get to know one another better. Hope to see you there.

We will be sending out a big THANK YOU email listing everyone who performed a job this session. It would never have happened without you.

That is it for now....my brain is fried trying to keep all the concert ducks in a row for the tasks I have signed up for....see you Tuesday in Metchosin at 6.

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News

CE News 19 April 2026

By Sherry Walters • April 19, 2026

Thank you for the great turn out on Saturday; it is incredibly important to be at the remaining rehearsals as now we nit pick the songs to make them just right. If you miss one, you miss a lot! We have 1 full rehearsal and then the dress rehearsal, then the SHOWS! Wow, it feels like it has crept up on us, but your production team has been on top of it making plans to make us look and sound good. There will be many jobs around the shows and an email will be sent to remind people what they signed up for. Thank you to everyone for pitching in and making this session a success. Two people brought friends to the "bring a friend night" so here's hoping they might like to join us in the fall! Please continue to review your music often, especially reviewing the trouble spots that Gordon pointed out yesterday. I know how hard you are working, but when one part doesn't sound right, the whole sounds bad. Keep working! You will get it and we will be reviewing next Wednesday....starting with Hotel California just as Gordon said. What a difference having the guitar playing with us! Thank you, Andre for filling that hole. We will also have percussion for the show and Gabe will lead his "band" with the expertise he has always had. A big thank you to everyone who brought goodies to share on our break: Kristin, Shawna, Earl and Jan...and I noticed a couple others sneak some food in there too, so thank you! If you haven't seen Facebook lately, I encourage you to check it out for Choral Evolution. Emily has done a great job promoting us and adding content to keep us active in everyone's threads. Thank you, Emily! An email has come detailing the walk before rehearsal on Wednesday. Please join if able and get to know your choir members. Marj is preparing soup for after the walk. Enjoy! The board meeting that was open to everyone was unfortunately attended only by the actual board. If there is a position you are interested in, please speak to the current board members: Diane, Sherry, Sally, Joscelyn, Adriana and Jackie. The board exists to ensure the choir governance is maintained. It is a necessary part and it would be great to have new blood! The board is planning to have a BBQ in June to celebrate our show, to have fun getting together again before next session, hopefully getting the new music and having a quick AGM. It will be a fun time, so plan on it for mid June. See you on Wednesday in Sooke!

CE News 12 April 26

By Sherry Walters • April 13, 2026

A couple of newsworthy mentions: Long rehearsal/retreat has been changed to a time of 10 am to 2 pm. Date is still 18 April and it is still at the Sooke Community Hall, but in the upstairs hall, not the dining room. On this Wednesday, we will be requesting names of those to bring snacks: as we will now be over lunch time, we may need to have a few more. Everyone in the current choir is invited to the board meeting tomorrow at 7pm at Sally's house: 6407 Belvista Place, Sooke. We will be having a regular meeting and invite anyone interested in seeing what the "behind the scenes" looks like. Great idea to check us out if you want to be part of the next board. Bring a friend to choir is on Wednesday, 15 April, in Langford. We encourage everyone to bring someone that might be interested in joining us. Intended walk outing before rehearsal on Wednesday, 22 April in Sooke. Our wonderful socials director Marj, is planning a cup of soup after the walk and before rehearsal. More details to follow, but mark the date! Bottle drive: we didn't get plans finalized in time to have this happen this session, but maybe for next time! If you have bottles you want to cash in and donate to the choir, please do. If you want to bring them and have someone else do the work, bring them on Wednesday April 15th and I will take them off your hands. Because we missed out on some of the grants (Thank you Sally, Tara and Sherry for the submissions) we are running a bit thin for where the board wants to take the choir. Our new format of seating for performing is different but growing on me! I hope it is the same for you. Having the altos sit next to the sopranos means we actually get to hear each other, and as so many of our songs share soprano/alto parts, it makes the blend easier. But I really miss the tenors! I'm sure our sound is improved for Gordon, (and the audience!) which is the most important. Keep up the good work with sectionals, and perfect those sounds together, so that when we come together as a choir, our sound is better. Andre joining us on the guitar was fabulous last week. He is such a complement to the choir both artistically and as our AD. It is great that he is healed enough that he can join us. Did everyone get the first offering of a jingle to learn? I know Keiran and Linda were also working on one. Several people were able to attend the Sing Your Joy concert last evening. I'm sure they will fill us in on how it went. We also had a fun time bowling yesterday. Scores were not bad, and we are certainly not ready for league play, but it was a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone who attended. You will also receive an email that advises our dress rehearsal and show times and the expectations of when to be there for each. It is usually 1 hour before the dress rehearsal and 2 hours before the show time so please be on the lookout for it. Just so everyone is aware: Paula and Tara will not be joining us for the shows. Paula is recovering well, and Tara has conflicts with scheduling so has withdrawn. We are sad to see them not be part of the show after all the work they have done. Adriana will be returning after flying to say goodbye to her brother for the last time. Our hearts go out to them all. This is getting very long, so I will sign off and see you one Wednesday, in Langford at 7. WITH A FRIEND!

Director Notes

Rehearsal Notes for March 18th, 2026

March 17, 2026

Warm up: 7:00 to 7:10 - 10 min - More Than Words hmmm ... if you wonder why I haven't worked on this song, it's because (I think - subjective I know) there's nothing to it. My hope would be that you sing it once every day with the rehearsal files and then we just sing it together on Wednesday. The more you look at me the tighter we will be. ... I will have it memorized by tomorrow. Let's just enjoy it together. 7:10 to 7:20 - (10 min) Fix the cascading 'Good Nights' in Emotion 7:20 to 7:35 - (15 min) Shine pick up to Bar 52 to Bar 78 7:35 to 7:55 - (10 min) Hotel California . just run bar 89 to the end ... did we remember anything of the work we did last week I wonder? then fix a few things and move on. 7:55 to 8:15 - (20 min) Somebody To Love 8:15 to 8:30 - (15 min) Break and Announcements 8:30 to 8:40 - (10 min) more work on Somebody to Love 8:40 to 9:00 - (20 min) Good Vibrations (bar 9 to 35) (bar 55 to 70) 9:00 to 9:15 - (15 min) Budapest with Soloist (we will work on the whole song) 9:30: Browns Social House Gordon LINK: Gordon Notes LINK: YouTube Playlist

Rehearsal Notes for March 11th, 2026

March 11, 2026

7:00 to 7:10 Rhythm Exercises (16ths 8ths and quarters) 7:10 to 7:30 - 20 min Hotel California - working from the back page and working our way forward. 7:30 to 7:50 - 20 min - Wanabe - by memory to bar 35. then open books work bars 35 to 51 7:50 to 8:10 - 20 min - Emotion - we will work on trying to get some pathos out of this poppy tune 8:10 to 8:25 - BREAK 8:25 to 8:45 - 20 min - Biblical with Soloist 8:45 to 9:05 - 20 min - Somebody to Love 9:05 to 9:15 - 10 min - Lovely Day Gordon LINK: Gordon Notes LINK: YouTube Playlist