Bookmark this page for all the information you need for the 2026 Spring Season!
Attention choir members! Tickets are on sale at Talisman as of June 1. Our best promotion is word of mouth, so please tell your friends and family! There will be info in the Pender Post, posters going up, and social media to share starting next week. It makes a big difference when everyone spreads the word. Thank you for your help! - Carly
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May 29, 2026
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3 ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE – 6 PM
CHOIR 1 OF “FORGOTTEN SOLDIERS”, I WANT YOU TO COME AT 5:30 PM FOR A SHORT SECTIONAL BEFORE WARMUPS
Warmups start at 5:50 pm!
We will sing through the concert pieces in order (Check my last bulletin)
PLEASE REVIEW THOSE AREAS THAT YOU HAVE CIRCLED AND TRY TO SING EACH DAY
HERE IS OUR SCHEDULE FOR JUNE:
JUNE 3, 10 AND 17 – REGULAR REHEARSAL – SCHOOL STAGE
JUNE 21 – 10:00 AM – COMMUNITY HALL -STAGE SETUP – VOLUNTEERS NEEDED (CONTACT DANA)
JUNE 21 – 12:30 PM-2:30 PM – COMMUNITY HALL- REHEARSAL, ENTRANCES/EXITS/STAGE MOVEMENTS ETC PLUS SINGING!!
JUNE 24 – 6:20 PM - COMMUNITY HALL – ARRIVE TO START WARMUPS AT 6:30 PM
7:00 PM – DRESS REHEARSAL
JUNE 27 – 6:15 – COMMUNITY HALL – WARMUPS START AT 6:20 PM
7:00 PM – PERFORMANCE
JUNE 28 – 1:15 PM – COMMUNITY HALL – WARMUPS START AT 1:20 PM
2:00 PM – PERFORMANCE
**CONCERT WEAR
Black tops, black pants/skirts (Note: if skirt or dress please use black stockings)
We will accent with red and white (provided)
May 23, 2026
Hi Singers
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE – 6 PM
SOPRANOS, I WANT YOU TO COME AT 5:20 PM FOR A SHORT SECTIONAL PRIOR TO WARMUPS
Warmups start at 5:50 pm!!!!!!!!
I want to start singing through the concert so make sure you are spending time on those tricky little areas that you have circled. I know you are all singing every day right?
IT’S TIME NOW TO GET PAST LEARNING THE NOTES TO REALLY FOCUS ON MAKING THE SONGS “MUSICAL”
Here is the concert order of pieces:
O Canada – (Off book and a cappella with some small potential “help” from Eileen)
Newfoundland My Home
Away from the roll of the Sea
Violin/piano duet
Quartet
All the Little Rivers
I dreamed of Yukon
Black Fly
Intermission
Hockey Song
Canadian Railroad Trilogy
Forgotten Warriors
Piano solo – Eileen
Hymn to Freedom
Hallelujah
This is my Home
At our rehearsal I will explain how the performance will flow.
THE HOCKEY SONG WORD CHANGES – Get out your pencils!
SOPRANOS AND ALTOS
Replace “Gordie Howe” with “Marie Poulin” (pronounced MahRee Poolan)
“Mario Lemieux, one of the few” with “Carol Ouellette, one of the best”
EVERYONE
Replace “Great Wayne Gretsky” with “Haylee Wickenheiser” (Hay replaces Great, Ley replaces Wayne and then Wickenheiser, said quickly replaces Gretsky)
AT BAR 84 Page 6 just Past G replace “Stanley Cup” with “Champions Cup"
Bruce
May 15, 2026
Hi Singers
“Hey, and away we ride, thru’ the music……..” Yes, the journey is providing some excitement now, both fun and challenging as we run the “rapids, far and wide”. So everyone needs to prepare to meet the challenges by knowing your parts. That means practise!!!
I have posted the recording I made last rehearsal of “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” on the learning page of our website. It is pretty good for this point in our session but it does highlight a number of things we need to work on, such as entries, blend, finishing phrases etc, etc.
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE – 6 PM
Warmups start at 5:50 pm
This rehearsal we will focus on the pieces we will sing in the first half :
O CANADA – Off book . Your parts are all available (with voice too) so get firm on the music
NEWFOUNDLAND MY HOME
AWAY FROM THE ROLL OF THESEA
BLACK FLY
I DREAMED OF YUKON
ALL THE LITTLE RIVERS
Also…..
The Hockey Song – I will be sending a separate bulletin with the word changes
Forgotten Warriors
May 9, 2026
Hi Singers
We are now into the most important part of our musical journey. This is also the point in our journey when we can have a lot of fun as we make our words and tunes “musical”.
Here is what we need to do to achieve this:
Attend all rehearsals unless ill
Show up in time for rehearsals. We need our full 2 hour practise time!
Listen to the practise recordings regularly (especially the parts you have circled)
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 13 ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE – 6 PM
Warmups start at 5:50 pm
This rehearsal will focus on these pieces:
The Hockey Song
Canadian Railroad Trilogy
Forgotten Warriors
Hallelujah
Hymn to Freedom
This is my Home
PLEASE NOTE: LOOK FOR MY “TALK THROUGHS” OF THESE PIECES. THEY SHOULD BE ON THE WEBSITE LEARNING PARTS BY SUNDAY, MAY 10.
HOW TO USE THESE RECORDINGS – Get out your music and follow through as I talk about things such as timings, repeats, volumes, fermatas (a musical notation symbol—often called a "hold" or "pause"—that directs a performer to sustain a note, chord, or rest for longer than its written duration, typically at their own discretion….in other words LOOK UP AT THE DIRECTOR ) and other aspects. Have a pencil ready to make your notes on the music.
May 2, 2026
Hi Singers
Good work last rehearsal! Let’s keep up the momentum!
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 6 ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE – 6 PM
Warmups start at 5:50 pm NOTE: VETERANS - START YOUR VOCAL WARMUPS IN THE DRIVE/WALK TO THE SCHOOL IF YOU CAN
PLEASE NOTE: LOOK FOR MY “TALK THROUGHS” OF THESE PIECES. THEY SHOULD BE ON THE WEBSITE LEARNING PARTS BY SUNDAY, MAY 3. THIS SHOULD SAVE A FAIR BIT OF TIME DURING REHEARSAL.
HOW TO USE THESE RECORDINGS – Get out your music and follow through as I talk about things such as timings, repeats, volumes, fermatas (a musical notation symbol—often called a "hold" or "pause"—that directs a performer to sustain a note, chord, or rest for longer than its written duration, typically at their own discretion….in other words LOOK UP AT THE DIRECTOR ) and other aspects. Have a pencil ready to make your notes on the music.
WE WILL BE FOCUSING ON THE FOLLOWING PIECES:
Forgotten Warriors – Starting at “D”, primarily focusing on Choir 2 parts to get them solid. Choir 1 singers should be practising their parts.
Newfoundland My Home – sing through
I dreamed of Yukon – sing through
All the little rivers – sing through
Black Fly –sing through
April 25, 2026
Hi Singers,
Okay, we are well into our musical journey now and it will start to get truly more “musical” from this point on; that is if I have your commitment. As in any group journey, your presence, participation and preparation are critical factors in its success. Others are depending on you, especially me!
So, please make a decision to embrace this journey!
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29th ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE
6 PM – We will start to sing in our initial concert positions (that I determine )
Warmups start at 5:50 pm
WE WILL BE FOCUSING ON THE FOLLOWING PIECES:
Canadian Railroad Trilogy – This is our major piece for the concert so we will spend lots of our time on it. Listen to the choir recording as it will help you get a sense of the changes in speed and style that occur throughout the piece.
Especially listen to your learning parts: Bar 23 to “B” and Bar 187 to the END
The Hockey Song – some of you have sung this a while back. It is a fun piece so let’s have some fun with it. I intend on changing a few names to bring it up to modern day.
Hymn to Freedom – We will work through this piece and focus on the “ahs” sections (Page 7 for Sopranos and Altos, Page 8 for Tenors and Basses).
Hallelujah – Singing it through
Forgotten Warriors – starting at “D”. We didn’t really get a good chance to work this through so for this rehearsal I want to try the following quartet as Choir 1. I will listen for balance to see if I need to add more voices.
Soprano – Rose Alto – Kelly Dine Tenor – Michel Bass - Peter
April 17, 2026
Good work last Wednesday!! We actually made it all the way through some of our pieces! I hope you circled those tricky little parts so that you can work them with your learning recordings.
IMPORTANT – PLEASE NOTE THE TIME CHANGE FOR NEXT WEEK
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22th ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE AT 5:30 PM
Warmups start at 5:20 pm
Eileen will need to leave around 6:30 pm as the Concert Series has its performance at 7 pm.
I WILL BE REHEARSING THE FOLLOWING PIECES with Eileen:
This is my Home – Singing through the whole piece
Black Fly – focus on the parts at “E” then sing through
I Dreamed of Yukon – Singing through the whole piece
Away From the roll of the Sea – Singing through the whole piece
Time permitting – The Hockey Song
After Eileen leaves, we will focus on the a cappella parts of the following pieces:
All the little Rivers – pg. 5 “E”
Black Fly – pg. 5 “E”
O Canada
Forgotten Warriors – starting at “D”. For this rehearsal I want to try a quartet as Choir 1
Soprano – Rose Alto – Kelly Dine Tenor – Michel Bass - Peter
April 11, 2026
Thanks to Eileen’s dedication to our choir and many hours of work, we have almost all the learning recordings posted on our website. Sopranos, thanks for being patient. Your parts are coming soon.
Here are some links to our newer pieces:
Hallelujah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=564JizYe8pM&list=RD564JizYe8pM&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9YZJIp8cv0&list=RDn9YZJIp8cv0&start_radio=1
Hymn to Freedom
https://youtu.be/DejnabFg-zE?si=7BybEI6wk8LEvXwP
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15th ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE - 6 pm
Warmups start at 5:50 pm
I WILL BE REHEARSING THE FOLLOWING PIECES:
Canadian Railroad Trilogy – We will start at “F” (page 7) and work on it to the end. Then we will sing through the whole piece
All the Little Rivers – Starting at “E” (page 5) through to the end and then the whole piece.
Newfoundland My Home – whole piece and focusing on the held notes “E” (bottom of page 5) to “F”
I dreamed of Yukon – whole piece
Hymn to Freedom – This is a new piece so we will busk through it.
O Canada – we will continue off book singing of this piece
Time permitting, I will also run through one of the pieces we rehearsed on April 8
Hopefully by now you are spending some time each day singing along with a full choir or a learning recording.
April 2, 2026
Well done everyone! I felt invigorated by your enthusiasm as we now really get into out musical journey. I like the stage as a rehearsal space as it has good lighting and the acoustics allow me to hear you clearly (all the mistakes and moments of brilliance too ).
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8th ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE - 6 pm
Warmups start at 5:50 pm
I WILL BE REHEARSING THE FOLLOWING PIECES:
Forgotten Warriors
Away from the roll of the sea
Black Fly Song
Hallelujah
O Canada – we will continue off book singing of this piece
I will also run through the pieces we rehearsed on April 1 to keep them fresh in our minds.
Ideally you should spend some time each day singing to strengthen your vocal chords. Running a 5k race once a week is hard on the body if no training happens in between eh?
Also, please listen to the recordings of the full choirs singing these pieces.
March 28, 2026
“Sea to Seas – Strong and Free” – REHEARSAL NOTES
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1 ON THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE - 6 pm
Warmups start at 5:50 pm
Info on entering: Once you enter the main doors turn to your right and walk down the hall, up some stairs and left on to the stage
I WILL BE REHEARSING THE FOLLOWING PIECES:
CANADIAN RAILROAD TRILOGY
ALL THE LITTLE RIVERS
I DREAMED OF YUKON
BLACK FLY
OH CANADA (See recordings)
Please listen to the recordings of the full choirs singing these pieces to get a feeling for them. I will be rehearsing them at a much slower pace
We are working on producing learning recordings. These will be emailed and posted on the choir website as soon as we can produce them.
We had a really good rehearsal last Monday! Keep up the momentum! See you Wednesday!
STAY HOME IF YOU ARE NOT FEELING WELL - Coughing, sniffling, sneezing etc, is not welcome!
Bruce
March 19, 2026
Hello singers!
I was really pleased to see (and hear) so many enthusiastic singers last night at our first
rehearsal! I feel we are going to have lots of fun on our musical journey this spring!
Here is some important stuff!!!
NEXT REHEARSAL IS ON MONDAY, MARCH 23 AT THE COMMUNITY HALL UPSTAIRS 6 pm
This is the only Monday rehearsal.
STARTING APRIL 1 REHEARSALS WILL BE AT THE PENDER SCHOOL STAGE.
General Rehearsal information
Rehearsals start at 6 pm - please be seated and ready to sing.
Warmups: I will start the singing warmups at 5:50 pm, especially for new singers. Many of you
“veterans” know the warmups and probably have special ones that work for you. I urge you to
start those warmups while driving to rehearsal or on your own when you arrive, much like
instrumental musicians.
Rehearsal details such as the pieces we will be practising each week will be emailed to you so
that you can have a chance to review them prior to rehearsal.
Learning information
Links to choir performances are available below. Links to part-specific recordings will be made available on the website soon.
Absences
I urge you to make every effort to attend the rehearsals. It is especially important to enable me
to do my job but also supports your fellow singers in learning the music.
If you cannot make a rehearsal, please let Dana know danamcconchie(at)gmail.com so I can plan
my rehearsal instructions more efficiently.
PLEASE STAY HOME IF YOU ARE NOT FEELING WELL - Coughing, sniffling, sneezing etc
A note from Carly: Below you will find Bruce's breakdown of the songs as well as lots of links to choral and solo versions of them. Not all the songs are on YouTube, but I have started trying to compile them on a playlist, in case that is preferred way to access for anyone: PLAYLIST
Sea to Seas – Strong and Free 2026 Spring Sessions—Bruce McConchie, Director
There is a rich abundance of Canadian composed and arranged music. I have had to narrow my
musical selections to provide what I hope highlights at least some of those aspects that we, as
Canadians, consider part of our identities.
Here are links to our musical repertoire with my comments.
Note: I will be getting Oscar Peterson’s “Hymn to Freedom” and Leonard Cohen’s
“Hallelujah” and will post links at that time.
This is My Home (Bob Buckley)
This piece sums up what this session is all about, our home Canada. Bob composed this for the
Canada pavilion at World Expo held in Vancouver in 1986. You may even remember hearing it
there and probably a number of times since as it is performed every Canada Day.
The link is performed by the UVic choir. Unfortunately, I could not find a performance that
doesn’t include a band or orchestra accompanying.
https://youtu.be/Z4Ir6XhQ6J4?si=f3mkjEWg8OZta3jd
Canadian Railroad Trilogy (Gordon Lightfoot)
This piece commissioned by the CBC for the Canadian Centennial in 1967. Gordon describes a
significant achievement in Canada’s development while recognizing the cost in human sweat
and blood. It will be one of our major works this session.
https://youtu.be/gSAssL_hmCg?si=rd3jQje1ReR0w1FJ
The Hockey Song (Stompin’ Tom Connors)
I had to include this song as it recognizes a very important part of our Canadian identity. Larry
Nickel of Cypress Choral Music has put together an arrangement of Stompin’ Tom’s song that
should be lots of fun to sing. Don’t worry, I intend on changing a name or two to reflect current
feelings
https://youtu.be/FGbXCTLlryg?si=PfS6xbLzoyXXEvqa
I Dreamed of Yukon (Isabel Belina)
This beautiful piece conjures up some wonderful images of northern Canada for me. I hope it
does the same for you.
Solo rendition by Isabel
https://youtu.be/domsiBeQ5hw?si=5REW07nXLulBntiW
Choir renditions
https://cypresschoral.com/composers/isabel-belina/i-dreamed-of-yukon/
https://youtu.be/oixAlorwaCo?si=_9h2b7fNFHMDSiju
https://youtu.be/oixAlorwaCo?si=n4VV6DNeIBO8OCjO
Hallelujah – (Leonard Cohen) arranger Roger Emerson
If you watched the opening to the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, K.D. Lang sang this
to the world in a very stirring rendition. Our choir has performed this piece before and although
some may consider it “over performed”, I feel it is an important part of our Canadian tapestry
performance.
Please note: Currently we have the wrong arrangement. We are in the process of finding the
other arrangement. The link is the correct version that we will be using.
https://youtu.be/564JizYe8pM?si=dSCiNGMjDDa-oNwl
Forgotten Warriors – (Russell Wallace)
This piece, was composed by Russell for a National Film Board documentary about the
Indigenous Canadians who enlisted and fought in World War II for our country but returned
home to find their land seized and equality denied. I feel this is a song of respectful
remembrance.
Chor Leoni – This is performed in a different key than our music uses.
https://youtu.be/np7rm2ES-Fs?si=HlLWUkpfmIlnlKHK
Newfoundland My Home – (Isabel Belina)
This song swings with that lilt that epitomizes the wonderful nature of our Newfoundlanders. If
you had a chance to see “Come from Away” or remember the people of Gander who opened
their community to stranded travellers during the crisis of 9/11 you get a taste of this. It should
be fun to sing.
https://cypresschoral.com/composers/isabel-belina/newfoundland-my-home/
Black Fly Song – (Wade Hemsworth)
In a story telling manner this fast-paced song describes that wonderful little pest that a lot of
Canadians have donated blood to…… part of the tapestry eh?
https://cypresschoral.com/composers/earle-peach/black-fly-song/
Away from the Roll of the Sea – (Allister MacGillivray)
This is another song our choir has performed previously. It is a famous Nova Scotia song that
describes sailors lives and their longing for a peaceful rest away from often dangerous work in
the turbulent waters off the east coast of Canada
https://youtu.be/2PnJsI9z2as?si=SoGyV1PUV5k11Iok
All the little Rivers - (Larry Nickel)
Here is a bit of a geography lesson for us as well as a recognition of how Canada was traversed
before the building of the railways. Guessing where these rivers are is part of the fun in learning
this piece.
https://cypresschoral.com/composers/larry-nickel/all-the-little-rivers/
https://youtu.be/8b8pSas0HV4?si=FHG2hfLBv_hIKQRO
https://youtu.be/76hFnFJINiQ?si=SU8ndMNdyDtKXNnD
Let’s have fun!!!
Bruce McConchie