World on a String – Artistic Director Notes
Thank you for joining us as we celebrate good times at our 70th Anniversary show, World on a String – an Orchestral Rock and Pop Extravaganza.
Revv52 has come a long way since our founding in 1952 when we first performed a classical concert to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd as the Calgary Choral Society. In 2008 we rebranded as Revv52 with a new vision to perform popular music and fuse a variety of creative elements to produce performances that entertain and open the hearts and minds of audiences everywhere. The last three years have seen us take big strides towards the fulfilment of our vision.
We are excited to finally return to the Bella Concert Hall and are eager to share our new and exciting sound with you. What’s new about our sound? One of my artistic goals was to put this talented group on individual handheld wireless microphones. We want audiences to appreciate the quiet nuance of a “hum” or “ooh” and feel the power of a loud full-bodied chorus. Our band can play the songs the way they were intended, without scaling back the sound. We are now one of only two large vocal groups in the world to be on individual microphones and the first to be on wireless microphones. This lets us create a very dynamic show. A tremendous thank you to our sustaining donors, the Calgary Foundation, Calgary Arts Development, Alberta Foundation for the Arts and our volunteer board of directors for believing in this vision and bringing it to fruition.
We have used the last three years to strengthen our individual members through private vocal coaching and small group performances. To that end, you will see more featured performers in this show than any other Revv52 show and an understudy show on Friday with a new cast of featured members on every song. We also performed two small concerts at the National Music Centre, Our Own Thing and Game Changers, performed a ten-show outdoor concert called Times Like These, released two albums on streaming services and released 27 music videos that have garnered over 700,000 views – enough to fill this concert hall 2152 times! Through these endeavours we introduced ourselves to many new fans in Calgary and broadened our audience both nationally and internationally. We could not have done this without the hard work and dedication of our members, and are grateful for the continued support of you, our incredible audience.
This has been a challenging time for everyone, but we are grateful for the opportunity to come together and share our music with you again. Thank you for being with us on this journey. Your support means so much to us. We hope you enjoy World on a String.
Performance Song List
- Celebration3:25
- Burnin' Love3:25
- Georgia on my Mind3:25
- Bitter Sweet Symphony3:25
- Angels3:25
- Coldplay Medley3:25
- You Raise Me Up
- Writing's on the Wall
- Sound of Silence
- Seven Bridges Road
- Fanfare for the Common Child
- Skyfall
- Both Sides Now
- Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
- Unforgettable
- The Reason
- Who Wants to Live Forever
- Wake Me Up
- Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me