Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Singing for a cause...

I love to sing... at church, at home, in the truck, by myself, in a choir, with music or acappella, anytime or anywhere... usually it's just BEcause. But last Friday night, I had the privilege of singing FOR A cause! I was involved in the Langley Dessert Theatre that raised funds and support for Matthew's House.

The evening was a huge success... in both monetary and entertainment measures. What an honour to be included in this great event. Esther Froese had the vision for this, and together with her team of volunteers, she pulled off a great event!

Jason Brown, of Revival Arts Studio, was there taking pictures. He gave me permission to use these photos to show you a little bit of what happened at the Dessert Theatre. Steve took some short video clips, too, but I have to figure out how to post those!!

Here are all the photos he took of the evening. He loaded them to flickr. Dessert Theatre.

All photos are by Jason Brown. Thanks for the great pics, Jason, you've captured the evening well!

The Jansen 5 opened the evening with beautiful prelude music. I could listen to this group all day. They were 5 siblings ranging in age from 16 - 22 and they were truly amazing.



The room was decorated beautifully, and the tickets said to wear red in honour of Matthew, so there were splashes of red everywhere. It looked very cool from the stage!

Once the evening started, and the mc welcomed everyone, I was first on stage! I was nervous until I put my first foot on the stage, then I told the nervousness to take a hike and I became "Sister Sarah!" This all started back around Halloween when I put a little 30 second clip of myself on Facebook, singing a song from the Sound of Music. I went as a Nun for Halloween, and thought I'd pull out some old musical favourites. Well... when this fundraiser was being planned, it was remembered by the organizers that I sang as a nun, and a whole act was born. I did an 8 minute routine as Sister Sarah. It was a lot of fun. My sister made this head thing years ago when we were in a group of singers called Sister Act. I kept it purely for dress up purposes, and to make my kids laugh... on Friday I got to make 200 other people laugh, too :) It really was fun, though. And where else can you sing these amazing songs from that old movie?


This is "Uncle Hal." He is quite a character... loves to tell stories and entertained us with thoughts on just about everything, including my favourite, "The Prodigal Son in the Key of F" in which there were so many alliterations with the letter F that it left your head spinning. Clever!

It was quite fun to share a stage with the Canadian Idol finalist Greg Neufeld. He sang twice throughout the evening, and it is obvious that he really feels at home on the stage. Music is clearly his passion, and it was a treat to hear him sing LIVE.


I got to sing as just me, too. The song I sang was "Anyway" by Martina McBride. Dawnelle had put together a powerpoint to play while I sang, and it was beautiful. I think the song really fit with the evening and Matthew's House.


Last Summer, our kids were involved in a project by Revival Arts called Imagine. A collection of photos of children in the area, put together in a keepsake book. It is really beautiful. The book was a big success and Revival Arts is doing another edition. There are only a few spots left, but if you are interested in being part of this project, and helping Matthew's House at the same time (all sitting fees are donated to Matthew's House), please follow this link for more information. IMAGINE kids book.

3 comments:

deWoldeDaily said...

What a great post, Sarah. It looks like it was a fabulous evening. Glad it was a success!

Anonymous said...

Yes...what a great post! g

Christy Gillespie said...

Awesome S!