Community Arts
ACHF Arts Access
45 singers perform for 2000 seniors at approximately 50 venues each year. Audiences frequently ask us to return and we do repeat performances at the same places each year. We maintain a count of singers and audiences at each venue. Our director gives the singers feedback after each performance.
Our goal was to sing at 50+ venues and during the project period. We exceeded that goal by singing at no less than 54 senior sites. In addition, we sang at 6 preschool sites, a slightly different program, but equally well received ("The kids talked about our performance for many weeks afterward.") We performed music from show tunes, swing, rock and roll, old standards, polka, jazz, patriotic and holiday for senior audiences who would often comment, "This is the best program we've heard here yet!" It might be forgetfulness on their part, or, as we believe, our songs and the way they are presented touch their hearts and lighten their day. The only down side to our year was a slightly lower than normal turnout of our singers. It seemed the same small group of 20-25 showed up at performances. We have nearly 40 singers. This is always a challenge with busy senior schedules. We continue to challenge them to make the performances fun and rehearsals educational, or as one singer described them, "a free music lesson!" At each performance we saw many seniors in wheelchairs, coming to the performance in walkers and some who needed assistance, so YES, we reached the audiences we intended. Although all our singers come mostly from northern European ethnic background, the same cannot be said for our audiences, which are very diverse. Although the audiences are primarily seniors, they come from various ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. For example, some sites are senior condos or cooperatives and others are low income care facilities. Minnesota is becoming more diverse ethnically, and all our sites reflect this diversity. We need to concentrate on making our own chorus more diverse ethnically. That said, we have seniors in our chorus of all levels of health--some seem easily confused and need extra help in organizing music and getting to performances. We have volunteers who drive others and help them with music, making it possible for any senior who wants to sing with us able to join us in our mission. At the Como Dockside performance on June 27, 2016 there were 187 in the audience. We handed out words to a 1919 love song, "If You Were the only Girl in the World" and many sang along, much to everyone's surprise. Our 40th Anniversary Dinner and Show on October 14, 2016 had over 200 guests who responded with over $600 in donations (after paying $30 to come). Our chorus turned out 30 singers.
Other, local or private