Last weekend, the chorus got together for our annual Board Installation banquet - our first since 2020! We invited folks from the Queen Anne Baptist Church to come as honored guests; we're so grateful to be part of their community. We had a good time chatting, and of course there was some singing:
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The chorus serenaded all of our guests:
The chorus has gotten off to a rollicking start in 2023 -- we've had a board visioning meeting to plan for the next few years of chorus activity and leadership strategy; we've started tackling a dozen new songs for this years (pirate-themed!) Traveling Road-Show; and this last weekend, our directors took time to train some interested chorus members on best practices for being a section lead. We focused a lot on different methods for providing constructive, do-no-harm feedback to singers, along with modeling and building the kind of culture we want for the chorus.
It's inspiring to have so many great and committed singers on our team, and we're also VERY lucky to have such fantastic directors who share their knowledge with us and inspire us to help create our amazing chorus.
A huge congratulations to Frank Gregory for being chosen as this year's Barbershopper of the Year! For years, Frank has led the charge to apply for grants to support chorus activities and outreach. COVID has had a big impact on our ability to raise money. But we still do have bills to pay -- storage for our music and risers, plus rehearsal space at the Queen Anne Baptist Church, and we pay our directors!
As we've lost a bit of our revenue stream, Frank's grant writing endeavors have been even more important than usual, and he's made a huge difference to the chorus.
Our directors go to great lengths to make our rehearsals effective, efficient, and fun. It's a tall order, but they're up to the challenge. What did we do this week at rehearsal?
We had sectional time to work on our Valentines songs (hopefully if you're reading this, you're planning to purchase one!), we did physical and vocal warmups, of course. Then we worked on multiple songs -- one for our competition later this year, some for our Singing Valentines next month, and a few for our upcoming pirate-themed Road Show. We did a quarteting activity to give folks a chance to practice those Valentines songs singing in a quartet; you can tell from the photo above that we had lots of fun doing that.
The November through January holiday season is officially over, and it's time to look forward into the new year! That means that it's time for...
SINGING VALENTINES.
Mark your calendars now -- information will be coming soon about ordering one of our 2023 Singing Valentines. We'll have both our super popular Zoom Singing Valentines, which we pioneered last year to international fanfare, along with traditional in-person Singing Valentines.
Song choices this year will include a platonic option, so think big about who you'd like to send a little message of appreciation to. It doesn't have to be romantic!
Woohoo! Our first official performance for 2023 was a success! We entertained the masses at Brookdale Senior Living with our world famous road show, and made a few dozen seniors and friends very happy.
Here's our director Melanie posing for a selfie with the chorus:
Top of the Hill Quartet gave a bonus performance that was a huge hit. As the chorus left a resident said "Well, that’s the best way to start the year." (Check out a snippet of that video here.)
Happy New Year! The Seattle SeaChordsmen has had its last board meeting of the year and we were happy to get some loose ends tied up. One of the things we finalized was dispersing our last charitable donations for the year. We decided on directly donating to three organizations: Mary's Place, the Ballard High School Performing Arts Foundation, and the Phinney Ridge Food Bank. During our season of volunteering to do cashier duty at a Christmas tree lot run by two Queen Anne scout troops, we also ask for donations, and this year we helped facilitate over $11k for the Queen Anne Food Bank, too.
We had a busy December! Here's a fun puzzle for you -- look through these photos of our performances and see if you can find any chorus members who performed at EVERY event!
Friday, December 2 - Figgy Pudding
Friday, December 9 - Queen Anne tree lighting
Saturday, December 10 - Lithuanian community Christmas party
What were the SeaChordsmen doing last night? Some of us were singing holiday songs in an exciting and UNIQUE location -- Vertical World North in Lynnwood. This was our first time caroling in a climbing gym, and it was a ton of fun.
Here we are singing Feast of Lights:
And here's Saul up in the air!
Still hoping to buy a Christmas tree? Have we got a recommendation for you! Members of the chorus volunteer each year to do cashier duty at the tree lot run by Queen Anne scout troops. The proceeds benefit the scouts, and also the Queen Anne Food Bank. (As a matter of fact, we ask during each tree sale if the buyer would like to donate extra to the food bank, and most everybody says yes. We got an extra ~15k for them last year, just by asking!) The SeaChordsmen also get a small donation from the scout troops to thank us for our assistance.
There are so many great reasons to buy your Christmas tree from this lot, but the scouts also have a hookup for some great trees. They're incredibly fresh and look great.
