The Variations Choir is wrapping up the season with two spring concerts next weekend, 'Connected Through the Decades'.
"It's featuring songs from the 1930s all the way to the 2000s," shared Choir Director Colleen Weimer. "It is in chronological order, starting with some 1930s pop tunes like 'Bye Bye, Blackbird', getting into some Elvis, a little bit of the Beatles, we're going up through Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, a little bit of Josh Groban. Intermixed with all of these pop thematic songs of the decades, we are doing some Broadway show tunes from musicals that were popular during the different decades."
She said it's an appropriate mix of repertoire for the community choir of 75 singers ranging in age from 18 to 89.
"We're connecting our music that goes through all the decades, and we're also connecting our people who are various generations. They were teenagers in all these different decades, and yet every week we come together, whatever the age, and we sing together and make our music together and it's pretty special."
"We encourage everyone to come enjoy the music. You are going to see somebody you know on that stage and we just are really excited to present it and have people enjoy the music," Weimer invited.
The concerts will be held on Saturday, April 26th at 7 p.m. and on Sunday, April 27th at 2 p.m. at Grace United Church. Admission is $10.
For anyone who would like to join Variations, the choir meets Wednesdays at 7 p.m. at the Calvary Baptist Community Church, resuming again in September.
"Anybody is welcome to come. They can contact me or any choir member and just come and sing, give it a try. We do mostly four-parts, soprano, alto, tenor, bass. Sometimes we'll split into more parts than that through this. But we've got our sections together so you're singing the same part as the people around you. Some people read music really well and we can follow them. It just really seems to work for people. It's an exciting group. We've got new people joining all the time, people that just want to sing."
Weimer said Gail Murray is their piano accompanist, Robert Satre plays guitar and mandolin, and Sandy Wright plays the drums.
She added, "It totally is for fun and for community, and we're pretty proud of the music that we do put together."
