It was our first time singing at Xavier Mission. It was also my first time seeing a soup kitchen. To be honest, I had prepared myself for a slightly shabby place and was quite impressed by how pretty the soup kitchen hall was. It had a beautiful closed cloister style architecture going for it (ok, I probably got that all wrong) and could seat more than 200 people. Later Soprano Evelyn, who had organized today’s outreach, told me that the soup kitchen hall also served as her son’s school cafeteria. It was all run by the Church of St Francis Xavier.
We started our vocal warm ups in a little lobby at the entrance of the hall and then went on stage to perform. There was more than a 100 people seated, all busy working their way through their meal, not really noticing us. I had the disconcerting feeling that they had big problems to worry about and had no time for a bunch of people who sang for a bit and went back to their cushy lives. But then people started forming a line to be served right in front of us. As each of them passed by, our singing made them turn to us and smile. There were claps of encouragement, in different parts of the hall, from people who had finished eating.
We debuted Charlie Chaplin's Smile and we sounded beautiful. I was concentrating on my notation to make sure I got the part down perfectly and then I looked up and saw a man, sitting right in front, in tears. It was difficult not to get choked up myself watching him so I had to stop singing and look away before I could resume. Luckily there were enough and more sopranos ! Alto Carrie, says that he came up to her after the concert and told her he enjoyed the show and thanked us all for coming with a "Bless you”. And that makes singing with Peace of Heart, the joy that it is.
-Peace of Heart Choir Singer
It has become a tradition for a member of POHC to do a post-concert write-up. It started when our Sign-up Coordinator began emailing her summaries to the other members in order to entice newer members to sign-up to sing at community concerts held early in the season. It didn’t take long for Concert Write-ups to become greatly anticipated amongst our members, so we share them here in hopes that you’ll join us at a future concert