News: Member Blog

Five talented music leaders from the Halifax-based Atlantic championship a cappella chorus, the ScotianAires, will soon be heading to Nashville, TN for a week of music education, thanks in part to the financial support of Sing Canada Harmony, a Canadian charity supporting music education.

The ScotianAires are a chapter of Harmony, Incorporated, an international organization of female a cappella singers specializing in the barbershop harmony style. Harmony, Inc., and Sing Canada Harmony, have partnered to support Canadian musical directors receiving scholarships for best-in-class training opportunities. Harmony University (Harmony U), held on the beautiful grounds of Belmont University in Nashville, is an intensive week long workshop hosted by the Barbershop Harmony Society with a wealth of educational opportunities for barbershop style singers from all over the world. This year’s program runs from July 22-29, 2018.

ScotianAire members Jill Reid, presently a Performance Judge with Harmony, Inc., and Fatima Whelan, a Performance Judge Candidate, will both attend the Coaches’ Apprentice Program. Reid will take part as an observer in order to free up her schedule for additional workshop opportunities. Whelan, a first time attendee at Harmony U, looks forward to the “great opportunity to learn from some amazing leaders, coaches and educators with the focus on Performance.”

Bass Section Leader Marion Fraser Pritchard returns for her second year in Nashville and looks forward to “classes in chorus leadership, and promotion of a cappella singing with youth in our community”. ScotianAires Assistant Director Adele Merritt will attend the Directors College and can’t wait to be immersed in a “barbershop bubble” for the week!

ScotianAires Director, Sue Kember is also a returning participant. Her schedule contains a little bit of everything: “I am looking forward to another awesome week at Harmony University. I have chosen courses that touch upon every aspect that I am involved in so I am really looking forward to the education I will be receiving on directing, coaching, leadership, quartetting and for a challenge, some arranging and beat boxing! It is going to be fantastic!”

Everyone is looking forward to the keynote address to be delivered by Deke Sharon, sometimes referred to as “the father of contemporary a cappella” and best known as the arranger of the music for the popular “Pitch Perfect” movie series. Performances by outstanding men’s barbershop quartets such as Main Street and Instant Classic will be a highlight and the five ScotianAires will also have a chance to perform as members of the Women’s Honor Chorus.

The Harmony, Inc. funding initiative “Director’s First” that Sing Canada Harmony has supported was launched in 2016 with the impressive goal of sending as many as 60 musical directors and leaders from Harmony, Inc. chapters to Harmony University in the space of five years. Since its inception, 25 Harmony Inc. music leaders from across Canada and the United States have travelled to Nashville.

The five ScotianAire participants attending Harmony U are grateful for all the support they have received, financial and otherwise, and look forward to sharing their experiences with the whole chorus when they are together again in August.

You can find out more about the ScotianAires at scotianaires.ca or follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/scotianaires.chorus/ and on Twitter @ScotianAires.

The ScotianAires, an a cappella chorus made up of women from across the Halifax region, and Tonic!, a quartet made up of four members of the ScotianAires, have retained top honours at Atlantic Canada’s most prestigious competition for women barbershop singers. Both were repeat champions at the chorus competition at the Harmony Inc. 2018 Area 1 Convention and Contests (AC&C) held in Sackville, NB on June 1, 2018.
It was an exciting win for the chorus who became the first Atlantic chapter to achieve a score of 900 since the competition began 44 years ago! Director Sue Kember reflects on the experience: “Our goal of improving our scores was met and surpassed as we earned the highest scores ever in our area. It was an incredible feeling to know that all our hard work was rewarded especially since we recently celebrated our 35th anniversary as a chorus. It is so wonderful to work with these amazing women who keep the music alive with their desire to improve and who also maintain and enjoy the special camaraderie that is the ScotianAires!”
Tonic! took home the first-place Wona Wright Memorial Award and also the Karen Gordon Memorial Award, presented to the quartet with the highest performance score. ScotianAires’ quartet enJOY! were right behind them in second place and the newest competing quartet from the chorus, Arpeggio, earned a respectable fifth place finish in their first competition.
The ScotianAires, Tonic! and enJOY! all qualified to compete against choruses and quartets from across North America at the International Convention and Contests (IC&C) to be held in Orlando, Florida in November, 2018.
Director Kember also hopes their success will help to raise the profile of women’s a cappella singing in the Halifax region. “We’re always looking to expand our membership, so if you’re a woman who loves to sing, we want to hear from you”.
For more information contact the ScotianAires at info@scotianaires.ca , visit us at scotianaires.ca or find us on Facebook and Twitter!

The results are in! Join the Eastern Horizon Chamber Choir in its first performances on June 14th in Halifax and June 15th in Lunenburg to hear the premiere of three new works by composers who have been shortlisted as finalists in the Eastern Horizon Choral Writing Competition, as well as other pieces by composers from marginalized identities – individuals whose identities have long been, and continue to be, underrepresented in the choral canon.

The finalists are Julijana Hajdinjak (ON), Ryan Henwood (NS), and Marie-Claire Saindon (QC).

The Halifax performance will take place at 7pm on June 14th at First Baptist Church (1300 Oxford Street). The Lunenburg performance is on June 15th at 7:30pm at St. John’s Anglican Church (64 Townsend Street). Entry is Pay-What-You-Can (ranging from $0 to $20) at the Halifax concert, and $20 for the Lunenburg concert.

Eastern Horizon is an intensive and high-level choral ensemble led by Jack Bennet and Christina Murray within the Choirs for Change Association, a newly-registered non-profit organization based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our choirs are collectives of singers and activists seeking to support social change movements through innovative choral events.

We hope you can make it! If you have any questions, contact Choirs for Change through our Facebook page or by emailing choirsforchange@gmail.com.

Choirs for Change is thrilled to announce our newest project: Eastern Horizon!

This will be Canada’s first choral writing competition that celebrates the work of composers of marginalized identities who have been affected by the structural injustices of society.

Spread the news – entry is free! Follow the link for the full competition details: https://goo.gl/yprd4w

To be eligible to enter in this competition, you must identify with a community that has been historically and/or traditionally marginalized by the structural injustices of society. A non-comprehensive list of these communities include: First Nations people, femme folk, women, people of colour, African Canadians, LGBTQ+ people, newcomers, people with disabilities, Acadians, and Métis. Performances of the shortlisted works will be presented in June in Halifax and Lunenburg by the Eastern Horizon choir. The choir will be directed by Jack Bennet and Christina Murray, and will consist of experience, high-level choristers from across Nova Scotia.

For more details, visit www.facebook.com/choirsforchange or email choirsforchange [@] gmail . com