Trinity Newmarket Singers

I hope that 2025 brings Trinity some more singing friends. Can you help with that? Can you come? You don't have to be there every week, but it's fun. Do you know people who would enjoy singing with the choir and praise team on Sundays? Can you bring them with you?  We sing all kinds of music: traditional hymns (sometimes updated to more inclusive language) and contemporary Christian music from around the world found in our hymn books (Voices United and More Voices), and contemporary Christian music discovered by Kevin in other places.  We have lots of singing in our Sunday services, lots of beautiful and inspiring music. Having a choir lead the congregation is powerful and a long-standing tradition that we want to keep up.  I would love for our Thursday evenings to be bigger too. We sing for fun and fellowship, singing music we hear on the radio (and now on streaming services) arranged on playlists by theme. We sing along with John Denver, Doris Day, the Beatles, Sara McL...

 

We had our St. Nicholas evening last night, a week late because of the bad weather last week. I brought a festive plate of traditional treats (Bunter Teller) and some Stollen (German christmas fruit cake) and shared stories of how we celebrated Nikolaustag when I was little and then with my kids. We wondered about how St. Nick, Santa Claus, Kris Kringle and St. Nikolaus are all related.  We sang and listened to a variety of different genres of Santa songs by different artists. Sometimes sampling just a little bit of a version was enough (Little Michael Jackson is annoying, for example). We listened to a few German Christmas songs, and a couple French ones as well. It was a lovely evening in lovely company, as always.  Here is a sample of what we sang and listened to: Here Comes Santa Claus by Gene Autry  Jolly Old St. Nicholas by the Oxford St. Peter's Choir and by Alex Deleon Santa Baby by Michael Bublé and by the Good Lovelies Santa Claus is Coming to Town by the Jac...

Our theme was Winter, and we started with a bunch of York Region Community Choir songs. Robin and I knew them well, but maybe they were new to the others. The YRCC December concert is always a Winter Concert, and the choir represents the community, so it has got to be more than just Christmas. Therefore, I always got lots of other seasonal songs to offer. (btw, the YRCC winter concert is this Sunday, December 1st, 2024) Something that we noticed was how many winter songs are about loneliness. There are big expectations for family and friends to gather, for love to be all over the place for the holidays. And, there are always thoughts of people who are missing from the gatherings. Sigh. The darkness of winter. We need lots of lights and lots of singing. Luckily, Main Street is bright and festive and we do lots of singing.  We had some fun listening to older songs and realizing how our culture has changed for the better regarding women. One very clear example is the old Frank Sinatra...

Our singing night was short but sweet and fun. We had to go home early so that the crew of folks who were moving furniture to set up Saturday's Christmas Bazaar wouldn't have to stay too late. The Bazaar is being set up this morning (Friday22nd) and it's a pretty big deal. The people who run and help to run the bazaar are Angels Among Us.  Our theme was Angels and Heaven in songs. It's interesting that many of the songs were bittersweet. Angels Among Us was heartwarming and hopeful, but it made us sad. A lot of angel and heaven activity happens at night and in darkness, and the angels and heaven are light, beacons of goodness and hope. I expected more happy and magical angel stuff, like Heaven Must be Missing an Angel ('cause you're here with me right now. Your love is heavenly.) and Bryan Adams' Heaven (when you're lying here in my arms,...we're in heaven). Then, there were things I couldn't quite understand, like Pennies from Heaven (?), and Sa...

Thank you for your patience. I'm late with this review.  I've been feeling a bit under the weather these past few days. I'm a little slow and generally out of sorts, not my usual self. This was already the case on Thursday evening, and so the theme was perfect. Our theme was Songs with Flying or Sailing, and escaping in music. So, I was taken out of my funk for a couple hours. Music is like that anyway, it can take you someplace else when you need to steal away from unhappiness or stress or boredom, ennui. Robin was saying that it's sometimes a struggle to come, to get out of the house to come to our singing night, but, once the music starts, her body relaxes and her spirit lifts, lightens and brightens. For sure, that's what I feel too.  I'm also lifted up and comforted by the easy and gentle kindness of the lovely people that sing and talk and sip tea and share my banana bread, or whatever I happen to have, on Thursday nights. The Fellowship Room at Trinity is...