Vancouver Welsh Mens Choir

VWMC was invited to participate in the annual fundraiser Robbie Burns Dinner hosted by the Regimental Society of the 15th Field Artillery Regiment, Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery. Proceeds of the event will help support Canadian service men and women returning from Afghanistan. The January 28th evening featured performances from VWMC, the Band of the 15th Field Regiment, and the Pipes and Drums of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada ...and of course dinner included the Haggis experience! The venue was a rather fitting one, virtually right under the flightpath of 26 South at YVR, inside the cavernous BCIT Aerospace Centre on Cessna Drive, Richmond. The sound of aircraft juxtaposed with the often humourous, and at times deeply emotional moments of the evening, was a striking reminder of the reality of Canadians putting themselves in harms way halfway around the world. The final notes during the trumpeting of The Last Post were particularly stirring when a jet thundered into the air seemingly right on cue ...adding its own note of farewell to the moment.

Throughout the evening, guests were treated to resounding music and precision marching (hence such a large open venue) from the Band of the 15th Field Regiment, the Seaforth Highlanders, even a small french marching band in period dress. VWMC was backed up (as quietly as possible in the spacious venue) by the 15th Field Band while we sang a couple of numbers with their support. Then we performed a half dozen of our favourites while dinner was being served.

Singing in an aircraft hangar, with some audience members up to 100 feet from the risers was quite a challenge. An interesting aspect of singing acoustically in different venues is the degree of audible feedback we receive from throughout the space. Some venue spaces bounce our sound right back to us and we are able to hear our fellow choristers elsewhere on the risers. We call that a "live" room …it's provides a wonderful confirmation that we're singing well. Some spaces simply absorb most of our sound as we project out and it doesn't come back to us. In these cases, each chorister hears mainly himself …it feels strangely that each of us is singing alone …quite unnerving for individuals whose job it is to harmonize and balance volume within the whole group. Saturday night was an odd mix of both. The huge glass enclosure took our voices, bounced them around a bit, removed some of the high frequencies, then returned a booming low level echo to us on the risers. We could hear ourselves pretty much as a group, but because of the venue size and its reflective qualities, only the boominess came back to us, and significantly delayed from our performance timing. However, Jonathan Quick our Director, led us and David Buchan successfully through the repertoire, earning us an appreciative audience response.