Bolton United Church hosting live Christmas concert December 3 and 4

By Rob Paul

This Christmas season, live music will be returning to Bolton United Church as it hosts “A Classical Christmas” with mezzo-soprano Danielle MacMillan and pianist Timothy Cheung.

Two dates are set for the concert, with it taking place Friday, December 3 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, December 4 at 2 p.m. 

MacMillan and Cheung will be playing classical songs that highlight the wonder and magic of the holidays with favourites such as O Holy Night and other classics that reflect the winter season.

The two concerts will be about an hour long each and will feature not only the performances from MacMillan and Cheung, but event organizer Daniel Gibson will be including commentary along the way.

“It's going to be myself and my pianist Timothy Cheung; we started working together at the Canadian Opera Company, so we've known each other for a while—since 2013,” she said. “Basically, we'll be singing a selection of winter-themed songs, as well as holiday favourites and Christmas songs and I'll finish the show with Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. In between a group of songs, Daniel will be giving explanations on historical background and information about the songs, and probably some jokes here and there!”

Having not been a part of a concert in nearly two years, MacMillan is chomping at the bit to get back out on stage and is so thankful she'll get the opportunity to kick off the holidays with a show for the residents of Bolton. 

“I haven't performed in a while because of COVID, and I thought this would be a good way to bring everyone together and spread holiday cheer,” said MacMillan. “It's definitely a gift that I'm giving to them, but it's also for myself because it's been such a long time. I'm very excited, but I'm also quite nervous, it's going to feel like the first day of school. Quite a bit of prep goes into it—we have about three-hour long rehearsals to go over music, timing, flow, and order. It took more time to land the venue to prepare for the concert.”

Knowing MacMillan wanted to perform, Gibson decided to put his heart and soul into finding a venue that would work for the Christmas concert and that's what led them to Bolton.

“A couple months ago, Danielle said it would be fun to sing in a concert again because she had been singing in concerts the last couple years at churches in the GTA, so, from there I thought well, what the heck, let's give this a shot,” said Gibson. “I ended up calling a bunch of churches and it took probably over a month or month-and-a-half to find a venue. From there, we started planning with Bolton United. In terms of operational time, it took at least two and a half months to plan this, and it all came out of the idea of thinking it would be fun to do this and so we gave it a shot.”

It was never necessarily the plan to come up to Caledon and put a concert together—they just wanted a stage and people who would enjoy the music—but after reaching out to churches all over, Gibson found the perfect partner in Bolton United for the festivities. 

“I found Bolton United because…I went on Google Maps and I typed in ‘church' and then I called every Catholic, Anglican, and United Church in the GTA,” he said. “I was on the phone leaving messages for a long time and I suspect most are sick of hearing from me, but Bolton United called me back and thought it was interesting because they were looking to open up doors again and try and get people into the church. They said they'd love to do it and ran it by the board, and it was okayed. 

“So, Sandra (Hautot) from Bolton United got to know me over a couple phone calls and eventually we went and saw the venue and it was great. Working with them has been perfect, they've been open to everything we've suggested.”

Nothing is guaranteed to happen with the pandemic hanging over every event, but now that the concert is just over a week away and precautions are set, MacMillan and Gibson can finally take a breath.

“Things are constantly changing, but the coordinator at Bolton United seemed very confident and we do have limited ticketing so people will be spaced out and will be very safe,” said MacMillan. “We're very confident that we'll follow through with this and people will be so glad they came because live music has been hard to come by.”

The power of music is really, particularly live music, and Gibson knows people aren't taking it for granted anymore after going without it for so long, which is why he and MacMillan are thrilled to be able to bring it to Bolton.

“One of the biggest points of appeal for Bolton and us, especially for Danielle, is that the value of music is really more pronounced than ever,” said Gibson. “In this situation here, when people have been lacking something for so long, the value becomes amplified because they've been missing it. Once people have it again, they'll realize, ‘Oh, this is something I haven't had,' and they'll realize how much they want and need it. In a certain sense, live music is giving a sort of normality back to what people's needs are in terms of entertainment. It's mutually beneficial for everyone, it's a triple win all around—the church gets attendance, Danielle gets a stage, and the community gets music. There's nobody who's missing out here.”

For tickets to the Bolton United Church Christmas concert, visit www.eventbrite.ca/e/a-classical-christmas-tickets-202181930597.