Higher Ground Women's Ensemble

A North Vancouver-based Women's Choir

Latest Posts

How Can We Keep from Singing?

In March 2020, like so many other choirs and community groups, Higher Ground paused practices assuming that within “a few weeks” we’d be back to our repertoire and preparing for our annual Spring concert.

But weeks turned into months and it became abundantly clear that we would not be able to regroup for some time.
Under the strictest of COVID protocols, we held one outdoor practice in a school playground in late June of 2020, but it was not a plan that would be sustainable longer-term. It was great to be together again as a group, singing together and hearing the harmonies that each section contributes to a piece.

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The Nuances of Languages

Practice Session

We are back into our weekly practices for the Higher Ground Ensemble, and this season’s repertoire includes a wide range of pieces. Two of these pieces are written and sung in Spanish.

At Tuesday night’s practice, we were privileged to have Alina Oraca, a renowned choir conductor from Cuba, join us to help us with our pronunciation and intonation for these pieces.

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Candies and Chocolate or a Pumpkin Pie…

Higher Ground Women’s Choir delivered its first concert of the year on November 22, at Friday Night Live, a unique weekly, community-focused event hosted by Lynn Valley United Church. The event is billed as a “Kitchen Party” and it was as if the evening was designed around the choir’s seasonal repertoire.

One of the choir’s jazz tunes, Honeysuckle Rose (words by Andy Razaf with music by Thomas “Fats” Waller and arranged by Darmon Meader) has a line that reads, “candies and chocolate or a pumpkin pie, can’t compare when you’re passing by …” And Friday Night Live made that story come alive.

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