Join us for Eucharist in the hollow square, featuring hymns from the shape note singing tradition of The Sacred Harp hymnbook. Our congregational voices will be supported by experienced singers of this unique music tradition. Come worship and sing!
Details on Facebook and the church website.
You are invited to the 2023 Central Ontario All-Day Singing on the Saturday before the fourth Sunday in August. Plus, come sing from Shenandoah Harmony book on the Friday night before in an informal singing.
When:
Where: Friends House, 60 Lowther Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5R 1C7.
Directions: Located in central Toronto, the Friends House is about a block north from the Bedford Street exit of the St. George TTC subway station. There is paid parking available on-street or in nearby parking lots.
COVID precautions:
We ask that singers bring proof of a negative test each day of singing and be mindful of their state of health and that of fellow singers.
Further precautions: Doors will be open and air purifiers will be running.
Check out the Facebook Event for more information. This is Ontario shape-note singers’ biggest event of the year, and one you absolutely shouldn’t miss! For questions, more info and/or to volunteer to help, contact singing@torontoshapenote.org.
Friday Evening Shenandoah Singing
Also at Friends House, we are holding a warm-up Friday evening singing, August 25th, 7:30-9:30 p.m. — an informal singing, primarily from The Shenandoah Harmony (with limited loaners available). More details in the Facebook event.
There’s a new, editable list of singings at shapenotesingings.com , so now you can find a singing wherever you go (both regular and annual)!
Sacred Harp ist a cappella Heavy Metal
Many of us know about the website Sacred Harp Breman. When we’re stuck trying to figure out a song, the robot voices are always there to sing our part and help us figure it out. All the Sacred Harp songs have been transcoded into playable sound files along with the poetry, a PDF, and links to YouTube versions of the song. It’s quite useful. The site also has a wealth of Shape Note tips, articles, videos, links, and a wonderful documentary about the formation of the Bremen Group called Shape, Rattle & Roll.
But now, this wonderful site is challenged. Read this from Paul Kolenbrander:
“Most of you will be familiar with the Sacred Harp Bremen website and will have heard the infamous robotic voices of our songs. The site, or rather the 3 sites, Denson, Christian Harmony and Shenandoah, continue to receive many visits daily.
It is with some hesitation that I write this post asking for help from the Sacred Harp community. The cost of keeping our sites running has risen sharply recently. With skyrocketing energy prices in Europe, hosting costs have also risen dramatically. Today our hosting company announced a hefty rate increase for the second time this year. This is now starting to get in over our heads. The last thing we want is to shut down the websites, but in order to keep them running I would like to ask for your help by making a donation. Any contribution is very welcome and greatly appreciated. We solemnly promise that any donation will be used exclusively for the websites.
The link below shows how to make a donation. If anyone has other ways to help us, please feel free to send me a personal message. Thank you in advance for your help!”
—Paul Kolenbrander
So, please think about chipping in if you are able: sacredharpbremen.org/en/donate
On Saturday, August 27, 2020 the Central Ontario All-Day Sacred Harp singing took place after a couple of years of delay. The previous evening, we held an informal singing from The Shenandoah Harmony. We sang at the Toronto Friends House, where we have been having our monthly singings.
Here are photos from the all-day singing with dinner-on-the-grounds.
And here are photos from the Friday evening Shenandoah Harmony singing.
[Updated Location]
You are invited to the 2022 Central Ontario All-Day Singing on the Saturday before the fourth Sunday in August. And we’ve added a Friday night informal singing.
When:
Where: Friends House, 60 Lowther Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5R 1C7.
Directions: Located in central Toronto, the Friends House is about a block north from the Bedford Street exit of the St. George TTC subway station. There is paid parking available on-street or in nearby parking lots.
Vaccinations and Masking:
The Toronto Shape-Note Community is a loving community that cares for our most vulnerable members, and as vaccinations are proven to reduce the spread of Covid-19, we would prefer that all participants are vaccinated. While we do not have the capacity to check, nor the interest in engaging in a compliance-relationship with our friends, we do trust that all who choose to join us will respect that trust, and honour our community’s preference. In the same spirit, although we do not require masking, we encourage it out of care for others. We also encourage taking and passing a rapid test before arriving.
Further precautions: Doors will be open and fans and air purifiers will be running.
Check out the Facebook Event for more information. This is Ontario shape-note singers’ biggest event of the year, and one you absolutely shouldn’t miss!!! For questions, more info and/or to volunteer to help, contact torontoshapenotesinging@
Friday Evening Shenandoah Singing
Also at Friends House, we are holding a warm-up Friday evening singing, August 26th, 7:30-9:30 p.m. — an informal singing, primarily from The Shenandoah Harmony (with limited loaners available). More details in the Facebook event.
We had hoped to announce a 2021 Central Ontario Sacred Harp Convention this year, but it just wasn’t possible.
This past Saturday we held a special park singing at Fred Hamilton Playground in Toronto. At least ten singers from Toronto participated and we had memorial lesson but no dinner-on-the-grounds. Minutes will be submitted to mark the occasion.
Hopefully we will be back again in August 2022 when we’ll be thrilled to have you singing with us once more.
In April 2020 the Toronto group started singing together weekly using Zoom. We were inspired by visiting online and singing with the Montreal Group to see how it worked. So we decided to try it here in Toronto, and have been gathering online to sing weekly since then.
We open the Zoom session each Wednesday at 7:15 p.m. Eastern time and chat or check technology for fifteen minutes. Then we start the singing at 7:30. We sing from the Denson 1991 Sacred Harp book. We start with songs lead by pairs or single singers with the rest of us on mute. This is due to the lag that would otherwise cause our voices to combine at different times—making it sound pretty bad. After a break, we start a playlist of various Youtube singings. Requests are done in advance to avoid delays between songs. Here is the Current Zoom link which is also posted in our Facebook group and in the mailing list emails (Send an email to Pleasance to receive these).
In addition to the weekly Denson singing, we also hold a First-Sunday-of-the-Month singing from the Shenandoah Harmony. This singing is usually held from 3 to 4:30 p.m. The link will be posted in our Facebook group before the singing and in the mailing list emails.
Other groups around the world also have internet singings or zingings. Evelyn Lamb from Utah has posted a calendar that lists these.
In addition to using Zoom, there are other methods to virtually sing together in different ways:
Please note the cancellation of the 2020 Central Ontario Sacred Harp Convention earlier planned for August 21-23.
Despite the cancellation, we hope you will contribute names and information for the Memorial lesson to Pleasance Crawford.
And please mark your calendars for August 20-22, 2021 sometime in the future when we’ll be thrilled to have you singing with us once more.
Heather Schramm and Lloy Cook, Co-Chairs
Thanks to everyone who came and sang with us at our second annual weekend convention August 24-25, 2019. We look forward to doing it all again next year on the fourth Sunday in August and the Friday night and Saturday before. Please mark your calendars now!
