Hello everybody!

Bri Chronicles here back at y’a with another interview!

Today I have some special guests here for you.  

I have Darren Hamilton & his wife Vanessa Hamilton.  They are big in the music industry & I’m gonna tell you more about what they do.   Myself, I met Darren and Vanessa at TMC (Toronto Mass Choir) and we have become very good friends. But there is a lot more to this.  

So Darren & Vanessa welcome!

Darren & Vanessa:  Thank you for having us.

BriChronicles: You’re welcome. Can you just tell us when you started going to TMC, Toronto Mass Choir?

Vanessa: We started in 2015.

Darren:  2015, yeah that’s right..

BriChronicles: My gosh, that was a long time!

Vanessa: Yes it’s been that long.  But yeah. 

BriChronicles: And wow, what a year that was.  We went to so many places and things like that.

But there’s something about you guys I do know is that you are very musically inclined.  

Darren: Yes, we are ( laughs).

Vanessa: We have both been part of different gospel groups growing up at a young age. I sang in a group with four other girls back when I was a teenager so we were singing together for a number of years and also just singing for other artists and yeah. Also singing praise and worship in church so that where my experiences have come from. 

BriChronicles: What about yours?

Darren:  And mine, well I started off singing in the church choir and youth choir and then my parents put me into formal piano lessons when I was young as well. And then during my teens I sang in a number gospel choirs. Actually I was singing in two community gospel choirs at the same time and so, I remember my high school years were really, really busy because I’d have rehearsals by one choir Monday evenings and then with the other choir on Tuesday evening and then we’d be juggling weekend engagements between the two choirs so it was quite hectic.  And then in the later part of my teens, I started a quartet called ‘For Christ’.

BriChronicles: wow

Darren: And so you know, I’ve been involved in music that way and then I went and did a formal training at the post secondary level, music studies at the post secondary level.

BriChronicles:  I had no idea.

Darren: yeah

BriChronicles: My goodness. Is that how you guys met?

Darren: No. but we met..

Vanessa: Through our church.

Darren: Yeah, through our involvement in church. We were both part of the National Worship Team organization. Then I was serving as a national music director for the organization for a period of time, so we met during that process.

BriChronicles:  That’s awesome.  And as a music director you expanded, you decided it seems to create another gospel group and it’s getting A LOT of buzz.  I want to hear more about that. How did that start, how did that creativity and the idea to create another gospel group about?

Darren: wow.  Well, that came from you know.. Vanessa and I we moved from the GTA out west to Kitchener and shortly after we moved out there we started scoping out the land. We were visiting different churches in the area and just trying to get the lay of the land. While we were doing that, we were noticing that there was an absence of gospel music in the region.  We were visiting churches, coming in contact with a lot of CCM music (contemporary Christian music) in the churches and in the community but didn’t see much gospel music happening. And coming from a background where we have been doing gospel for pretty much all of our lives, it felt really weird to come into a space or to a region where there wasn’t a lot of gospel music happening and so with that, we felt kind of called to get something started. So based on our previous background and experiences in gospel music and then myself being an educator we just felt, you know what?!, maybe we should start a gospel choir in this area. And so, that’s how the Waterloo Region Mass Choir came about.

BriChronicles: wow.

Darren: We decided that we would do an open call for auditions and people just started coming to audition for the choir and here we are 2022 we’ve been operating for four years now.

And we are very excited, we are getting ready to release our debut single and EP project which is getting ready to come out in April 2022.  

BriChronicles: Woohoo, exciting stuff!

Darren: We are really excited about that.

BriChronicles: Are you seeing a lot of people showing interest in wanting to come & join?!   I know this season has been kind of down as you know, because of the pandemic. Do you have something coming up for people who want to come and join down the road or..?

Darren:  Currently we don’t have anything.  We also have kind of been on lockdown as we were getting ready for the recording but, as we are going to launch the release and things are getting safer we will definitely start looking to audition and recruit new members again.

BriChronicles: Ok.  So auditions and recruitment will be done at some time.

And you guys have to understand that these people are getting well recognized. To the point that we are having award winning situations.  Mr. Hamilton himself with a Juno!

Darren:  Well let’s not say award winning yet..( laughs)

Vanessa: She’s calling it, she’s speaking it ( laughs)

BriChronicles: We are calling it out, we are calling it out right? It’s still nominated it’s still an awesome way to be recognized.

Darren:  Yes.  I was recently nominated on March the 1st. The 51st Juno awards nominees were announced officially and I was nominated for the Music Counts teacher of the year award!..

BriChronicles: Awesome!

Darren: ..Recognizing music educators across Canada who had a significant impact not only in their classrooms but the broader field of music education in Canada. And so I’m one of the five nominees that they selected for this year, and the award will be given at the Junos on the May 15!

BriChronicles: May 15th! Guys keep an eye on that.  This is great.  

Anything else you want to share besides all your nice wins and things like that. Anything else happening that you want to share or ?…just keep tune? 

Vanessa: Yeah, keep tune.  

BriChronicles: How can we find you?

Vanessa: On our Instagram page and we are Waterloo Region Mass Choir and so you can follow us, like us and yeah, stay connected!

BriChronicles: And keep an eye on these two.  They are coming back with a lot more stuff I am pretty sure.  Thank you so much for coming & talking to us.

Darren:  Thank you.    

🙂

Check out their website at https://www.wrmasschoir.ca