Let's step back in time to the early 1990's: A fun loving group of eight women were part of a singing group called the Silver Threads. Over time the choir group disbanded as people moved away or moved on to other interests. Some members of the Silver Threads still wanted to sing and have fun together so in 1991 they formed the group called the Rainbow Singers at the Elder Citizens Recreation Centre. The pianist back then was Elaine Clark - now Mrs. Chuck Armstrong.
The group had energetic members but no leader, until along came Janice Taylor. Imploringly the group said to one another, "We need a leader!" Janice is an accomplished piano and voice teacher and was a very quiet member of the centre. She spoke up and said, "Hey, I'm your gal!" The rest is history; Janice has been the choir leader ever since. That was 23 years ago and over time the name of the group was unanimously changed to the Forever Young Chorus. When long time piano accompanist Marg Schuett moved away, the highly skilled Vic Steblin stepped in. Vic has the skill to highlight the talents of a soloist as well as the entire 45 member choir and he can easily adjust his playing style to suit any performance.
Janice was born in 1944 in Rivers, Manitoba. When I do the math I can clearly see that when young Janice Taylor originally took over the leadership of the choir in 1991 she was too young to be a voting member of the senior centre. Janice was and still is a perfect fit to lead the 45 enthusiastic seniors that now belong to the group. Her husband Joe Anderson, a retired photo copier technician is the sound manager for all of the choir productions. Janice proudly says, "Joe is my right hand man, not only for the Forever Young Chorus productions but also at home. He is an all around handyman and in fact I jokingly refer to him as an incurable do-it-yourselfer. We make a great team."
Janice is an active member of the TELUS Community Ambassadors and she belongs to the volunteer knitting group at the Kordyban Lodge. She has two children, James Redfern of Nelson and daughter Jennifer (Adam) Hrankowski who lives here in Prince George. Their four grand children are the highlights of their lives.
Janice was quick to say, "I would like to invite all the readers of your column to our next Forever Young Chorus production called 'Over the Bounding Main', a musical tribute to the songs of the sea. The very accomplished Vic Steblin is the pianist and Carolyn Kelly is our special guest soloist. The show runs Friday, March 28th at 7:00 pm, Saturday, March 29th at 7:00 pm and Sunday, March 30th, at 2 pm. The admission is $10.00 per person and children 12 and under pay $5.00. Advance tickets are available at the office at 1692 Tenth Avenue (between Vancouver and Winnipeg St). Tickets will also be available at the door."
Since this show includes songs about both sailors and pirates I checked it out and I have a bit of trivia for you about pirates.
Pirates might have kept parrots to talk to and for entertainment but don't think they didn't make quick stew of them when food was scarce after long periods at sea!
Pirates are usually depicted wearing eye patches. Many people think the eye patches were worn to cover war wounds or missing eyes. Well, not exactly: Pirates used eye patches, switching them from one eye to the next when going below deck to adjust easier to the darkness below.
