Year-End Party and Installation Ceremony, June 19, 2025
Judy G generously offered her home for our June party again this year. Good company, good food, and a most gracious hostess. After a busy, but highly successful year, it was time to celebrate. And that included celebrating our 'decade birthdays'. There was only one this year. Happy Decade Birthday, Ana!
After dinner we held our traditional Installation Ceremony to install the Board of Directors for the coming year. Vimi, a former member, was asked to be the installing Officer and Judy C acted as the Membership Representative for the ceremony. After that came recognition of various members' achievements -- Gail C's perfect attendance record for the year, Ana's 10 years with the chorus, and a thank you gift to Lynn for her many years on the Board and her work as Parliamentarian, Show Chair, and Treasurer -- all challenging and time consuming positions! Congratulations to all the Accolades, and may the coming year be as successful as the last one.
Area 5 Contest and Convention - May 23-25, 2025
Another successful Area Contest, as the Accolades continued to see their judging scores go up and achieved the highest score yet in the chorus's long history! Their theme was that of "Singin' In The Rain" making way for "You Are My Sunshine". It was exciting to have four talented new members join the chorus for their first time on the contest stage. On Saturday evening, everyone celebrated at a Beach Party themed dinner, where the Accolades performed a fun rendition of "The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You".
Harmony In Bloom - May 3, 2025
The Accolades entertained a sold out York Woods Library Theatre audience with their best show yet, in early May. Audience members had nothing but praise for the chorus's singing, as well as for their imaginative staging. They also greatly enjoyed guest performers Constructive Criticism, an award winning men's quartet, and the young dancers from the DeVoy Academy of irish Dance. And tying everything smoothly together was some great emceeing by Cathy from North Metro Chorus. Thanks to all who participated in the show and all who came out to support the Accolades.
Holiday Party - December 19, 2024
We all congregated at Rhonda's home for our year end holiday party. Lively conversations were being pursued in every main floor room -- until the pot luck hors d'oeuvres started to get put out in the kitchen! They were a meal in themselves. Still, we later sat down to dinner at Rhonda's long dinner table and enjoyed a variety of main course dishes followed by desserts. The table was festively decorated and each of us even had a Christmas cracker to pull with our neighbour before getting at the riddle and the paper hat inside. Rhonda was presented with a lovely dried flower arrangement as a thank you for her wonderful hosting, and Alana was given a token of our appreciation for her dedication and hard work towards making us better! Assel surprised each member of the chorus with a beautiful, hand made, glass tree ornament, painted with a musical theme. And a number of members promised to share recipes for their pot luck items. Thank you to all the Accolades who help make our social events so fun and memorable.
Holiday Chorus Concert - December 5, 2024
At the beginning of November, the chorus welcomed 13 enthusiastic women who took up our invitation to come out and learn some holiday songs with us in four-part harmony. A number of our guests even took on the additional challenge of learning a harmony part, rather than the lead, to our holiday songs. After four rehearsal evenings, we put on a performance featuring the Toronto Accolades and highlighting this year's "Holiday Chorus". Special guest performers were the North Toronto Songbirds children's choir and the terrific men's quartet, Constructive Criticism. The venue at Earl Bales Community Centre was filled to capacity by an enthusiastic audience of friends and family of chorus members and our special holiday chorus singers.
