City barbershop chorus cut out for the Big Apple

Gateway Chorus the only Canadians at a Carnegie Hall reunion of Sweet Adelines groups

A local group of female barbershop singers are about to follow in the footsteps of John, Paul, George

and Ringo.

The Gateway Chorus will perform Sunday afternoon at New York's venerable Carnegie Hall, which has played host to the likes of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Judy Garland, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein

and The Beatles.
 

"We're pretty excited," admits Lisa Greenough, assistant director and choreographer for the Gateway

Chorus. "Carnegie Hall -- I can't quite believe we're doing this."

The Gateway Chorus is one of four groups performing at the Sweet Adelines Reunion, a noncompetitive

showcase at the 118-year-old New York institution. The locals, who will be wearing red and angel wings, are the only chorus representing Canada. The group's 60 singers will perform songs such as O'Jays' Love Train and E.L.O.'s All Over the World as part of Greenough's waggish show theme "Cuddleton's University of Passion and Intense Desire" -- or CUPID U.
 

"The show will be a nod to Valentine's Day," she chuckles. "The angels have come together on the

15th to compare what they've done to earn their wings -- and there are unfortunately a few who have

yet to gain them."
 

Sweet Adelines choruses aren't your typical musical endeavour. They're essentially women's

barbershop quartets, quintets, or bigger groups, such as the Gateway Chorus, whose members range

in age from 17 to 90. Songs are sung a cappella, with lyrics acted out by the singers, who also don

colourful costumes for the occasion. The choruses are a leftover from a more innocent time, with Tin Pan Alley or early 20th-century pop songs like Yes Sir, That's My Baby and Sweet Georgia Brown bumping up against more recent radio hits rearranged for the format.
 

International performances aren't new for the Gateway Chorus. In the last decade they've represented

Edmonton during competitions in Nashville, Indianapolis, and the Sweet Adelines Harmony Classic

Competition in San Antonio, Texas, where they placed fifth in the mid-size chorus competition in 2007. The Gateway Chorus has been ranked first in its category and second overall in Western Canada --

and they've been asked back to Nashville for 2009.
 

More recently, pop-country superstar Kenny Rogers selected Gateway to back him up on O Holy Night

and Joy to the World during his November gig at Rexall Place. Greenough says the chorus is a closeknit

group of singers, many of whom have been Sweet Adelines performers for decades and more.

"A lot of women, when they finally find us, say they've been looking all their lives for this," she says.

"The husbands and significant others of those in the chorus call our rehearsals 'cult night.'"
 

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
 

Fans gamble on Kenny Rogers and win

Time-honoured Christmas & Hits show would melt the heart

of biggest Grinch

On a stage garbed in Christmas lights and fake snow -- complete with snowman, trees, wreaths and all -- the 70-year-old Rogers kicked things off with Love or Something Like It before rolling along into Coward of the County, Daytime Friends, Buy Me a Rose and a sweeping rendition of Lady. His classics were greeted with hoots and hollers, Rogers taking a break between some of his "darker" material to share a hearty laugh. "I've really made an incredible career of singing about dysfunctional families," he chuckled after finishing off Coward of the County. Later, he would also take a stab at the front part of his audience, caught swaying along to

Lucille, saying that they looked "like a room full of Ray Charles." Then there was The Gambler, performed with clips from the movie in which a youthful looking Rogers gleefully rode horses and took down bad guys. Oh, the memories.
 

Despite his age, Rogers is still as incisive and endearing as ever, even when he would poke fun at an off-key group singing along by telling them, "They actually sang that better in Quebec." Ouch. The crowd probably would have appreciated more hits once Rogers put the final coda on his classics set by tossing tambourines into the audience for Islands In The Stream.
 

If the whole Christmas & Hits recipe could have been a corny disaster in the making -- we are, after all, still over a month away from the actual celebration -- Rogers was having way too much of a good time to let anyone spoil his fun. "It's too early for Christmas," one fan called out. "Well, guess what?" Rogers replied with a grin. "Wayne Gretzky's a personal friend of mine. So how do you come back after that?" But skeptics were easily won over -- it was all too easy to let yourself be swept away by the spirit of Christmas the way Rogers delivered the goods.
 

Instead of just stringing along a bunch of classics, the Christmas set became a Kenny Rogers "variety hour" of sorts -- a duet (via pre-recorded video) with Wynona Judd for Mary, Did You Know?, more funny banter about Rogers' mother being "the worst singer I know" and a rousing singalong with the crowd for White Christmas. But the icing on the cake came when Rogers invited 11 audience members to help out on

The Twelve Days of Christmas. Poor cowboy-hat-wearing Daryl, stuck singing (quite off-key, it should be pointed out) the final, "And a partridge in a pear tree" line 12 times in a row. It was enough comic relief to keep us going until December 25th. As Rogers explained, he has been doing this Christmas & Hits show for 25 years. And it shows: the performance, despite being quite early in the season, worked like a well-oiled

machine.
 

Rogers' voice, weathered by the years, still carries the characteristic emotional punch that elevated him to country-pop superstardom. His band -- an eight-piece including two guitars, plenty of keys and a violin -- never missed a step, even when Rogers broke into little bits of banter or paused for a laugh or two. Capping things off with O Holy Night with the stellar backing of Edmonton's own Gateway Chorus made sure any Scrooges in the house would go home jolly and in the mood for eggnog and mistletoe. Or, if anything, a little game of cards.