Timbre! opens 37th Season with Bits and Pieces

It’s going to be very busy weekend. Friday night I’m performing on piano with the Cory Miller Quartet at Jazz Night in the Step Above Café at Quality Foods in Port Alberni. Nanaimo based vocalist Lauren Bush will be appearing as guest artist. Word is the Step Above Café  is sold out and no further reservations are being taken. However I understand a few spots are usually held back for walk-ins.  

On Saturday morning there is a dress rehearsal scheduled with Timbre! and the accompanying musicians for the choir’s Sunday afternoon performance. The concert, titled Bits and Pieces – Music from Broadway and the Movies, opens the ensemble’s 37^th season and gets underway at 2:30 pm in the ADSS Auditorium in Port Alberni. 

As Timbre!’s Musical Director, my wife Pat has chosen a pleasingly varied repertoire for the performance. Choral Highlights from the Broadway Musical Mamma Mia! is one of the major selections programmed. Many super ABBA hits including I Have A Dream, S.O.S., Take A Chance On Me, Thank You For The Music, Waterloo and Dancing Queen are part of Mac Huff’s well written arrangement. 

Other pieces programmed include Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond’s 1969 hit which was recently featured in the television series Glee), I See You (the ethereal theme song from Avatar, a powerful ballad which captures the magical science fiction atmosphere of this blockbuster film and its stunning world of imagination and color), Look To the Rainbow (from Burton Lane’s Broadway Show Finian’s Rainbow) and Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat (from the venerable Broadway musical Guys and Dolls).

After intermission Timbre! will present a set of pieces in tribute to Remembrance Day. In honour of our country’s annual recognition of our veterans and members of the Canadian Forces, the choir will sing Make Me a Channel of Your Peace (Prayer of St. Francis), For The Fallen (music by Mike Sammes and based on the well-known text by Canadian poet Laurence Binyon), Oscar Peterson’s Hymn To Freedom and a bevy of Songs That Soldiers Sang including Lili Marlene, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, The White Cliffs of Dover and We’ll Meet Again.

Season Passes are now on sale at Rollin Art Centre, Echo Centre, Salmonberry’s, Somass Drugs and will be available at the door. A Season’s Pass admits you to all three concerts - Adult $30, Senior & Student $25, Family $65. Individual ticket prices for Bits and Pieces are Adults $12, Seniors & Student $10 and Children $6. Making the price of buying a Season’s Pass more attractive is the fact that starting with Timbre!’s Christmas Concert there will be a price increase for single show tickets. 

This increase has been made necessary due to the current government’s decision to no longer support adult performing arts organizations in British Columbia through access to gaming grants.  Adding insult to injury, last week the government’s newly minted cultural minister removed “arts” from the title of her portfolio. With support to the arts accounting for such a tiny percentage of the overall provincial budget, the damage being done to BC performing arts groups by this ill-conceived judgment is appalling. I predict within a year or two a vast number will virtually disappear. Without a doubt the philistine agenda has found a centralist role within the reigning government. However this debate is reserved for a future Blog. 

Hope to see many of you from Port Alberni and surrounding area at Timbre!’s concert on Sunday.

As I type this blog my brother Terry has just Skyped me from London, England. For those who may not know what Skype is, it’s a computer program that allows people to talk and see each other (on their computer screens) from anywhere in the world for free. Sadly Terry is in Britain to attend the funeral of our cousin Philip who passed away on Oct 15th. The funeral was originally scheduled for next week but the Vicar at St Mary’s Anglican parish church in Bristol unexpectedly moved it up to today. Unfortunately, with my concert commitments this weekend, it was impossible for me to accompany Terry as planned. However I feel fortunate to have had two extended visits with Philip last year. He was an exceptionally cultured individual and a very entertaining host in that British sort of way. Through Skype I’ve been able to feel allied to the interment observance regardless of the great distance.

Photo: Nov 1st, 2009: Timbre! on Stage at Bob Dailey Stadium in Port Alberni for the lighting of the Olympic Torch.

Photo: Nov 1st/2010 - Timbre! Music Director Patricia Miller on stage at ADSS preparing for Bits and Pieces concert scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 8th at 2:30 pm.