Eastwood Choir

I guess some loyal visitors of my blog knew that currently I am serving at First Baptist Church of Eastwood.
One part of the ministry is directing a choir; I always love working with choir.
Eastwood choir is a little bit different with any choirs that I've ever handled before. Usually I handle Youth or adult choir; but Eastwood choir can be categorized as a Senior Adult Choir - well not really-really senior, but I guess the age are above 50 year old.
We have 10 members in the choir: 5 Sopranos, 2 Altos, 2 Tenors, and 1 Bass. Yeah, it's quite a small number - but... they have BIG voices. When I first visited their choir rehearsal, I was surprised on how "big voice" they had.

One little weakness; they don't really read music - they learn by listening and memorizing the notes and songs. So I really have to adjust and choose suitable musics for them to sing.

Ok, the purpose of this posting is to tell you the interesting event that just happened this past week with the choir.

We had been preparing a song, the hymn arrangement of Onward Christian Soldiers (Maju Laskar Kristen); maybe for about 2 months (or more).I had to trim a lot of difficult parts for them to be able to sing this hymn arrangment.

The first time I introduced the score to them; some of them were complained; too difficult, too high - but actually the reason it became a barrier was they had to read the notes. But well, they tried so hard; even they always persuaded me, trying to bargain if I would change my mind to cancel this music... hahaha.. NO WAY ! Infact, I have faith that they can sing it well.

So last week was the "D" day... and you know what; the rumour had spreaded to the whole church that Choir were gonna sing a hard piece that week. So the congregation seemed very curious, and the choir members also curios weather they would deliver the song well. To shorten the story: Yeaaah.. they did it.. VERY WELL.. the congregation even gave them standing ovation... hahaha... it has never happened before; I really hope this can boost up the confidence level of the choir; and I know this Onward Christian Soldiers hymn will never be the same for the choir members - Yes, with the CROSS of Jesus, we can conquer the "WAR".. !! :)