Arts and Entertainment

The Achill Choral Society to perform a ‘Spring Mix’ at Westminster United Church

April 24, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Coming up this weekend, at Westminster United Church on Sunday at 3:30 pm , April 27, the Achill Coral Society will be performing their Spring Mix concert – an afternoon delight of uplifting music, including a Jazz Mass that includes a Jazz Trio, with Nancy Dettbarn accompanying on piano.

“There is lots of music, this is a spring mix,” declared Shawn Grenke, Artistic Director and conductor of the choir.

He was effervescent about the upcoming concert’s content during our recent telephone interview.

He reported the choir has been doing well. Since Covid, there has been increase of forty to fifty percent new members. Grenke attributed this to several choirs in the area having closed and new members have come from them. The choir’s membership stands now at about seventy-five people.

“The choir is sounding good and we’re having fun,” he commented.

This past winter’s heavy weather caused lots of rehearsals to be missed but the lessons learned over Covid stood them well, with bi-weekly home rehearsals offered remotely as needed.

Grenke told the Citizen, “This is the most eclectic concert we have ever done. In the past we’ve done a major choral work, so, we thought to do something different – a Jazz Mass.”

A Jazz Mass is a challenge, as he explained. There are so many independent lines. Jazz forces you to listen a bit more and this novel inclusion in an Achill concert has shaped the rest of the program.

Jazz in choral music is exceptional and the Mass is a work Grenke recorded years ago. He has always wanted to do the SATB version as novel and interesting and we are invited to join in this musical joy.

The concert is doing music from Into The Woods. This is something the choir has not done for a while and is fun and up- beat, which Grenke reckons, “Given today, this is buoying us up.”

Shifting the mood slightly is Mendelssohn’s Grant Us Peace: of the world; the hope. Come to the concert, he encouraged us, and enjoy a hour and a half of music; let the music speak for itself, which our world needs.

As Artistic Director, Grenke has been conducting the Achill Choral Society for seven to eight years but he has been playing for them since 2005. So, a twenty-year relationship.

‘It’s crazy to think that,” said he, as he thought about it and he reflected, “Achill, I don’t think a lot has changed.”

People want community; the choir has started doing social time every other Wednesday before rehearsal. They are a great body was his praise, so professional with really good organization. Anyone wanting to join the choir can apply on the website.

They are done until the fall and their first rehearsal at Westminster is back on Sept 10. This is generally an adult choir, he mentioned but new members are welcomed, “as long as you have a heart beat,” he quipped.

Coming to this concert this Sunday at 3:30, expect something new and unique.

Keeping with the unusual in this wonderful concert, for both the choir and their audience, they will sing High Flight. This is a poem written by eighteen-year -old, John G. McGee. McGee was studying in the US when World War II began. He signed up to train as a pilot, training in Canada and the UK. After being assigned to a high-altitude training flight in a Spitfire, he wrote this poem to his mother. McGee died during the war. This poem is so wonderful, we include it here:

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds – done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, nor even eagle flew –

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John G. Magee, Jr.

For tickets to this splendid concert, go to www.Achill.ca or drop in to BookLore, Credit Creek Village, 121 First Street, Orangeville.

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