The Kendaliers

Good news – Kendal at Granville is no longer without a choir! On the evening of December 19, with a program of traditional Christmas music, the Kendaliers made their debut. They are a nine-member chorus comprised entirely of Kendal residents. The enthusiasm of the standing-room only crowd showed that the community appreciated the group's efforts, and the singers themselves said how pleased they were to have been given an opportunity to return to the hobby of choral singing they had once so much enjoyed. While it's not clear whether the Kendaliers will become a fixture on the Kendal scene, there's little doubt that many residents have been reminded of the lure of choral singing, and so it's likely that other efforts and experiments will soon follow.

The founder and director of the Kendaliers is Teddy Westlake. Having just retired from careers in which she directed both church choirs and community choirs – and a fine keyboardist as well – Teddy realized that she had talents to offer to her fellow residents. From her work as the guiding spirit of the Vintage Voices, Granville's community choir for seniors, she is familiar with the vocal limitations that adults in the seventies and eighties might experience, and she knows how to coax spirited and enjoyable performances out of mature vocal cords. She recruited her singers early in the fall and scheduled one-hour weekly rehearsals during which they learned to blend their voices, listen to each other, and overcome their discouragement that they might no longer have the resonant voices and vocal control that they recalled having had when thirty years younger. She also recruited two talented and non-senior singers, Sandy Wolfe (who works in our Wellness Center) and her daughter Brittany, to perform solos and duets.

The event was held in the large entrance hallway of Kendal at Granville, decked out with traditional seasonal trappings. The program celebrated Christmas, with choral settings of familiar carols and solo performances of reverential pieces, interspersed with a narrative telling of the Christmas story. Afterwards, the community joined with the chorus in singing Christmas songs of all sorts – the lively, the quiet, the rollicking, and the soaring. Several audience members enlivened the occasion by supplying, when appropriate, an aural backdrop of sleigh bells.

When the evening was over, everyone felt warmth about the occasion and gratitude toward Teddy – for her vision, her labors, her generosity. Moreover, the comments that have been making the rounds in the days after the concert suggest that there is a genuine appetite for more choral opportunities and performances at Kendal. Let's hope the Kendaliers have a future.