Tag: Music

CUC May 2020 National Conference & AGM Highlights

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Featured image – Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Toronto; co-leader with Rev Wayne Walder of a cross-Canada ceremony of remembrance, We are together, at the national gathering on 17 May 2020.

*12 more photos at the end of this post!

CUC eNews Coverage here.

CUC May 2020 National Conference Highlights

  • Video of the CUC Cross Canada Sunday Service One Storm, Many Ships
    (edited video, 90 minutes). The wonderful story for children of all ages read by Kiersten Moore has been deleted from the saved video pending copyright approvals from Disney.
  • CUC 2019 Annual Report (pdf document, 56 pages)
    The annual report is full of information about CUC’s work and how you might participate. It’s very worthwhile reading!
  • Attendance at 4 meetings via Zoom & YouTube: 150, 170, 200, 1,000
    (Numbers are approximate because more than one person may have been on one connection and some people had more than one connection!) Details of events follow.
  • If you’re interested in participating in these events in the future, contact the UCV UU Connections Committee – currently Keith Wilkinson, Lynn Armstrong, Kiersten Moore, & Emilie Adin. Text or phone Keith at 604-838-5643 or Lynn at 778-835-2546 or watch for a newly updated UCV Directory of Small Groups, Committees, and Teams, anticipated soon!

Plenary session – Thurs 14 May 2020, 150 participants; informal discussion of the resolutions being presented at the Sat AGM.

Gathering Ceremony – Fri, 15 May 2020, 170 participants, virtual banner parade with photos sent from many congregations across Canada, with music added, assembled by Amber Bellemare in Montreal.

Cross Canada Service – Sun, 17 May 2020, 1,000 participants, four ministers, many musicians and singers
Video available on CUC’s YouTube channel.

Annual General Meeting – Sat, 16 May 2020, 200 participants (97 delegates, 100 observers, 45 congregations)
See the CUC Annual Report for details.

  • Reviewed CUC’s expected investment performance with the investments manager;
    (investments at the end of Dec 2019 were valued at $6.1 million);
  • Approved an operating budget of $812,000 (compare this to UCV at $600,000);
  • Approved changes in procedures for electing board members;
  • Elected new board members;
  • Approved 2020-21 goals and strategic priorities;
  • Responded to questions about the International Council of Unitarians and Univeralists (ICUU) conference still scheduled for Montreal in October 2020;
  • Received reports regarding a few of the many initiatives outlined in the Annual Report:
    • Youth and Young Adults (Annual Report, pp 23-26)
      plus CazUUm – CUC youth zoom conference (34 participants)
    • Truth Healing and Reconciliation Initiative (Annual Report, pp 29-31)
    • Social Justice Action (Annual Report, pp 26-28)
    • Dismantling Racism (Annual Report, p 35)
    • Polyamory Task Force (Annual Report, pp 36-55 – the full 19-page report from the task force on this complex subject, including recommendations for the CUC.)
  • Celebration of special awards:
    • Sharing our Faith Awards – Awards to support emerging programs in several congregations (Durham, Mississauga, Edmonton)
    • Northern Lights Award – support for a major initiative, this year for Northwest Toronto Co-housing Project (involving Unitarian fellowship of Northwest Toronto)
    • Shining Lights Award – for new innovative programs (see CUC website for details)
    • Theological Education Fund Award – Co-sponsored by CUC and UUMOC (UU Ministers of Canada) for support of ministerial students (grants made to two ministerial students ths year)
    • Knight Award – Awarded to Rev Frances Deverell for dedicated service on social justice issues including work with the Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice CUSJ
    • See the above links or email the CUC office for more details about any of the CUC award programs.

 

Some screen shots from the CUC Canada-wide Virtual Service, Sun 17 May 2020  

(Google the congregational web sites for more images and information!)

Sunday Service Leaders:

Rev Norm Horofker, Halifax Universalist Unitarians

Rev Karen Fraser Gitlitz, Saskatoon Unitarians

Rev Meghann Robern, Winnipeg Unitarian Universalists

Rev Wayne Walder, Neighbourhood Unitarian Fellowship, Toronto

Rev Samaya Oakley, South Fraser Unitarians, Surrey BC

Spoken Word

Taz Trefzger, Hamilton Unitarians & 2020 CazUUm Co-Dean

Carter Mahoney, Peterborough Unitarians, Young Adults Ensemble

Wonderful singers and musicians from across the country

– Halifax, Peterborough, Toronto, Vancouver…

James Morris (guitar), Halifax, playing Making Waves, composed for the occasion.

Peterborough Unitarians – Spirit of Life (Mark, Julie, Katherine, Stephira, Ben, Linda)

Vancouver Unitarians Elliott and Edgar playing work by Cape Breton’s Allistair MacGillivray

James Hill teaching us the ukulele “peace chord”.

Vancouver Unitarians Choir Leads: Beth, Erin, Bryan, Gavin
leading Canadian Unitarians in Blue Boat Home.

 

Coffeehouse Connections

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Every Saturday in April at 3 pm Pacific, CUC is hosting Coffeehouse Connections.
Details and register here: https://cuc.ca/events/cuc-coffee-house-connections/1586628000/1586633400/
Join the events on Zoom:  https://bit.ly/39WqDOj
April 18 – Music circle
April 25 – Storytelling
Here’s a description of the first one.
Join Tony Turner for a UU Music Circle: a way to connect and spend some time together on Sunday, Mar 29 at 3 p.m. (Pacific); we’ll gather for about an hour to an hour and a half via Zoom.

Listeners and musicians are welcome. To contribute your musical skills, please fill in this short survey so that the co-hosts (CUC staff and Tony Turner) have an idea of who’s appearing. There will be about 8-10 performances/songs/numbers. Those who don’t get a slot this time to appear for the next Music Circle.
If you can’t be part of our circle, but know someone else who’d like to contribute please forward this link, https://forms.gle/g3KSRddAGAfMnnb9A, so they can sign up. 
Spread the word, and we’ll see you on Sunday with your instrument, or favourite beverage and snack!
Facilitated by CUC Staff.
View other CUC events here: https://cuc.ca/events-calendar/

New Singing Group starts Sunday, September 15

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Do you like to sing? Would you like to sing once a month in a small group that doesn’t judge or perform? We will meet for the first time at 12:45 pm on September 15 and gather on the third Sunday every month until April. You’re invited!

My name’s Glenn Deefholts. I’ve been playing the piano and hosting singalongs for years. I’ll play while we sing, sharing my five copies of the Vancouver Ukulele Circle Songbook. Three people can gather around one book. There are songs from about 1910 to 2010 in various genres. The group is limited to a maximum of about 12 people, unless more songbooks are purchased.

We will sing after lunch, from about 12:30 to 1:15, taking turns choosing songs. No pre-registration is required; just come to the Lindsey-Priestley Room at 12:30 each third Sunday, after love soup and lunch. Questions? Contact Glenn

approved by Music Committee and Connect & Engage team

A Mass for Peace – Join North Shore Unitarians on May 11th

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The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace was commissioned for the millennium by the U.K. Royal Armouries and had its premiere in London. The CD was released on September 10, 2001.

North Shore Unitarian Music Director, Alison Nixon, has chosen this work intentionally. Unitarian Sources and Principles are congruent with the intentions within this work, and will be included in the program itself. This promises to be a wonderful community event, and an opportunity for us to show the wider community our dedication to peace and justice.

Alison asks Unitarians to attend this concert personally and also to bring a friend from the wider community. Proceeds from this event will be donated to Amnesty International, and the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture.

  • Saturday, May 11 7 pm
  • Highlands United Church, North Vancouver

On May 11th, our church community will join many other singers from the wider community to make a strong, collective statement as to the folly of war. A choir of over 100 singers will perform this powerful and intensely moving work as a concert at Highlands United Church.

The human longing for peace is a visceral presence in this mass, as each movement adds to the larger story of war’s devastating impact. The various texts, as well as the music itself, embrace time periods from the first millennium B.C. to modern times, incorporating the poetic beauty of Islamic, Hindu, and Christian cultures.

ALISON NIXON, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Alison was appointed Music Director in September 2003. She conducts several other choral groups in the area including the Douglas College Choral Society, Note Bene Women’s Choir and SummerChor.

Alison is an accomplished violinist and has performed with orchestras in Britain, Switzerland and Vancouver. She is responsible for the church’s music program, which includes a 40-member adult choir, classical ensemble, folk choir and children’s choir. Alison also coordinates the musical component of the weekly Sunday services.

 

Whisk away to a relaxing June weekend!

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Camp Sasamat is 45 minutes away from UCV set on acres of forest at Sasamat Lake in Port Moody.
Come for an afternoon float, campfire sing-a-long, choral workshop, trail walk or fellowship by the water. All meals provided. Accommodations include accessible cabins and showers. All ages welcome and many bring friends and family.
This year’s choral workshop will be led by Kathryn Nicholson (music director for the Helena Choir).
Gabriella Harvey, Jazzfly Video Productions
www.jazzfly.com
Our guest speaker will be Gabi Harvey with a talk entitled:  “Tale of a South American Traveller: A Happy Journey of Exploration”.
https://tricitieschamber.com/ambassador-gabriella-harvey/
Jazzfly Video Productions
www.jazzfly.com
May 31 – June 2, 2019
Sponsored by Beacon Unitarian Church

In Memoriam: Remembrance Day

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This is the one hundredth anniversary of the ending of World War I. We commemorate this Remembrance Day in a service of poetry, music and meditation. We gather to feel and think on the tragedy of war and the gifts of peace. We honour those who have served us in death and life.

Program:

Find A Stillness, Chalice Choir
The Drum, John Scott, 1730 – 1783
Old Man Travelling, William Wordsworth, 1770 – 1850
Hashivenu, Chalice Choir
The Due of the Dead, William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811 – 1863
Anthem for Doomed Youth, Wilfred Owen, 1893 – 1918
In Flanders Fields, Chalice Choir
From Walking Wounded, Vernon Scannell, 1922 – 2007
In Celebration of Spring, John Balaban, 1943-
Intermezo op. 117 no. 1 (excerpt), Brahms, Pat Armstrong and Elliot Dainow
Unmentioned in Dispatches, Peter Wyton, 1944-
Reconciliation, Walt Whitman, 1819 – 1892

Choir Sings Gjeilo – Plus Lots More

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Here’s some background on the choir concert. This year, the Chalice Choir’s Advent Concert features two pieces by the young (40) Norwegian-born composer Ola Gjeilo (pronounced Yay-lo). Dark Night of the Soul and Luminous Night of the Soul are both based on poetry by St. John of the Cross, a sixteenth century Spanish mystic, a contemporary of Teresa of Avila. St. John is considered one of the foremost poets in the Spanish language. These exquisitely layered pieces involve both piano and string accompaniment. They have been a delight to learn and we look forward to sharing them with you.

But that is not all we have for you. Anne Duranceau and Edgar Bridwell, along with a few of their friends, will present some lovely string music. The ensemble and the choir have prepared several beautiful songs and Lyndon Ladeur, our tenor lead, will dazzle you with an aria from his upcoming performance in Opera Mariposa’s production of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte (Nov 30, Dec, 1, 7, 8 at Marpole United.)

After our annual singalong, you will be invited to join us for a reception in Hewett Centre.

Want a preview? You can listen to Dark Night of the Soul and Luminous Night of the Soul here:

An evening to warm your heart and jump-start your holiday spirit. Please join us!

Tickets: $20 (or pay what you can) available at the door.

Bios below

Lyndon Ladeur, tenor | Ferrando

Lyndon Ladeur’s favourite roles to date include Marco in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers and Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. His major concert repertoire as a soloist consists of Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Gounod’s Messe solennelle en l’honneur de Sainte-Cécile. He made his international debut as part of the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival to a sold-out crowd at the Royal Hall in Harrogate, UK where he performed Marco in The Gondoliers. For this portrayal he was named the winner of the Best Male Vocalist award, as well as being nominated for Best Male Actor. He was given a 2018 Vancouver Academy of Music Emerging Artist Grant to contribute to this experience. He is also the reigning winner of both the Senior Classical Voice and Vocal Variety competitions at the BC Provincial Performing Arts Festival. After that, Lyndon was named a winner of the BC Provincial Concerto Competition.

dgar Bridwell was born in Illinois but has lived in BC and Montreal most of his life. He started violin when he was five years old. He later played, recorded and toured internationally with several Swing and Rockabilly bands, but came back to classical music a few years ago.

nne Duranceau was born in Montreal but lived mostly in Quebec City. After a career as a classically-trained dancer, she studied the contrabass at Laval University and obtained her Master’s Degree in Music at the University of Arizona, also travelling to participate in many workshops and festivals where she had the opportunity to work with several masters of international renown. She plays with several ensembles, among which Sinfonia, and the Klezmer group Mad Nomad.

Third Thursdays – Make It a One-Day Retreat

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This month you could plan a one-day spiritual retreat at UCV.

Come by 11 am for circle dancing; stay for contemplative collage; and then participate in Patrick’s Rhythm Meditation workshop 7 – 9 pm. Third Thursdays always include the first two events, and several people attend both.

First there was GLAD with an hour of circle dance because Darlene and Mary wanted to dance more–and share circle dance more.

Then Laurie and Mary added “contemplative collage” from 2-4pm. So, of course, a few people found they liked both events so some of us brought lunch or bought sushi from across the street. And Mairy who’d joined the GLAD team often stayed for lunch and then gardened.

So by July 2018 (three years after GLAD began), there are a few of us who spend most of the day at UCV with focused but flexible activities.

We danced all nine of the World Circle Dance Day link up dances from 2016, 2017 and 2018. All nine within just over an hour.

GLAD (Gathering for Labyrinth, Art and Dance) includes art and labyrinth walking as well as circle dance.

All welcome to all or any of these events:

11am – 1 pm GLAD

1-2pm – informal lunch with whoever’s there

We placed our rainbow rocks in the inner courtyard labyrinth. Two corners down. Two to go! #prepareforpride

2-4pm – collage with Laurie and sometimes Mary (in the summer Mary tends to stop to say “hi” and then go outside to tend the gardens

Beautiful centre to celebrate World Circle Dance Day. Wild Women cards from Elizabeth MacLeod by way of Karen B.

 

 

 

 

 

Tsunami-Damaged Kimono Fabric – Reimagined

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Peace Building Event

Love, Hope and New Life

Remembering March 11, 2011

Seven Years after the Eastern Japan Great Earthquake /Tsunami

3 Related events: March 7-9

Click here for personal stories from Tama Copithorne and Judy Villett

Wednesday March 7th, 7:30pm  

Talks and Music

Eriko Shiomi, Music & Art Producer, Japan

Keiichi Hashizume, Music Educator & Clarinetist, Japan

Julia Lin, Author – ”The extraordinary bonds between Taiwan and Japan”

Dr. David Edgington, Professor Emeritus, UBC – “Building back in devastated communities”

Dr. Eiichiro Ochiai, Professor Emeritus, Juniata College, Penn. – “Health problems related to the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident”

Thursday March 8th, 10:00am-4:00pm

Textile Art Workshop

Eriko Shiomi & Judy Villett, Textile artist

Friday March 9th, 7:30pm

Music for Peace and Textile Art Display

Japan: Keiichi Hashizume, Clarinetist

Vancouver: Keiko Alexander, Pianist I Bo Peng,, Cellist I Winds Choir & Egret Choir

Reception

Sponsored by:

Artistic Studio LaLaLa, Tokyo

Egret Music Centre, Vancouver

Vancouver Program Committee:

Judv Villett <[email protected]> 604-521-1191

Tama Cooithorne <[email protected]> 604-224-2646

Antonia Chu <[email protected]> 778-322-5566

Cecilia Chueh <[email protected]> 604-889-1114

Registration Recommended: 604-436-5995

***Participation by Donation***

50 X 50 TEXTILE ART WORKSHOP

Remember – Learn – Participate

Celebrate the incredible resiliency of the Japanese people and the way the world has helped,

especially their close neighbor Taiwan,  and friends in Canada.

Everyone is invited to participate in the 5OX5O cm Textile Art Workshop at Hewett Centre,  UCV on March 8th from 10:00 am-4:00 pm

Erika Shiomi will talk about the rescue of kimonos and fabrics from a historic shop, KAMESHICHI in lshinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, north of Fukushima, flooded by the tsunami. She will describe the cleaning and recycling process, bringing garments to show and sell made from the precious fabric. Thousands of 5OcmX5Ocm squares have already been made in Japan and around the world to be displayed during music performances organized by renowned clarinetist Keiichi Hashizume from Japan.

Participants are encouraged to think about their memories of the tsunami disaster and make a personal image using a scrap of the kimono fabric that Erika will bring from Japan. Add your own fabrics or use some that will be supplied. Embellishments and special threads may be incorporated. Stitch by hand or machine or don’t stitch at all! Images may be applied using iron-on fusible web – no sewing. No experience required!

Sharing materials and skills is encouraged. Several irons and sewing machines will be available, or you may bring your own machine with extension cord.

The finished 5O cm X 5O cm pieces will be donated by participants, either left at the end of the workshop or brought early the evening of the closing concert. All of the pieces will be safety-pinned together to provide a heartfelt back-drop for the talks and musical performance that are part of this memorial event.

Your work will then return to Japan to be part of the ever-growing collection from all over the world to be displayed in the new Culture Centre that is currently under consideration in lshinomaki.

A light Japanese and Taiwanese lunch will be provided during the workshop. Participants are encouraged to bring family and friends to attend the opening talks on

Wednesday evening and a very special finale concert on Friday evening to see your work and more than one hundred 5OX5O textiles brought from Japan.

For more information and to register for the 5OX5O Textile Art Workshop

please contact Judy Villett: [email protected] 604-521-1191

PARTICIPATION BY DONATION

Summary of the 3 Events

This series of events will be well worth attending! I’ve been fascinated following the background of these music, art and peace-building events. (from Mary Bennett, UCV Arts Committee).

Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm – Peace Building Textile Art and Music Event – Remembering March 11, 2011 – Main Hall
https://vancouverunitarians.ca/e…/peace-building-textile-art/

Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – 50 x 50 Textile Art Workshop – Main Hall
https://vancouverunitarians.ca/events/textile-art-workshop/

Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm – Music for Peace and Textile Art Display – Sanctuary
https://vancouverunitarians.ca/ev…/music-concert-textile-art/

All events at the Unitarian Centre
https://vancouverunitarians.ca/eventlist/

Click below for 2-page description of the three events

Do feel free to print out and share with friends.

Page 1 – word doc – Description of 3 events   Page 1 – pdf – Description of 3 events

Page 2 – word doc – workshop description   Page 2 – pdf – workshop description

 

We’re All Here – Chalice Choir Plays PuSh

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We’re All Here

by Leslie Hill (far left) 

UCV’s Chalice Choir spent an exhilarating evening Friday night (January 19, 2018) on stage in The Events, by David Greig, a play about a lesbian priest’s journey through the trauma of surviving a mass shooting that kills everyone else in the community choir she directs. Despite the darkness of the subject matter, the play is ultimately redemptive. The cast involves two actors and a choir – a different choir every night. Singers are required to learn the music and discouraged from reading or seeing the play in advance. The first ‘practice’ with the actors comes an hour before the audience arrives.

It’s unnerving, to say the least.

“You’re not supposed to act,” Richard Wolfe, the director, told us. “We want you to focus on the performance on stage just like the audience. You’re a kind of Greek chorus.”

Fair enough. I’m certainly no actor; in fact I was so mesmerized by the play, I didn’t even realize until the last scene that I’d been on the edge of my chair the whole night. Luisa Jojic as Claire, and Douglas Ennenberg as the Boy were riveting. Doug Ennenberg, of course, is one of UCV’s own, but I doubt any of us was prepared for the sense of menace he exuded, or  his extraordinary and raw physicality. He also portrayed a psychiatrist, the Boy’s father, a school friend, Claire’s partner, and a politician, shifting easily from one character to another. Luisa Jojic, a veteran actor from Bard on the Beach, was brilliant as the anguished survivor, a priest who has lost her faith, and is searching fruitlessly for answers. Under the supervision of Mishelle Cuttler, the production’s music director, we sang our own opening number and the seven songs that are part of the play on cue. In the last scene, we moved out and filled the stage to sing directly to the audience, ‘We’re All Here’, a community choir, participants and observers both. I teared up. It was an extraordinary night and a wonderful privilege.

Now I need to go back and see another night with a different choir.

The Events plays in the Russian Hall until January 28 as a part of Vancouver’s Push Festival.

Tickets click here. Note opportunity to volunteer and see for free.

A list of the choirs can be found here.