The success of the first coffee house in October made one thing very clear for the church. They liked the idea of new events and a time for fellowship. It was in January that myself, Connie Sabatine and Jeff Barrows sat down with the pastor and proposed our plan to hold a concert in June and follow it with an Italian dinner. Calling it “Italian Night” we would be able to entertain our guests and then provide a delicious home cooked Italian meal.  I knew this combination would be a great fit.

Building off of our success with the Interfaith Choral Festival in November, I had searched for an opportunity for the choir besides the coffee house and singing in church on selected Sunday mornings.   I believe if you want your ensemble to grow and become more mature, you need to find new outlets to perform in and a new audience to sing for.  Stretching yourself out of your comfort zone will definitely do that.  Since we have never sung more than two sections in a row, this opportunity to perform a full concert can only help us become a better choir.  I can now select literature of varying styles ranging from secular to Sacred as well as material that is better suited for a concert as opposed to just a Sunday service.  This is exactly what I did. I chose several songs including “Cantate Domino” which is partially sung in Latin. Although not terribly difficult, it is a good concert song that allows me to teach more advanced musical concepts as well as introducing Latin to our members.

In addition to Cantate Domino, we are performing Instrument of Peace, A Thousandfold, An Irish Blessing, Joshua, Make a Joyful Noise, A Mighty Fortress is our God and The Christ Child is Born will be our Sacred selections.  But, we also have a few non Sacred songs to provide a little fun and they include Bring Him Home from Les Miserables, Stand By Me and the traditional college song Vive L’Amour.  There will also be a special selection sung by Jeff Barrows.

I am definitely proud of the choir and the work they have put in so far to make this concert a success.  Like other church choirs, our membership has a varied level of musical talent with some having music and choral experience to those who this is the first time they have ever sung in a choir.  But, they are developing nicely and working towards my high expectations of them.

The dinner part just fit so nicely into the plans. It does provide a night out for our guests with dinner included.  Plus, it is all for free.  Where can you go in our society today that you can get a good concert and a full dinner all for free?  I am excited to know that many of our guests are not just going to be regular members of the congregation.  We will have family and friends from out of town, those from other churches, and even those who don’t go to church at all.  This is a nice opportunity for anyone who has never been inside our church to meet our members, have a chance to walk through the church and get a feel for who we are and what we stand for.  If opening up our church can even change one persons life for the better, than it is all worth it.

After the concert, I will be the disc jockey for the dinner.  I will be playing many of the great Italian favorites and dinner classics associated with the great country of Italy.  It stands to be a beautiful night for everyone.

I do need to tell you that entrance to both the concert and dinner is by ticket only. You will be only able to get into the dinner by having a ticket. Right now we have very few seats left. If you are interested, please call me and I will try to save you one.  However, if you don’t care about the dinner and just want to come and hear the concert, you can do that.  Just come on in!

If you have any questions or would like to inquire if we still have tickets remaining, please call me at 908-619-4502 and I can give you more information.

In case you are not familiar with the festival, it was started to give local church choirs an opportunity to come together to share their talents with each other all while glorifying the word of the Lord.  It is usually held the Sunday before Thanksgiving. A free will offering is taken which benefits ProJeCt of Easton.  P of E is an interfaith initiative in downtown Easton that offers emergency assistance, a food program, community supportive services, and educational programs to over 5,000 disadvantaged children and adults each year. Information on ProJeCt can be found at http://www.projecteaston.org.   It is a great organization and I am happy to say that this year’s donation from the festival was over $1000.00.  Since it is called an interfaith festival, the choirs come from protestant and Catholic Churches, a Jewish Temple and this year there was a Muslim group that performed.  In addition to The Victory Voices, the festival was represented by the following church choirs:  St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church, First United Church of Christ, Trinity Episcopal Church, Temple Covenant of Peace, Lehigh Dialogue Center, St. John’s UCC of Farmersville, and the host church, St. Jane Frances de Chantal Roman Catholic Church of Easton.  We came together at the end to perform two selections together. They were “I Choose Love” by Mark Miller and “American The Beautiful”.  Having over 100 voices really made the conclusion of the festival sound tremendous.  I Choose Love was written in response to the Charleston, NC church shooting in 2015. A solemn but very emotional piece.

Since this was only our third time performing in public, you would think that we would have a few butterflies. But, this ensemble is a fun group to work with that is down to earth, relaxed and likes to have fun.  We got on stage and knew we were there to sing praise to the Lord and entertain the crowd.  There was no fear or worry, just excitement to be there!  As they stood there in their white shirts and red ties, I couldn’t have been more proud with how well they did.  They were strong, energetic and filled the room with sound.  It was very clear that what came out of the mouths of our musicians was widely enjoyed by the audience.

I was very pleased with this experience and even more happy of how well we did.  I can humbly say that we were a huge success by the way many of our members were treated after the concert.  I could hardly get to the refreshment table without someone stopping to say just how much they enjoyed the group.  I am very Blessed to be the director of the ensemble and thankful that we were able to make a joyful noise to the Lord through our song.

If you want to hear the Victory Voices again, we are singing for the Christmas Eve service at the Bethel Memorial Baptist Church on December 24^th at 6:00pm.   You can find the church at http://bethelmemorialbaptist.org.

Check out some of the video and pictures from the event and our other public performance.