GBCC 50th Anniversary

The 2022-23 season marks the choir’s 50th anniversary! Two exciting fundraisers are planned for 2023: Beer Tasting on January 28 at the Best Western and Trivia Night March 9 at Heartwood Hall. The choir will perform two concerts this season: A Christmas Kitchen Party with Sultans of String, November 26, 2022 at Harmony Centre and The Messiah with soloists and organist Ian Sadler, May 13, 2023 at Georgian Shores United Church.

The Choir was founded in September, 1972, when Professor Herman Dilmore of the University of Western Ontario agreed to set up a community orchestra, which is now The Georgian Bay Symphony. He needed a group of singers to accompany the orchestra in some of the Christmas choruses from Handel’s Messiah. That group of singers eventually became what is known today as the Georgian Bay Concert Choir

To date, the choir has commissioned two works: A Celebration of the Nativity by Keith Bissell, a former Meaford area resident, and People and the Land by Jeff Smallman. The choir performed People and the Land on June 2, 2007 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Owen Sound.

Some major works performed by the choir since its founding include Haydn’s Creation, a fully staged Trial by Jury by Gilbert & Sullivan, Dvorak’s Mass in D with massed choir, Fauré’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s St. John’s Passion, Rutter’s Requiem with the choir of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, and Nancy Telfer’s The Armed Man.

Along with Herman Dilmore, esteemed past directors of the choir include: James Cranney, David Tupper, Glyn Lloyd, Richard Hansen, Henriette Blom, Regan MacNay, Dan Lenz, and presently Norman Reintamm.

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