Spring Season Update!

Hi everyone!

We know you are all working away at your preparation for Constellations, but we wanted to give you a heads up for what's coming up in the rest of our season. It feels like a long time away, but it will come quickly! We also know some of you need as much notice as possible to book time off for performances. I'll give you a brief run-down of some important things to note, and then at the bottom is a link to a Google Doc that's similar to the list of dates I made in the fall. I'll keep updating it regularly with more information as we know it.

Spring Show

The major piece that we're working on in the spring is the 25-30 minute choral theatre show that we'll be performing at Podium called Waiting on the Eastern Line. This is a really exciting piece with beautiful music (including a brand new Jeff Enns piece written especially for us), lots of choreography, costumes, etc etc! We'll go into more details about this piece at our first rehearsal post-Constellations on February 9, but it's important to note that this piece's Halifax performance will be solely at Podium. We had initially intended to perform this piece alongside a longer new choral theatre work that we would develop at the same time, but have decided for a variety of reasons to focus our energies on creating one amazing 30-minute piece that will wow everyone at Podium.

Tour

But Podium won't be the only time we perform this piece! We currently have contracts in the works with three Nova Scotian theatres to bring Waiting on the Eastern Line on tour! We will pair this piece with Xara Youth Ensemble's spring show, Free as the Wind, and visit Annapolis Royal, Liverpool, and Middle Musquodoboit during the month of June. Dates are still being confirmed, but we have some working dates to share with you now. We've also got workshops lined up with the Queens County Girls Choir in Liverpool!

Video

One of the reasons we chose to streamline our spring show was to leave some space for our professionally produced promotional video! We are currently in the process of selecting the company we will work with to create a 30 second teaser video that we can use to showcase what we do (to attract new audience, appeal to potential funders, and spread the word on social media!)

Other Performances

We've got some fun appearances lined up for this spring, including a performance at the TEDxNS conference in March, a Music Monday performance with Symphony Nova Scotia and Chris Hadfield, a performance as part of Live Art Dance Production's season, and a church service at Edgewood-Oxford United. We wanted to leave room in our schedule to take on these types of gigs, as we're getting lots of excellent recognition for our amazing performances.

Recording

Over the next year or so, we hope to have more of Xara's music professionally recorded. We plan to take one of our Sunday rehearsals this spring to focus solely on recording some of this material. Eventually, we will build on this material to create a full length CD!

So as you can see there are lots of exciting things coming up in the next few months. Xara truly is blossoming this year and we are so grateful to you all for helping to make that happen!!!! We have so much to look forward to!

Here's the link to the Google Doc for your reference: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c24uNiGWx1EZ4qHX0vabT88i0EKM8o_-fqUphn4vAh4/edit?usp=sharing