OLDS — Members of the Olds Community Chorus (OCC) are getting ready to perform their spring concert, Bridge Over Troubled Water, and they’re inviting you to join them.
It’s a spring concert that was a long time in coming, due to COVID. The choir did perform just before Christmas last year, but there’s been no spring concert for a long while.
This year’s spring concert takes place April 27, 7 p.m. at the Olds First Baptist Church.
Tickets are $15 for adults, $7:50 for students. Children under six get in free. Tickets are available at the choir’s website, www.OldsCommunityChorus.com. They're also available at the door.
Virtually all the songs in the performance have a water theme to them.
Kathleen van Mourik of Carstairs who served as accompanist for the group last year be back, along with cellist Olena Kilchyk, a refugee from Ukraine.
At 44 members, the choir is a bit smaller than a few years ago when it numbered 55. Wasden says some members became ill, due to COVID or other illnesses. Others moved away.
But she says the current number is pretty good for a community choir.
“They are raring to get going. We’ve got 18 songs,” Wasden said during an interview with the Albertan.
She said most are folk tunes that people will know well, such as Farewell to Nova Scotia, Loch Lomond, or I’s The B’y (that builds the boat), along with a couple of Stan Rogers tunes Like Fogarty’s Cove and Northwest Passage.
“A lot of the folk songs were told by a soloist and then supported by the crowd, right? So we expect the crowd to sing a little bit too,” Wasden said.
There’ll be songs geared especially for kids as well.
“We have some special numbers for the kids – that’ll be fun – because it’s a family presentation,” she said.
“We really want it to be something the whole family enjoys. Doesn’t matter the age, there’ll be something interesting, whether it’s the rhythms, the stories – the stories are fabulous.”
Wasden said one of the tunes where the audience will get a chance to see – and hear – just how good Kilchyk is will be Away From The Roll of the Sea, by Allistair McGillivray.
"In this piece, we’ve incorporated the cello. So you can feel the cello as it moves. Just like this roll of the sea, you can feel it in how it supports the choir, it’s beautiful,” Wasden said.
She said the sea theme just came naturally.
“When I listed all the music that I wanted to do, just everything seemed to be focused on water,” she said.
Wasden said Bridge Over Troubled Water itself is perfect for the times we’ve been living through lately.
“I think some of that is really about what we’ve gone through in the least three years, between COVID and now the wars that have broken out,” she said.
"The Bridge Over Troubled Water really is the community that we’re building.”
Wasden is grateful for the support the chorus has received from sponsors as they’ve endeavoured to put the show together.
She said as a result of COVID restrictions, it’s the first time in three-and-a-half years that they’ve had sponsors listed in their program.
Wasden said sponsors really “stepped up.” Some are listed on the poster as well.
"I went to some of our people that I know. One in five said,’no, I can’t help you,’ but the rest of them said ‘yeah, I’ll advertise in your poster and help you so you can pay for your posters and get them out,” Wasden said.
“I guess I was a little surprised, because it’s been hard for everybody. But when they see that this is important for the community, that we really are supporting – not just seniors, but families (they’ve gotten on board).”
