Desert Sounds A Cappella+
45 Year “Sapphire” Anniversary and 2024 Holiday Season
Desert Sounds embraces the holiday season, since it is a time for celebrating traditions – especially singing carols and other seasonal songs.
Our successful season kicked off with the Royal Inland Hospital Craft Fair, held at Sandman Centre Coliseum, where we secured a table to sing and promote our chorus on Nov. 3rd. This was followed by singing at a local retirement luncheon, and again at a local retirement facility. Our annual Christmas Concert, “Christmas with a Twist”, held on Dec. 10th was our most successful event of the season. This year marked our 45 year “SapphireSaphire” anniversary, so we incorporated the sapphire theme into our Christmas show. Admission was by donation and included raffle baskets, 50-50 draw, and a bake sale. It was a full-house and a great fundraiser. The mild weather worked in our favour to bring people out to the concert.
Following that was an invitation to sing carols at the Sunpeaks Village Ski Resort. We spent the afternoon in the village, followed by dinner and then another performance at a private event at the Grand Hotel in Sunpeaks.
We finished up our busy December with a performance at the “Choral Rhapsody of Christmas” – a choral concert organized by the City of Kamloops that is held at the Sagebrush Theatre. 11 local community choirs participated in this fundraiser for the local food bank.
These performances have garnered attention from a few attendees, who have been joining us at rehearsals. This has also been one of our best fundraising seasons, and it was thanks to our members who were willing to seek out these opportunities, our friends and family members who volunteered to help, our leaders who facilitated the planning and execution, as well most of us making ourselves available to perform.
We were so busy in December, that we had to postpone our chorus Christmas social to January. And with 3 more new members, we are returning to our pre-pandemic numbers – yay! Now we look forward to an exciting Spring 2025 season, as we prepare to participate in the Kamloops Festival of Performing Arts, and to be “Unstoppable” at the Region 26 Convention in Surrey, B.C.
Submitted by Janice Caravan
Desert Sounds A Cappella+
Find us at www.dsaplus.ca
Email: vibrantvocalizer@gmail.com
