Aurora Community Band will make the season merry with Holiday Market

November 23, 2023 · 0 Comments

The Aurora Community Band will bring its own special brand of Christmas merriment to Trinity Anglican Church this Saturday, November 25, with its 10^th annual Holiday Market.

A popular event for the whole family, the Holiday Market, running from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., will include not only a chance to shop local for gifts and fresh baked goods, but a free holiday concert as well.

“It’s an opportunity for us to engage with the community and it’s also a great opportunity for the band to perform as well,” says Band Director Gord Sheppard. “I think that’s what sets our holiday market above what other holiday markets might have to offer – and I know the band members really enjoy playing [at this event] as well.”

While the Aurora Community Band Holiday Market is celebrating a milestone this year, the Aurora Community Band marked its first decade in 2021.

It’s a remarkable achievement for a band that is comprised of, as the name suggests, community members who are simply united by a love of playing music.

“There are 53 members in the band and I have a core of about 30 – 35 members who have been with the band since Day 1,” says Sheppard. “I am amazed and honoured that people take something I love – concert band music – as seriously as I do and the rehearsals for me are always a joy. The band members always take their rehearsal and their performance seriously and I really can’t ask for anything else than that.

“People who have never heard the band before, I think they are always impressed by how good the band is. Generally speaking, everyone has had an opportunity, who grew up in Canada at some point in the last 50 or 60 years, to play a band instrument in school if they all went to public school. When they hear the Aurora Community Band, I think they’re reminded of that but they’re also impressed by how fine the band sounds.”

It also encourages them, he says, to think about music differently once again.

“People might think, ‘I haven’t played in 30 or 40 years’, ‘I am not going to be very good at it.’ I think like many things in life, people have had an experience doing something if they really enjoyed it, they’re going to put the work into it to resume the activity they enjoyed when they were in high school. That’s the experience I have had with the members in my band,” says Shepard, who also attributes much of the success of the band to its Board of Directors.

“As good as the band may sound and as good as the band functions, it is due to how organized and how thoughtful the board of directors are in continuing to promote the events and to organize all of the events the band is involved in.”

With this in mind, the November 25 Holiday Market is not the only chance to enjoy the Aurora Community Band this holiday season.

On Friday, December 8, at 7 p.m., the band will present its annual Holiday Concert, again at Trinity, entitled “Canada: A Musical Celebration,” it will showcase the work of Canadian composers and music about Canada created outside Canada.

“I don’t think people are really too aware of the rich history of folk music that Canada has, so this is an opportunity for us to share that music with people,” says Sheppard.

Tickets are $20 and can be obtained at the door, via email to auroracommunityband@gmail.com, online at auroracommunityband.ca, or by calling 905-717-3319.

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter