Choir

I mention my choir, Choral Arts Society of Utah, quite often in my posts. Well, it's not my choir, but the choir I belong to. The website you will find if you click the link has lots of fun information and even a video of us singing. I was there when the hired photographer came to record this.

I decided to post about this because it is a new feature to the website. If you are interested in what we are doing, when our concerts are, where to get tickets, etc., go to this site, and click on "subscribe to newsletter" which is located in the blue bar at the top of the page under the banner.

Our director, Sterling decided to go "green" by allowing everyone to receive our beautiful post card electronically rather than by snail mail. This will not only save postage, but paper and trees. So I would like to encourage anyone and everyone to go subscribe. They won't sell your email address or anything like that, they just want to spread the word about what we are doing. Our concerts are always free, we sing to a packed house at the Rose Wagner Theater in the spring and fall. For our summer concert we perform at Abravanal Hall. It is amazing to sing in a venue like that. We always do a performance in the Murray Park outdoor Amphitheater for Armed Forces Day, singing patriotic songs. Sterling is a member of the Air Force National Guard, and usually we sing with the amazing 23rd Army Band. Their leader is one of the most entertaining and energetic little guy. We get to watch fireworks afterward as we sing the finale. It gives chills to sing and watch all at once.

Our Christmas concerts are the only charged performance, and the money goes to the Angel Tree for the Salvation Army. We usually pack the house, and Sterling is working on a program that will always have elements the children can look forward to. The Grinch usually comes out and then Santa appears with candy canes and chases the Grinch away. We always sing amazing songs.

This last six years has been such a wonderful adventure for me. I had been singing in a choir since I was in 7th grade. I sang all the way through High School, then in the years I attended college. When I got married, I attended the community choir and performed the Messiah, including the alto solos sometimes. That was my only choir experience for most of my 35 years of marriage. Just before I joined this choir, I belonged to a local woman's barber shop group. There were 40 women in this group. We usually put on two concerts a year and had to memorize all our songs, because we had to dress in costumes and do actions. It was fun, but I really wanted to be back in a full voiced choir.

Sterling came to a nearby town and was the guest conductor for the community choir. That is how I met him six years ago at Christmas. I met his wife and was asking how she met him, and when she mentioned he had a choir, my ears perked up. I finally got the courage to ask about his choir in March. I found his email online, because he is also the local weatherman for Channel 2. I emailed him at his workplace and got an immediate answer. My first concert with the choir was the Armed Forces concert.

Since then, we have performed in Carnegie Hall, and several places in Austria in 2006 when they were celebrating Mozart's 250th Birthday. We sang for a much-loved local sports reporter from Channel 2, and when Larry Miller died, we were informed we were second choice if the Mormon Tabernacle Choir couldn't make it. Of course they sang, but it is cool to know we were second choice behind MoTab, eh?

Anyway, I just wanted to encourage you to go to our website and sign up for the newsletter. Especially you, my children. . .

I hope you are having a wonderful day.

~a