‘Whether you’re a shower singer or Pavarotti’: Halifax church holds casual carols event

Christmas music filled the air at Fort Massey United Church in Halifax for the 4th annual Casual Carols sing-along.

A church in the south end of Halifax challenged attendees to see how many Christmas songs they could sing in an hour on Thursday night.

Fort Massey United Church on Tobin Street once again held a “Casual Carols” event, which is an unrehearsed singalong, not a concert or a service.

The church’s music director says it all started because of her love of Christmas music.

“There’s never time to work all of the carols into the Christmas services that I want to. And it’s one thing to hear carols in the mall or in the background as you’re shopping, but there’s nothing like actually singing and participating,” Jenny Trites says.

“And I really think that group singing is so important for communities and for peoples’ spirits. So it’s just a chance to come and sing as many carols as we can in an hour and then we head downstairs, and we have some hot chocolate and cookies.”

Carol Dobson, a soprano for the Fort Massey choir, says Casual Carols is a fun, no stress activity.

“You can sing whether you’re a shower singer or Pavarotti and enjoy your favorite carols,” she says.

“And if you haven’t heard it at any of the other concerts you’ve been at but want to, you just sing out and Jenny with play it. We have elves who will be working the computer so that we can get the words up on the screen and everybody can sing along.”

Many children belted their hearts out during Thursday’s event, including Maria Lee Ward who says she couldn’t wait to come back again this year.

“We were just talking about it maybe a week ago and then we saw on Facebook that it was out and it was saying like, ‘get ready, come here, request a song’ and we were just so excited, just as we were talking about it, it came up. And so the song I was going to request was ‘Carol of the Bells.’”

That song was played, along with “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” “Frosty the Snowman” and other favourites.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jim Kvammen.

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