Trinity Newmarket Singers

Our theme was Home and Family, as we're looking ahead to the Family Day weekend, and also keeping in mind that Saturday is Valentine's Day.  While Valentine's Day often looks like a romantic thing, it's really a love thing. In my experience, it's been about Family and Friends more than for Lovers. All the Moms and Grandmas get special cards and maybe flowers, handmade gifts, chocolates. There's a special family dinner, maybe in a restaurant or maybe it's Dad's favourite dish. Every kid in your class, your teams, your teacher, coach, the bus driver, all the people you love get a message of love from you on a card that you made or picked out. Valentines Day changed as I went through the changes of the different seasons of life, but mother, mine or myself, and family have been constant. Family is the thing I love most; my family are the people I love most. Home is where we are together.   My Home and Family playlist starts off with 5 different songs called ...

Thank you, Everyone, for a lovely birthday afternoon! It was so beautiful, the cards, the cake, the decorations, everything. I had a wonderful birthday. Thank you for putting up with me wanting to sing songs that you hadn't heard before, but I hope you liked them. It wasn't easy choosing the songs to sing. I love so many, and I can't rank them. The theme was "Renate's Favourites" because it was my birthday. You'll find them in the list, in case you want to look them up, or find out more about the performers. Robyn suggested doing everyone's birthday like this, so it must have been alright. I usually try to use songs that many people will know, or that are so popular that everone knows. Occasionally, I'll throw in something that I know only one or two of you will know, but this time, I was pretty sure you wouldn't know a few of my songs.  Here are some of the songs I love to sing most, that we sang together yesterday, in alphabetical order: Bohe...

What a lovely time we had!  I love when we go off topic and search for songs that mean something to us at the moment. We did that a couple times today. Our theme was winter, and I have tons of songs on my list, but the world is a little distracting these days.  We had a good strong start with Let it Go, from Frozen. We watched a video with lyrics instead of just having the song play with lyrics on Apple Music. It was fantastic. I love that scene in the movie. So powerful. The song alone is powerful, but the beautiful animation and the icy scenery, the dress, the movement, gestures, everything was excellent. I was reminded of the song Golden from K-Pop Demon Hunters, so we watched the official lyric video of that song too.  While we did sing a few winter songs, and talked about the wonderful feeling of flying weightlessly that we get when we're skating (like River) or skiing, or swimming. That wonderful feeling of being free and apart from our worries and our everyday live...

  What a severe winter we're having! Snow, frigid temperatues, more snow, and blizzards, and cold, cold, cold.  On one evening every February, people across Canada walk together to raise awareness, to show compassion, and to raise funds for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, and the places that support them, especially at this time of year when being homeless can be deadly. Here's this from the CNOY website:        We walk through the cold and dark in February to declare our concern for people who have no home and take shelter in nooks and crannies.     We walk for those whose days are a battle to house and feed their families and whose nights are filled with fear and frustration.      We walk for those driven from home by violence and abuse. And we walk for people overwhelmed by isolation, guilt, and despair.     We walk humbly, realizing that anyone can lose their footing and then lose everyth...

What a lovely afternoon spent with lovely people, singing songs with a Winter theme! It's definitely wintry outside. Freezing cold, blustry, and I had to shovel the driveway this morning. We were warm and comfortable in the Fellowship Room, with tea and some sweet things that I had baked and frozen at Christmas for us, spicy and sweet.   My playlist is a varied bunch of stuff sometimes only loosely tied to winter. We listened to and sang with different versions of a few songs, settling on one vibe or another. With Baby, It's Cold Outside, we sang both and felt shocked at one (how was that okay?!!) and thoroughly enjoyed the other (young people are so much smarter). Robyn and I knew some of these songs very well, having sung versions of them with our choir. I used my old joke about loving bum-bums (actually do, though) when we sang Wintersong. Other songs we all knew well from hearing them on the radio. We enjoyed the Alicia Moffet version of Winter Wonderland because it didn...

  Snow Day! So sad that our first sing-along café is not happening this week.  Not unhappy to stay at home though. I love a snow day.   Next week we'll use our Winter Theme, but in the meantime, go ahead and do some singing on your own.  I recommend:  Let it Go from Frozen, by Idina Menzel She's So Cold , by the Rolling Stones Winter Winds, by Mumford & Sons  Winter Weather , by Benny Goodman and featuring Peggy Lee