The Queenston Women’s Chorus celebrates its 20th anniversary this Saturday, April 29, with a spring choral concert at Trillium United Church in St. Catharines.
The concert will include spirituals, some Beatles tunes, songs from movies such as The Greatest Showman and La La Land. and some well-known numbers from popular Broadway musicals.
As a special treat, the 26-member choir will be joined by two past winners of their music scholarships. Both Alexandre Brillon and Emily Draper will be taking solos during the concert.
Brillon just completed his studies in musical theatre at Sheridan College. This summer he will be travelling to Newfoundland to perform in Terra Bruce’s Let’s Dance: The Musical, which celebrates the greatest pop songs of the early 1960s, including It Never Rains in Southern California, I Know a Place and The Peppermint Twist.
Draper’s scholarships were earned at the 2019 and 2020 Niagara Musical Theatre & Voice Festival, where she was named Most Outstanding Musical Theatre Performer by a group of adjudicators.
“I competed in the festival starting when I was 10,” says the Fenwick resident, now 22 years old. “It’s so exciting to get to sing with them this weekend, to be a part of this performance. I hope they’re excited to see me as well.”
Choir conductor Lisa Cosens Brillon is indeed thrilled to welcome both her son Alexandre and Emily back for the show. On Saturday, Draper will be singing Somewhere That’s Green from Little Shop of Horrors.
“She’s so great,” Cosens Brillon says of Draper, who now works in St. Catharines as a hairstylist. “She sang in the past with Oh Canada Eh and with Garden City Productions, and she competed last month again at our festival.”
“I was performing a lot before COVID,” Draper says. “I did Oh Canada Eh’s Canadiana show for its 25th anniversary, and I was in Legally Blonde for Garden City Productions. And in high school at Welland Centennial I was in Bring It On.”
Draper calls herself a musical theatre geek, one who takes every chance she can get to travel and see shows that she loves. During COVID, when performers were left out of work for months, she decided to take a bit of a U-turn and pursue a more stable career. But she holds out hope she will have a chance to get back on the stage more regularly.
“It’s always in the back of my mind,” Draper says, “it’s really important to me. I really love to sing and perform, and that’s why I continue to do festivals. I am sure I will audition again for something soon. I’m always drawn back to theatre because it’s what I love the most.”
Cosens Brillon, who started the Queenston Women’s Choir in 2003, says she actually considered calling it quits in 2021, when the pandemic made it impossible to perform in public and difficult to rehearse at their usual spot at St. Davids Queenston United Church.
“I was hoping we could start rehearsing with masks on, socially distanced,” she tells The Local, “but that didn’t happen. So I put a pause on things. But I had so many emails from members who really missed singing, it gave me support, so I started it up again.”
Singing with each other is about community, adds Cosens Brillon. With membership including women of all ages and from all walks of life, it’s a big part of their social activity.
“Singing has been shown to improve a person’s sense of happiness and well-being,” she says. “You sing with your body, with your soul. It really expresses something from your inner being.”
She lost a few members who decided to retire after the pandemic interruption, so the choir is in a bit of a rebuilding phase.
“We had 36 members at our peak,” she says. “It was hard to fit all of them on the stage at once.”
Besides funding the music scholarships, proceeds from the choir’s performances have gone to support organizations such as Newark Neighbours, the Resource Association for Teens (RAFT), Wellspring Niagara and Nova House.
Part of this weekend’s proceeds will go toward funding a commissioned work that the Queenston Women’s Choir will be collaborating on with a similar women’s choir in Uxbridge.
“They’re also celebrating their 20th anniversary,” she says. “This is something we’ve never done before, so it’s really exciting. Commissioning a work is really expensive, too.”
Tickets for the 7 p.m. show are $20 for adults and $15 for students, and will be available at the door.
