Island Soul Choir and Music Director Tom Arntzen have yet another amazing collection of songs with this new concert, Glory! As always, our concert will provide you, our audience, with respite from your daily stresses with good vibes and positive energy. Remember, we don’t want or expect you to be a “polite” audience: you are encouraged to sing, dance and shout out to the music, however it moves you!
=0D=0A=The choir will reprise Brian Tate’s arrangement of Can You Get To That, Moma Boyd’s Everything is Gonna Be Alright, the traditional South African song Freedom is Coming, and Carole King’s classic (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman, as well as Tom’s new arrangement of Leadbelly’s Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie. New to the choir’s repertoire are Stevie Wonder’s As; the lively traditional Zambian folk song, Bonse Aba; and Dance with a Stranger made popular by Lake Street Dive and arranged by Karla Mundy (the choir’s former conductor). In addition, the choir will collaborate with our concert guest on Glory (from the movie Selma) that envisions the hopes of glory in overcoming segregation in the U.S., and Rest Assured, a new Gospel song with a funky Bo Diddly beat composed by Tom Arntzen.
=0D=0A=And just who will be our concert guest? The choir is delighted to announce that it will be Marcus Mosely! Marcus is a much-sought-after musician for his wealth of knowledge in Gospel music. Marcus has numerous credits in stage productions and studio work, and was inducted into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2016. Most recently, he was awarded the B.C. Achievement Award and the Mitchell Award of Distinction by the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. He was the artistic director of the Marcus Mosely Chorale from 2011 to 2022, and has since formed the smaller Marcus Mosely Ensemble. He was a founding member of the award-winning roots Gospel trio, The Sojourners; the trio won the Western Canadian Music Awards for Best Contemporary Christian/Gospel Recording in 2011 and Best Spiritual Album of the Year in 2014, and it was nominated for a JUNO in 2010. Marcus leads Gospel workshops across Canada and is a featured performer in Vancouver’s annual Black History Month celebrations.
=0D=0A=Accompanying the choir will be our fav band: Michael Creber on piano, Brent Gubbels on bass, Adam Rohrlick on guitar, and Craig Scott on percussion.
=0D=0A=Island Soul Choir is a community choir in its purest sense. The choir welcomes members from all over Vancouver Island, from Victoria to Port Hardy to Bamfield and Ucluelet, as well as Gabriola, Protection, Salt Spring, Cortes, Lasqueti and Quadra Islands. Members don’t need to have any prior choir experience; they may not even know how to read music — they just need to love to sing. There’s definitely safety in numbers for newcomers, both in-person and online, to find their singing voice within this choir.
=0D=0A=Our long-time partners, NanGo Grannies will once again be selling crafts and baked goods in the theatre lobby before the concert and during the intermission, and all proceeds will be used to support The Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers-to-Grandmothers Campaign. Even after almost two decades since the Campaign’s inception, thousands of grandmothers and “grand/younger-others” are more committed than ever to raise awareness, build solidarity, and mobilize funds for community-based organizations that support African grandmothers and the children in their care who have been orphaned by AIDS. We encourage our audience to take advantage of this opportunity to support this truly worthwhile endeavour.
=0D=0A=We hope to see you there!
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