Revv52 Blog

A True Bridge to Cross

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:26:00 GMT

Last night a number of us from Revv52 participated in the annual Black History Month concert at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. This is the fifth year the hosts and organizers of this wonderful event have extended an invite to us, and one that many of us consider a highlight of our singing year.

The three-hour concert, with a theme of "Bridging the Gap", featured singing groups from Calgary and area celebrating and performing a wide range of gospel music. Children as young as 7 and seniors performed on stage - often together - to celebrate their rich African-American history. Thoughtful moments were shared, with the host speaking about the most important milestones for each of the groups. Martin Luther King's "I Had A Dream" was a popular choice, but the one we enjoyed the most was "tonight is a rich milestone, as we gather together to sing our songs".

Revv52 is abundantly a "white" choir, however we have our own diversity within us. Our membership includes two french Canadians, a Scottish lass, an Asian, and many of European descent. But for our group to be included these many years to help 'bridge' and celebrate Black History Month is truly an honor for us. We take this celebration very seriously, respecting the style of the music and the meaning of the songs.

Although we had sung "Bridge Over Troubled Water" a few years back in front of the same audience, we felt it was such an appropriate and vibrant song for the evening. Each of us has a personal memory of when we were in need, when we needed to reach out to another for support and friendship. We did our best last night to extend that feeling to the enthusiastic audience. We finished with "We Shall Overcome", an ode by Pete Seeger that speaks to perseverance and overcoming challenge. Later, another choir sang the same song but with a completely different style and feel - what a terrific anthem to celebrate the evening!

Music brings people together as we all know. To watch it in action, however, is inspiring. At the end of the concert, over 100 participants - black, white, Asian ... everyone - sang together as a mass choir to the brilliant "It Is Well", a song written over a hundred years ago by a man who had lost everything - but knew he could live on. As we walked off the stage, arm in arm and together, we all felt we had bridged that gap a little more.

Feeling the Greenwich Spirit

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:38:00 GMT

Washington Square was recreated over three nights in two cities over the last eight days. After the rehearsals, the workshops, band practice, cue-to-cue rehearsals and what seemed like endless last-minute refining, the first series of concerts in our dedication to the Village has come and gone.

Friday and Saturday of last weekend over 1500 people came together in Calgary to listen to the lasting music created by an eclectic group of musicians over 50 years ago. Last night, we loaded the crew on a bus and battled the winter roads to sing to a hundreds of music lovers in Fort Saskatchewan. There was obvious excitement by everyone - the band members who had been working on their personal interpretations, the singers who wanted to unleash their voices to the rafters, the crew who had tediously worked through every last detail to the last possible minute. The ones who mattered the most, however, were the audience - those who knew the work of our team intimately and had sacrificed to help us deliver our show; and those who never had heard of us and were curious about what the buzz was all about.

By any measure, we're thrilled about what we've just finished. Our tight little group of fifty is even tighter now. We've made people laugh and smile, dance a few moves from the 60's, shed a couple of tears and we even tingled a few spines. But the real story from the last 8 days is if we truly delivered to the music. How can we possibly know? Music is such a personal thing - music styles and preferences vary, our own meanings of songs change from year to year, the interpretations we do of the originals are different from concert to concert. There is never a right answer in this - we just want to be honest with what we're singing and hopefully let the music take care of itself.

A lot of people came together to listen to music from the Village because it's familiar, and it has been special to them at some point in their lives. The artists who gathered together fifty years ago wanted their music to mean something, and to inspire people to change the world. The fifty voices of Revv52 know the power of this music - today we each feel better about our lives because these songs brought all of us - our fans, our audience, and each other - together.

A season of Purpose

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:55:00 GMT

All of the individual practice, the sectionals, the rehearsals, the meetings, the creative sessions, the supplier negotiations, the planning, the wardrobe creation, the staging, the lighting design, the sound design, more planning - all this activity is coming together for the start in three weeks of Revv52's 2011 season!

This season, more than any other, will truly manifest what Revv52 is all about - to bring energy and lift the spirit. The hard work of everyone, from our membership to our Artistic Director, our suppliers and all of those who have lent a guiding hand, has evolved into a production that we will be very proud of. It has brought our team closer together, old and new members alike, with a strong sense of purpose to soon delight our audiences with brilliant music from a time and a place that was magical.

In his book Purpose: the Starting Point of Great Companies, Nikos Mourkogiannis writes that teams take the next step together when their purpose becomes real in the actions they do every day. Purpose is a strong word, much more so than Vision or Goal, as it implies not only direction but strength and perserverance. Revv52 has felt its purpose emerge this season - the dedication of the membership, the focus on quality, the attention to detail is all much higher than we've ever achieved before. From the creative people to the pragmatists, from our suppliers to our membership - all of us have come together to stage concerts that will truly lift the spirit.

More rehearsals follow, and more time, energy and emotion will be spent through the next three weeks perfecting every nuance of the shows. From a collection of individuals loving music to a team, and from a team working together to a team working together with purpose, Revv52 has evolved and our 2011 season is shaping up to be our best.

Some gems for the audience

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:56:00 GMT

We've had the opportunity now to read through over 25 songs for our new concert series in January/February 2011, featuring the artists that got part of their start in the community of Greenwich Village, NY.

The good news is that our group is reading better and better every season, and what we heard the last couple of rehearsals is sounding like some very good material. The great news is that, as usual, there are a couple of gems - a perfect storm (if you will) of a song, an arrangement, a set of emotions and just the right tones and styling that should make any of the songwriters nod their heads with a smile.

There are plenty of ways to perform a song, and as a choir our challenge is to be true to what the songwriter envisioned without going "harmony heavy" or singing the whole song in unison. A good arranger understands the song deeply, and arranges appropriately. But, an arrangement can only go so far - a group has to make that arrangement unique and customized to their strengths and their unique vocal abilities. The songs we're looking to do seem to have a nice balance for us - enough of a structure to get us going, but enough flexibility to make the song our own.

The next few weeks will be spent mastering the parts in sectional, and then bringing the group together to learn how to phrase and style. We have new members this year with unique talents of their own, so we need to hear more from them and see what we can do to put some finish on our work. We have a great balance of men and women this year - almost a perfect balance - so the options we have to craft the songs our way are many.

Murray Ord stopped by yesterday too - he is producing our show. His movie background has already generated some neat staging ideas and we're working those through.

So far, so good!

Track our updates automatically!

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:09:00 GMT

Something new today with our website, and specifically with our Revv52 Blog.

For those who frequent social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter you can now subscribe to the Revv52 pages on these sites by clicking on the Revv52 home page, and clicking on any of the icons on the top right of the page.

More importantly, if you wish to follow our blog automatically, we have set up an RSS feed for our blog posts so you can easily stay current. Just click on the RSS icon on our home page and click to accept our site as a feed. If you have RSS feeds enabled in your email program, the updates will show up automatically. Or, you can use some of the more popular Blog Readers (such as Google) and have our blog (and others you're interested in) consolidated into one viewer. It'll save you a lot of time, instead of navigating to each site.

Revv52 likes to stay current with the music, and provide our audiences with a unique concert experience through the blending of voices and instruments in ways that are rarely seen and heard. We're pushing the boundaries of choral music! Now, with our updates to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and our RSS feed we can now provide you with many outlets to experience our recorded music and keep up to date with what we're doing.

Have fun and enjoy our interconnected world!

Off we go to Greenwich!

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 22:06:00 GMT

Our season officially started last evening with our first rehearsal. We had a full house, and had a chance to read through the new music selections for the upcoming concert in January. Brian was very impressed with the way the group was sight-reading - it could have been some of the instruction from Trevor Waters before the rehearsal at our inaugural workshop for the year.

We managed to make it through 75% of the music we're going to be doing, and the energy and enthusiasm about the selections were both very high. Deke Sharon, who has made a name for himself as an arranger for the hit TV series "Sing Off" has provided us with another great chart, this one for the popular Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. There are some new twists to some classic songs as well, such as Dylan's Blowin' In the Wind. With another 8 charts to read through next week, we can start the process of paring down the selections to the best ones for our sound this year.

We have some new members this year too! Some really nice folks have joined us with both excellent voices and attitudes. They'll be well supported by veteran members of our group (did you know Jacquie Shand has now been 36 years with our group?!). We're delighted they were able to survive the auditions and we're looking forward to working closely with them right away.

A few weeks of sectionals are coming up to nail down the notes, then it's off to style school with Brian Farrell. Murray Ord - the co-producer of some great flicks that were filmed in Calgary like Brokeback Mountain and The Assassination of Jesse James will be stopping in soon to talk about how he is going to package our show. Very exciting!

All in all, off to a great start!

Off to a great start!

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:42:00 GMT

The new season is now in full swing and as we bid goodbye to some familiar faces, we welcome our new members to this exciting season! We are really pushing the limits this year with some fabulous music by renowned singing groups such as the REAL Group and the Swingle Singers, some outstanding vocal composers such as Bobby McFerrin (yes, we're doing "Don't Worry, Be Happy") and some great rock groups including Toto and Queen.

But, we're really going all out with the introduction of body percussion to our repertoire. Whether on its own merit as a composition depicting a horse race, or as a sound effect of a car door opening and closing, we promise some nice surprises for our audience with sounds you wouldn't normally hear from a group of singers like Revv52.

We've also got something really BIG in the works for the spring - stay tuned, we're working hard to make sure you're well entertained! Keep an eye on our blog over the next coming weeks - our Artistic Director Brian Farrell will be posting for us and providing insights into the music we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it and our progress as we go along. We love the challenge!

Wanna join our Revvolution?

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Wanna join our Revvolution?

That's right! We are looking for singers just like you!

We are looking for people with a passion for music, a love of singing and an insatiable appettite for creative adventures.

See where Revv52 can take you!

If you are interested in auditioning for your Calgary choir please call 403.816.8865 or email your inquiry to info@revv52.com.

What are you waiting for?

Welcome to Revv52.com

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Welcome to Revv52.com

I hope everyone likes the new web design. We are very excited about the new look as it really speaks to the energy and vitality of our group.

We are ready to revv it up and blow you away with another great season of choral music Revv 52 style.

We have not spared any time and wev've dived directly into the music for our winter concert. It's pretty exciting. With a kickin' song selection and some amazing musicians and soloists it's sure to be a concert like none other.

Stayed tuned as the season unravels, we will update this site as much as possible.

Please feel free to make comments here.

This blog is for choir members and Revv 52 lovers alike!

Cheers!