Saturday, April 27, 2019 ~ SOOKE
by Mary P Brooke, West Shore Voice News
“This will be a big, loud, emotional show,” says Sooke Community Choir artistic director Bruce Ruddell.
“The #modernlove concert title is cheeky. It’s meant to be very contemporary, as the music is too,” he told West Shore Voice News this week.
“The whole program is based around the chaos of relationships… good, bad and indifferent. They’re all big hits, amazing arrangements,” says Ruddell. He laments a bit about “how hard it is to find really good arrangements these days – publishers are all owned by huge companies like Disney… they get rid of the music, so it’s hard to find”.
“There’s a growing number of young people in the choir now. They brought me pieces of music that I wasn’t really cognisant of. We’re doing pieces like A Thousand Miles, Count on Me and Uptown Funk (Bruno Mars), and Love Shack (B52s). “It’s been like holding back horses,” says Ruddell about the enthusiasm of his 60 or so singers.
Great solos and adding a musician are highlights for this season’s concert. Working alongside the choir’s longtime pianist Kathy Russell will be Jeff Poytner who covers a range with sax, keyboard, and horns. And with full-on lighting, it’ll be a show.
“There’s a reason why pop music is popular – it touches people, both lyric and music touch you in ways that last your whole life in a way,” says Ruddell who is a member of the Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Playwrights Guild of Canada.
The #modernlove concerts in Sooke will be performed on Friday May 3 and Saturday May 4 at 7:30 pm, and Sunday May 5 at 2 pm – all of those at Sooke Community Hall, 2037 Shields Road. Tickets are available at Shoppers Sooke, The Stick and at eventbrite.com .
Taking a bit of a road trip — on Mother’s Day weekend the choir will perform in Parksville at 3 pm on Saturday May 11 at St Anne’s St Edmund’s Anglican Church, 407 Wembley Road (tickets $20 at the door).
www.sookecommunitychoir.com
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This article was first published on page 3 in the April 19, 2019 print-PDF edition of West Shore Voice News.
