|The Church|

        My name is Travis Boudreau, as you may already know,  and I am the founder and director of a growing musical group based out of the Gospel Halls of PEI named “The Church”. Formally we are a ‘choral ensemble’ but in essence we are a group of young Island Christians aiming to reach Island youth with music; though we are not strictly voice, I will refer to this as a ‘choir’ for the purpose of this post. The forming of this choir began in April of this year with collaboration between Brenna Thompson of Grace Christian School and myself, with a single goal: to spread the Gospel to the youth here - close to home - on PEI. 

        ‘The Church' is a collection of musically-inclined Gospel Hall Christian youth (ages 13-25) coming together to:

     1. Sing, and play (piano, acoustic guitar, drums and strings) traditional hymns and contemporary (modern) Christian music

     2. Record a CD/ Digital copy of our music along with one or several messages spread through the tracks
    
     3. Spread gospel through music, by distributing and making available the copies, free of charge.

     Not only are we enjoying praising God with the singing and playing of music but we are also trying to give people our age an alternative to turning on their radio to secular music. The Music is the attraction but The Message is the key. With a changing society we hope that this method of outreach can have a real impact on our generation.

      The above was a brief summary of the formal members invitation for the newly founded choral group, The Church. The group has a goal of spending this summer practicing, rehearsing and recording several Christians praise and worship songs to give away free of charge. So far we have things going in the right direction and we have a full members list along with instrumentation. Our first rehearsal will be the second last or last weekend in June, the recording, on the other hand, will take place at the Steel Recital Hall on the UPEI campus later in August.

      Thus far we have no means of financial support and are solely holding water by personal and corporate donations. If you would like to know more of the groups progress or get biweekly updates on what has been happening - please e-mail me at ttboudreau@upei.ca with your requests/questions.

        I would be more than happy to hear of  your support financially or otherwise and update you on our work here in PEI.






Also check us out on Facebook - group page oppening June 15 2012.

(From left to right) Noah MacDougall, Amy Wilson, Allison Kelly, Brittany Banks, & Andrew Murray

            As the UPEI Music Dept. 2011-2012 year ends, the journey for five young music students begins. Above pictured are this year's graduating music class. Proud and honored to have called UPEI there home for the past four years. Congratulations to them and I wish them well and all the best on their journey.

Concerts, concerts, and more concerts

       Hello again, today's 'casualness', if such a word exists, is due to my relief that the 2012 UPEI year has drawn to a close. On the other hand of that relief is my disappointment that our music making has come to an end. This past March concluded the concert and recital series for the school year with a 'weekend of music'.

Saxophone players warming up before 
a Wind Symphony rehearsal. 

          Firstly, we opened the weekend of music with the UPEI Wind Symphony - Thursday, March 29th at 7:30 pm - playing several contemporary wind band pieces such as "Fireflies", "To Fly with Wings",  & "Epiphanies". The performance, which was received with a standing ovation, was the realization of music that we had been preparing since the beginning of January. The crowd, as those that were there can attest, was exited about the music making but also thrown about by several intense pieces. "Echo of God's Laughter" was the first of those, using a music technique called mensuration cannon: a repetition of a musical idea at different length and in different voices. "Echo of God's laughter", or "Echo" for short (as we called it) was a piece that created an intensifying,  everlasting (as it seemed) meditative mood that the entire room could feel. Along with that was the infamous "Epiphanies". This piece not only caused you to think about the music but may also have made you cringe. This piece was uniquely composed in tritones  or the 'devil's interval' as it was once known. The music is a continual suspense with the release denied to the listener until the last 10 measures or so. Even though there was no 'pièce de résistance' for this concert the whole evening was a success and well received both by the audience and the musicians.

Andrea Walker, Hannah Rollwage, Olivia Barnes
Rebecca Apps and Jillian Clow singing "I Can't Say No."

            Secondly, we filled the recital hall for the Saturday performance of “Mainly Musical Theater” by the UPEI Concert Choir. Performing classics such as "Climb Every Mountain" from Sound of Music, & "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning", "Farmer and the Cowman", "I Can’t Say No", and "Oklahoma" from Oklahoma. The performance was also well attended and received by those that came to the Steele Recital Hall on the UPEI campus. Along with us was the Regazzi and Regazze, junior and senior choirs directed by Sung-Ha Shin-Bouey, vocal director at UPEI. The night of music created quite a stir in the community and left the audience wanting to hear more. 

The Jazz Band and Percussion Ensemble rehearsing
before the Tuesday night conert.

          Just a skip and hop away was the concluding performance of the UPEI Jazz Ensemble, on Tuesday, April 3rd. The night was one full of excitement and intrigue. This season the Jazz ensemble worked hand in hand with some of the vocal students of the UPEI music department to put together a 'Cabaret' of sort. (Performances by Hannah Rollwage Noah MacDougall, and Brittany Banks). The night ended with a bang with performances of "Foggy Day", "Satin Doll", "Harlem Nocturne", and "Blackbird" and also an appearance of the UPEI Percussion Ensemble with "St. Thomas". (In my next post will be several recording of the night's performance)


        All in all - the end of March and start of April were very musical here on the UPEI campus, though the concerts were close together, all of our rehearsing and practice were just as much fun as the final realization of the music Thursday, Saturday and Tuesday night. Thanks for your support and check out next years concert series at the Music branch of UPEI.ca .    Here - UPEI.ca


        Sadly, these performances were some of the last for four outstanding members: Alison Kelly (percussion), Nicole Green (Piano), Spencer Matheson (French Horn), and Sarah McCormick (Saxophone).