PORT McNEILL—Wild Heart Music, a free choir program for youth, kicks off its third season next month with a registration drive and performance by co-founder Georgia Murray.
Wild Heart will host a welcome afternoon Feb. 10, featuring prizes and a performance by Murray, the Port McNeill-raised singer-songwriter who has funded the program through a pair of successful online auctions.
Junior singers (ages 6-10) are welcome at 3:30 p.m. A second session for seniors (ages 11-up) follows at 4:30 p.m. Registration for the 2015 season will be taken throughout the afternoon.
Regular Wild Heart rehearsals begin the following day, Feb. 11, at St. John Gualbert (A-Frame) Church, and continue each Wednesday.
Murray conceived the program in response to the loss of school band and chorus programs, the victim of budget cuts in School District 85 a decade earlier. An online auction she hosted in late 2012 raised approximately $20,000 to hire a musical director and provide no-cost access for local youth to the after-school program.
In its first year, in 2013, Wild Heart Music held a debut spring concert featuring an appearance by Murray, performed at OrcaFest, joined the Bulembu Children’s Choir of Africa and Murray’s brother, Clifton Murray of the Juno-winning Tenors, on Skype, and sang backup during a performance by West Coast Music Award-winning performer Rick Scott at Gate House Theatre.
Last year, the group performed its second annual spring concert, and reprised its appearance at OrcaFest in addition to singing Christmas carols at a Vancouver Regional Library event in December.
For more info call Deborah Murray at 250-956-3297.