Guelph Youth Singers started 2024 on a financial high note.
The local award-winning choir recently received a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to the tune of $20,000 to purchase and upgrade equipment.
The big purchase will enhance the organization’s performances.
Artistic director Marion Samuel-Stevens said the group is among the arts organizations that were struggling financially coming out of the pandemic.
“It is so wonderful for us as an organization to receive this grant and to allow us to reach even wider audiences with this equipment,” Samuel-Stevens said.
Samuel-Stevens said it’s the largest grant the choir has ever received from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
The organization used the money to buy speakers, cables, and microphones among other equipment.
She added the new equipment will even allow the group to livestream performances online for those who cannot attend concerts, including family members who live aboard.
Samuel-Stevens said Guelph Youth Singers used the equipment at its Winter Concert in December.
“Our youngest choir, at the moment, is ages seven to nine (years old) and of course they have fairly small voices,” she said.
“So for those people sitting at the very, very back of the audience it might be hard to hear for them. And just having that little bit of amplification allowed them to share their beautiful voices with the audience more clearly.”
Right now, the organization is in what Samuel-Stevens calls a rebuilding phase and she said it is applying for more funding.
“We would love to apply for future funding,” she said.
“We are applying for everything and all the grants that we can to help us rebuild our organization so that we can provide this musical education to young people in our community.”
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