Announcing Summer Songs – a new full-length concert!

Posted on May 27, 2017 by sweetscarlet

Sweet-Scarlet-WEB-3139The sunshine is rolling in and we have been busily preparing songs that are worthy of the season for our fans.  For the past 5 years, Sweet Scarlet has put together a self presented Christmas show.  But in 2017, for the first time in Sweet Scarlet history, we are bringing you a self presented, full length SUMMER SHOW!  Expect all the fun of our other self presented shows, but with an extra kick of summer sizzle and pizzazz!

We are really excited to premiere several new songs for you, including a song that was specifically arranged for us by a local composer.  There will be a little jazz, a little world music, a little pop and some fantastic ensemble pieces.  There will, of course, be the signature Sweet Scarlet sassiness, that encourages you to join in the fun with us.  

Tickets for our show can be purchased online, with the show taking place on

June 15, 2017 at 7:30pm

at Presentation House theatre in North Vancouver.  

We hope you join us in kicking off the summer season with some music, good company and a WHOLE LOT OF FUN!  Bring your friends and colleagues and introduce someone new to the sounds of Sweet Scarlet ~ we would love it!

xo,
The Scarlettes.

BUY TICKETS

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Happy New Year! | Vancouver A Cappella

Posted on January 12, 2017 by sweetscarlet

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Happy New Year!  After a busy holiday season, we are excited to welcome 2017 and another great year.   But, before we hold our annual dreaming and scheming meeting where we think up our hopes, dreams and plans for the 2017 year… there’s a few other things on the go for the Scarlettes.

Right now, we’re focused on recording our very first album!  This weekend, we will lock ourselves up for two days and sing our very favourite holiday tunes one more time before putting them in the vault until next Christmas… or June when we start working on Christmas again!  We’re excited and looking forward to a few great days together singing a mix of classic holiday carols, contemporary winter songs and Yuletide favourites. More on this later in the year!

We are also diving right back into our regular season repertoire as we prepare for a full length show in Port Coquitlam on Sunday, February 5th at the Terry Fox Theatre.  The City of Port Coquitlam’s 18th Annual Sunday Coffee Concerts will host the Scarlettes for a great afternoon of music, followed by refreshments and a meet and greet.  We look forward to performing for the wonderful people of PoCo (and hopefully some familiar faces of our amazing fans).  You’ll hear a wide variety of a cappella tunes, from classical to choral, world music to pop favourites.  We would love to see you there, so please bring a few friends and join us for some music and coffee.

Tickets available HERE.

More information available HERE.

See you soon!

~ the Scarlettes

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People’s Choice Winners! | Vancouver A Cappella Ensemble

Posted on December 7, 2016 by sweetscarlet

Last week, Sweet Scarlet had the privilege and joy of competing at the 2nd Annual Yule Duel in Gastown. We donned our cozy red toques, scarves and mittens and stationed ourselves at the corner of Abbott & Water Streets to carol our little hearts out for the thousands of brave souls that warmed the streets for this fabulous event.

2016-12-01-20-16-31And to our surprise and delight, not only were we finalists in the Most Creative Performance category again, we were chosen by attendees as the fan favourites, and we won the 2016 People’s Choice award!  This is such a huge honour for us.  If you’ve followed us for awhile, you’ll know that Sweet Scarlet absolutely LOVES Christmas, and we are so thrilled that our love for this season is recognized and shared by so many of you.

We hope that you will continue to share in our love of all things Christmas by attending our 4th annual holiday concert this coming Sunday. Tickets for Wintersongs with Sweet Scarlet are available here on Eventbrite. This year’s performance is taking place at 3pm at St. James Hall in Kitsilano on Sunday, December 11th. We really hope to see you there!

With love,
the Scarlettes

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Carolling for a Cause this Thursday | Vancouver A Cappella

Posted on November 29, 2016 by sweetscarlet

yule-duelDear Friends and Family,

Sweet Scarlet is really excited to share with you a fundraiser that we will be participating in on Dec. 1st (This week!) The event is called Yule Duel   – where local choirs will be lining the streets of Gastown as they carol their hearts out, all to raise money and awareness for May’s Place. Sweet Scarlet will be singing on the corner of Abbott St. and Water St.

About May’s Place:

“For 25 years May’s Place has offered care and compassion to vulnerable and marginalized people in the Downtown Eastside. May’s Place delivers hospice care to about 50 people each year, ensuring that their last days are filled with dignity, warmth, and kindness.”

 “Often times our patients’ lives have been touched by extreme poverty, homelessness, abuse, mental health issues and addictions. At May’s Place, they are welcomed warmly, treated with respect, and surrounded by friends, family, and caregivers. For some residents, it’s the first time they’ve had a warm bed to sleep in or a room to themselves.”

Sweet Scarlet is thrilled to be a part of this event where groups from all over will be singing loudly and proudly all in support of helping out May’s Place. So, we are reaching out to you for your support!

To donate to our fundraising efforts, please visit the Yule Duel website and click on Sweet Scarlet. There you will find our profile and if you scroll to the bottom, you will see a “Donate Now” button. Please follow the link and help us raise money for this worthy cause. “Just $32.50 means one person will receive one day of compassionate end-of-life care, free of charge.” Any little bit helps!

Thank you so much for your continued support and for helping us bring awareness to May’s Place. We would also love to see you on the streets of Gastown on December 1st from 6-8pm. We will be singing along with other enthusiastic carollers for an epic night of carolling which will culminate with a sing-off on the main stage! It will be a night to remember and will truly put you in the Christmas spirit.

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Concert Tickets Now on Sale! | Vancouver A Cappella

Posted on November 1, 2016 by sweetscarlet

sweet-scarlet-winter-songs-2016-final-1
It’s the most wonderful time of the year!!!

It’s time for tickets to go on sale for our annual holiday concert!

This year’s show, Wintersongs, will be taking place at St. James Hall in Kitsilano on Sunday, December 11th at 3:00pm. We promise to give you a magical, festive performance of a cappella holiday tunes, complete with a little bit of something for everyone. We are also thrilled to welcome The Millies, all the way from Victoria, as our special guests.

Purchase your tickets on Eventbrite. For every ticket sold before November 30th, we will donate a percentage of the sale towards our fundraising efforts for Yule Duel, benefiting May’s Place, as hospice in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. We can’t wait to see you there!

BUY TICKETS NOW

 

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Back to School! | Vancouver A Cappella

Posted on September 12, 2016 by sweetscarlet

backtoschool

Did you know that half of the Sweet Scarlet ladies are teachers? Congratulations to Katy, Laura and June on the start of a new year! Your students are so lucky to have you as teachers.

Despite the chaos of getting kids ready for their first few weeks back, and our Sweet Scarlet teachers prepping lesson plans and getting classrooms ready for their eager students, we are finding time to learn new music for this year’s Christmas season.

Over the past four Christmas seasons we have accumulated a lovely repertoire of music to choose from. Our existing repertoire makes it extra difficult to pick and choose what songs stay on our list for this season. We think about our audience and about having a varied repertoire, but it is also important to us to add new songs that challenge us and that give our fans something new and different at every show.

This year is no exception. We are not going to give the new songs away quite yet, but there is a lot of fun and musical variety packed into the new selections! Most of all, we look forward to sharing our music with you.   So please save the date for the Sweet Scarlet self presented show on Sunday, December 11th. It will be a matinee filled with holiday cheer!   As we confirm other gigs and shows in the coming weeks, we will make sure to share them with you.

Although in Sweet Scarlet land, September means jumping right into Christmas repertoire, we have not forgotten that there are a couple weeks of summer left to enjoy. Have another swim in the ocean, go for a few more hikes and squeeze in some sun-soaking vitamin D time. And above all else, keep singing!

See you on December 11th, if not sooner!

xo,
the Scarlettes

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A Sweet MidSummer Update | Vancouver A Cappella

Posted on July 29, 2016 by sweetscarlet

It’s hard to believe that the summer is almost halfway over! Here at Sweet Scarlet Central, we’ve been taking a little breather from performing and rehearsing so that we can enjoy the sunshine and gorgeous weather with our family and friends.

image1 (11)We have had one performance since returning home from Powell River. Each year, we have the honour of performing at
the Canadian Cancer Society’s Camp Goodtimes, at a special dinner held for the parents who are attending camp with their children. We absolutely adore performing at this dinner every year. It’s a beautiful setting, with incredible people, and we always leave feeling so special.
The last few months have been pretty intense and exciting for us as we rehearsed, polished and perfected all of our competition pieces and regular repertoire for the International Choral Kathaumixw. So intense, in fact, that we really didn’t make too many plans for after Kathaumixw.  And
so, aside from our performance at Camp Goodtimes, we’re having a nice, relaxed summer, with a few social activities on the calendar, and coming soon, in August, our Christmas listening party, where we’ll choose new repertoire for the 2016 holiday season.

We’re also busy corresponding with some image2 (1)wonderful folks who saw us perform at Kathaumixw and have asked to put us on their concert series calendar in 2017! This is extremely exciting for us – we’ve never been on tour before! – so we look forward to possible performances on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast, and perhaps even further afield. If you are interested in hosting a Sweet Scarlet performance in your community, we’d love to hear from you! We can now officially say that we are “booking dates in 2017 and 2018”!

Enjoy that sunshine, everyone!

With love,
the Scarlettes

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Heartfelt Thanks for an Amazing Week | Vancouver A Cappella

Posted on July 15, 2016 by sweetscarlet

13592408_1043459235702030_13870056540001335_nI’m not sure where to begin. So much has happened over the past week that I feel overwhelmed with inspiration, joy, thanks and love.

As many of you know, Sweet Scarlet took part in the International Choral Kathaumixw festival in the beautiful town of Powell River. We took second place in the Equal Voice and Chamber Choir categories, and were surprised and honoured with the Elmer Iseler Award for best performance of a Canadian Work. We are so very proud of our accomplishments, but the 5 days we spent at Kathaumixw in Powell River meant so much more than any award or trophy we could have received. We had the opportunity to meet and to work with so many amazing people from across the world. In one word, it was MAGIC!

With all of the violence, hatred and negativity that is happening in our world today, choirs from across the globe gathered to share and to speak the language of music. Ethnic, religious, and language barriers were demolished as the 1000 voice choir united to share a message of love. The words, “Phindukhulume” reverberated the arena as I was overcome with raw emotion and brought to tears by this beautiful moment I will never forget.

image1 (8)On the ferry ride home to Vancouver, I sat alone soaking up the beautiful scenery and had the chance to reflect upon our days we spent at Kathaumixw 2016. I can honestly say, in that moment, I was completely, and utterly, happy.

There are so many people we want to thank that made this all possible.

Thank you to:

  • Our husbands & family for taking care of the kids while we were away. Without you we would not be able to pursue our passions.
  • Rosemary, Debbie, and The Rays for coming out to Kath and for being our biggest fans.
  • 13582029_1045274595520494_8222810399413158068_oJ.P., Kelly and the amazing staff at the Old Courthouse Inn and Edie Rae’s Café for your warm hospitality, kindness and for the best pancakes with blackberry jam we’ve ever had!
  • Mayor David Formosa and the people of Powell River for their great hospitality and warm welcome. What a beautiful place you live in!
  • Clint Williams, Hegus (Chief of the Tla’ amin Nation) for sharing your beautiful culture with us and for creating the stunning totem that will be proudly displayed in Hong Kong!
  • Tom Koleszar, Don James, Paul Cumming, Walter Martella and all the other committee members of Kathaumixw 2016. What an event you put together! We are so honoured to have been a part of this magic.
  • 13613613_1044906855557268_4584913114466238966_o2016 panel of adjudicators for sharing your knowledge and for the constructive critique. We will be sure to use your feedback to improve our performances as we always strive to be better.
  • Scott Leithead, aka: #fancrush. Your energy and spirit is such an inspiration and we hope to work with you again in the very near future.

 

  • Venue managers, crew and volunteers for Kathaumixw 2016 for their hard work and dedication.
  • IMG_3394All the other participating choirs, and directors. We will not forget the time spent together and the new friendships that were formed. Thank you for sharing a little piece of you with us and we hope that our paths will cross again.

Hope to see you all at Kathaumixw 2018!

With love,

June and the Scarlettes

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Kathaumixw, Here We Come!

Posted on July 5, 2016 by sweetscarlet

FullSizeRender (3)There is nothing more satisfying than working hard towards a goal and then meeting it! Kathaumixw, we’re coming for you!!! After months of preparation – selecting repertoire, perfecting our pieces, and adding choral-ography – we are ready!

This morning we six (plus two mothers and one baby) are off to Powell River. Not a lot of people know this, but Powell River is known for their arts and culture scene and for one week, every other year, it becomes a hotbed of choral music as host to Kathaumixw International Choral Competition. The town is flooded with groups, solo singers, directors, and choral music lovers from across the globe. Hotel rooms book up six or more months in advance. Businesses close during the festivities. Singing can be heard in every corner of the town, with a tight schedule of competitions, concerts, mass rehearsals, and of course choirs practicing everywhere and anywhere.

We are looking forward to meeting other groups, hearing new music and getting caught up in the middle of all the excitement. We also can’t wait to present the result of our hard work and to get feedback from some of the most prestigious adjudicators. We compete on Wednesday (Chamber category), Thursday (Contemporary and Equal Voice Choir categories) & Friday (Folk & Traditional category) mornings between 9 and 11am and will be performing concerts in the afternoon or evening those days as well.

We wish so badly that we could take you, our family, friends, and fans, with us. We will need support while we are up there to lift us up and cheer us on! So, we’ll be posting videos on Facebook throughout the week of our competition and concert songs. We hope you’ll watch and drop us a line!

Adios! Ciao! See you next week!

Love,

The Scarlettes oxox

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Why We Do This | Vancouver A Cappella

Posted on June 29, 2016 by sweetscarlet

image1 (8)We lead busy lives. It is the truth, and day by day the lives of the Scarlettes get more complicated. Somehow the practices still happen and even more miraculously, the ladies bring a crazy amount of positive energy to each one. It amazes me. It inspires me. It rejuvenates me.   This is why we do it.

We get through the late night rehearsal followed by a full working day and three interviews crammed before and after work… because we love music and we love the people we have chosen to make music with.

We get through the week’s worth of work travelling and grief from our partner who has been solo parenting all week and has to do it again so we can go to rehearsal…. … because we love music and we love the people we have chosen to make music with.

We get through the many additional things we need to plan and organize for an upcoming gig or competition because no one else in the group seems to have any time for the management and day to day stuff… … because we love music and we love the people we have chosen to make music with.

We tolerate having to order, re-order, return and make multiple trips to stores to try and coordinate one nice outfit for our competition……..because we love music and we love the people we have chosen to make music with.

We breathe and stay calm in the 1.5 hour traffic to get to rehearsal and the call from our partner who says he is not feeling well and could use help watching our son… knowing even if we turned around now we would still be 1.5 hours away… because we love music and we love the people we have chosen to make music with.

It’s not easy, but we do it because overall, the good of being in this group outweighs the challenges and sacrifices that must be made to make it happen.

We hope that all our fans have something that they commit to in the same way that brings them the same level of joy that Sweet Scarlet brings to our life.

xo,
-The Scarlettes.

P.S. Next week, all our rehearsing efforts come to fruition as we attend the International Choral Kathaumixw in Powell River. Stay tuned to our Facebook and Instagram feeds so you can keep up-to-date on all our antics!

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