It’s been a busy Christmas season for the Yellow Point Singers.
Earlier this month, the community choir performed concerts at Oceanview Community Church in Ladysmith and at the Nanaimo Ecumenical Centre, and they also sang for seniors at Lodge on 4th in Ladysmith and at Wexford Lodge in Nanaimo.
This season, the Yellow Point Singers have welcomed four new members.
Gwen Bruce-Houle is from Newfoundland, where singing was part of her daily life.
She read about Yellow Point Singers on the Nanaimo Sings! website and felt immediately welcome at her first rehearsal.
“It’s great to find a group that take the music seriously yet are themselves so relaxed,” she said in a press release.
Ronda Seeley sang with the Girl Guides and in high school choirs when she was young but then only used her singing voice to sing to her children, until her mother noticed an article about Yellow Point Singers in the local newspaper and taped the article to Seeley’s fridge, encouraging her to join the choir and to sing again.
“It’s hard to feel sad or angry when you’re at practice,” she said. “You always leave rehearsals with a smile.”
Wayne Kaye claims not to have sung in public since he was in elementary school, but the Ladysmith resident has a new-found love of singing, and his fellow tenors are very happy to have him join their ranks.
For Bruce Forward, finding Yellow Point Singers was a continuation of a lifetime of singing with a number of musical groups. He began as a child in church choirs and then spent over 40 years with the Rotary Community Choir in Prince Rupert, where he crossed paths with Doug Roszmann — the current director of Yellow Point Singers — many years ago when they each worked with different community choirs but came together for the Northwest Music Festival held each year in Smithers, B.C.
Forward and his wife moved to Nanaimo earlier this year, and he is proud of the fact that Forward Road in Ladysmith is named after his grandfather, who was a respected accountant for the local coal mines in the early 1900s.
Yellow Point Singers began in 1997. Today, it is a non-audition community choir with sopranos, tenors, altos and basses.
Singers travel into Cedar from Nanaimo, Cassidy, Yellowpoint, Ladysmith, Saltair, Chemainus and Duncan.
The choir meets weekly on Wednesday evenings at Cedar Community Secondary School. Yellow Point Singers performs for community events, and hosts two concerts annually at Christmas and in early May.
“Audiences at Yellow Point Singers’ concerts can always be assured of a warm welcome, an interesting selection of music from a variety of sources, presented with enthusiasm and enjoyment,” the choir states in a press release.
Anyone who feels the pull of the music and would like to join Yellow Point Singers is encouraged to speak to one of the choir members or contact the choir co-managers at 250-591-1170 or 250-245-3727.