The Tisdale Carol Festival may be a long-time tradition, but for Leroy Bader, it was the first time he sang with the Tisdale Men’s Choir.
Bader said he was happy with his performance at the Dec. 11 event at the Maurice Taylor Performing Arts Theatre.
“It was my first time performing with the group and I feel fortunate to be able to be involved with a group of people that are skilled and have done it for while, so it’s a good opportunity to [get] mentored,” he said.
The choir performed along with the Tisdale Lions Community Band, Bjorkdale Choir and other performers from the community.
Lisa Skogsrud, the leader of the men’s choir, said they had a short rehearsal season this year, but everything all came together.
“We did a couple things we’ve done before, our favourites from other years and then we brought in a couple of new pieces. The Dona Nobis Pacem was new for us and we had a good time with that and then Jesus, What a Wonderful Child, we had a lot of fun with that.”
Skogsrud said the choir likes to share its music at Christmastime to an appreciative audience.
“It’s nice to get together and sing when there’s nobody listening but it’s even better we get to share with somebody, when there’s somebody to hear.”
Bader said he was invited to join the choir.
“I enjoy singing, although I’ve never done a lot of it. It was an opportunity to learn a new skill, to socialize with some new people and have fun – and it’s been all of those,” he asid. “It’s just nice in a small community that we have people that will lead things like the men’s choir and share their talents to do that.”
Skogsrud said that invitation extends to anyone else that would like to join the choir, even if they’ve never sang in one before.
Uffe Vors, the conductor of the community band, said he selected the music played this year in October after looking through the band’s several hundred pieces.
“I look through pieces that we have and that we have not played for a while and select what I think would be a good mixture.”
The band then practices them and decides which pieces they like. They agree on a variety of tunes that are fun to play at a skill level they can manage.
Vors said he was pleased with how the event turned out.
“I was delighted there were so many people,” he said. “This is the most people we have had in quite a few years, so that was quite great to see so many here.”
The conductor said he thought the most important thing was the band enjoyed themselves and look like they’ll want to play again after New Year’s.
“There might be some imperfections here and there. So what? It’s a community group. We do our best, but we want people to have fun.”
