Carrie Schellenberg Wilson joins as new conductor of Octavia Women’s Choir
Octavia Women’s Choir is getting ready for its annual spring concert, a show the choir’s conductor said is sure to be entertaining.
“It’s not your typical choral performance,” said Carrie Schellenberg Wilson, Octavia’s conductor.
Octavia’s spring show will be held May 31 at 7 p.m. and June 2 and 2 p.m. at Christ Church Selkirk. As of press date, only a few tickets remain for the first show, and the second is sold out. Tickets can be purchased by emailing octavialadieschoir@gmail.com.
Octavia puts on what are called jukebox musicals.
“We have in our midst one of the singers who is an excellent scriptwriter,” Schellenberg Wilson said. “She manages to weave a story in amongst a bunch of songs, most of which would probably be familiar to most audiences, but they’re sung in a choral setting, and so the story kind of brings all of the songs together.”
In the spring show, a range of music will be featured, like jazz songs, music from the 30s and 40s, the Beach Boys as well as modern pop songs — anything that contributes to the theme of the story.
This spring show tells the story of a reunion of campers who went to a music camp together when they were kids.
“The story reminisces a little bit from their experiences of being at summer camp together, and then also hits on some of the themes that they’ve experienced in their adult life as they grew up and matured,” Schellenberg Wilson said. “As you hear the script and you hear the parts of the story, you can almost start to imagine what song comes next.”
This is Schellenberg Wilson’s first year as the choir’s conductor. She became the conductor just before Christmas of 2023.
Schellenberg Wilson, who today lives with her family on a hobby farm in Libau, northeast of Selkirk, has been directing choirs since she was 16. She earned a degree in music education and was a high school music teacher for over a decade before becoming an accountant. She has also directed an auditioned musical group in Winnipeg.
While she’s conducted musicals and operettas before, she hasn’t worked in a setting like the one with Octavia, where the script comes from within the group.
“The artistic team is all from the choir themselves, and they’re really brilliant, and they contribute so much to making the whole show feel like a show,” said Schellenberg Wilson. “I’m just doing the music part. The performance is really all of the parts coming together.”
Some of the members of Octavia have been in the group since its inception in 2012.
“They believe strongly in supporting each other, not just in their musical endeavours, but in life,” Schellenberg Wilson said. “Singing in a choir is more than just the music. It’s about the friendships and the sense of community, the sense of belonging that it provides.”
In addition to the annual spring show, Octavia performs during the holidays in December and is available to perform at events, which people can book by emailing Octavia.
Octavia is a community group — Schellenberg Wilson says there’s room for anybody. She said fall and January are good times to join the choir, and people can contact Octavia via email if they’re interested in joining.
