The Flin Flon Community Choir has a very exciting weekend coming up on May 28 and 29. I realize that big weekends for this choir tend to happen with some regularity, but this one is really special.
You may already know that the Flin Flon Community Choir is headed to New York City for the third time, in June 2016, to sing in Carnegie Hall.
This will be their second time in that venue; the first was in 2002 when they joined a massed Canadian choir to sing “Celtic Mass for the Sea” by East Coast composer Scott MacMillan.
On Dec. 1, 2013 the choir sang “Messiah Refreshed” in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Centre with a massed international choir that included choristers from Singapore and Australia.
The sold-out concert was touted in BBC Magazine as the “Number One Christmas Event in North America.” It was very exciting for the choir to sing with 300 other voices, with a full symphony orchestra, beautiful soloists and a stellar conductor to keep everyone in tune and on course.
That trip to New York City was arranged through Distinguished Concerts International of New York (DCINY), and the maestro was Dr. Jonathan Griffith.
Dr. Griffith is the co-founder, artistic director and principal conductor of DCINY. He has earned an international reputation since making his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall in 1989. He has performed over 65 times at both Carnegie and Lincoln Centre in the intervening years, as well as in Spain, the Czech Republic and Poland.
In 2014, Dr. Griffith won the American Prize in Conducting, professional orchestra division. All in all, he has had an incredibly distinguished career.
And now for the new: he is coming to Flin Flon Saturday and Sunday, May 28 and 29 to work with the Flin Flon Community Choir and prepare them to sing for you.
During the afternoon of Sunday, May 29, the maestro will conduct the choir during act two of the 20th anniversary concert. The choir will sing “Lux Aeterna” by American composer Morten Lauridsen, the very same piece they will perform in New York, with the very same conductor. How lucky are we?
The first act of the 20th anniversary concert will feature local favourites and some fabulous performers who have since moved on, performing songs from the roles we have come to love over 20 years of musical theatre with Mark and Crystal Kolt at the helm.
Tickets are on sale now at the usual outlets. The performance is at the RH Channing Auditorium and it is an afternoon show. Get your tickets now!
Calendar changes
The Flin Flon Arts Council has changed its performance and exhibit year to better correspond with other Manitoba Arts organizations. The season now officially begins June 1 and runs to May 30.
We are benefitting this year because the first concert is set for Friday, June 24. It will feature country and western singer-songwriter Codie Prevost. His first two albums were recorded in Nashville and have won Saskatchewan Country Music Awards.
Prevost will perform at the RH Channing Auditorium at 7:30 pm. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, June 1.
The second show of the 2016-17 season is Everything Fitz, the family of fiddlers and step dancers who entertained at the Showcase Conference in Flin Flon last October. They were wonderful in that 20-minute preview and will be fantastic in their full show. The date for Everything Fitz is Friday, Oct. 17.
Next we have the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Professional School performing at the RH Channing Auditorium on Nov. 22. This incredible group of young people has been dancing full-time for eight years and are ready to assume their professional careers. They will be amazing.
The last show of 2016 will the Flin Flon Community Choir Christmas Spectacular with special guest Jennifer Hanson, all the way from Marietta, Georgia.
Many of you know just how great Jennifer sounds, and the FFCC are the greatest backup singers a girl could ask for. This will be a special performance. It is scheduled for Dec. 17 at RH Channing Auditorium.
Next year will offer performances from the Ukrainian Dance Ensemble in January 2017, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in February and the FFCC musical – as yet to be determined – in May.
When you add in Culture Days, Ham Sandwich Theatre presentations and the Central Canada Film Group, it’s shaping up to be a banner year for the arts in
Flin Flon.
