A decade of growth in harmony was commemorated by the Foothills Philharmonic Society's 10th anniversary concert on Sunday.
"Our society started as the brainchild of four very talented people: Cindy MacDonald, Stuart Lloyd, Robbie Bailey and Tim Korthuis," said FPS president Cortnee Bouwmeester in a pre-concert address to the crowd. "We started with a chorus and have grown now to include a chamber chorus, orchestra, jazz chorus, men's chorus and, most recently, the junior singers children's choir.
"While many of our founding members have moved onto other things, we're still very privileged to have Tim Korthuis, who's very much at the heart of our society. He's led many of our ensembles at various times and is currently the director for both the chamber chorus and our main chorus. His passion and dedication keep us going and I know that everyone here would agree that we would not be the same without him."
As Korthuis described, the society was founded in 2014, with the idea of bringing a few friends together to make classical music.
"And then for our first rehearsal in the fall of 2013 over 90 people showed up," he said. "We've been excited to do wonderful music since then, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and then more contemporary of the classical idea, Eric Whittaker, and then experimenting into vocal jazz, men's chorus and all of these different avenues.
"While Foothills Philharmonic, many people would hear that name and say, 'Organization of classical music.' We actually picked the name philharmonic because it actually means for the love of harmony. When we started the organization it was entirely because we love music being performed in harmony with other musicians and there's definitely a community aspect to that as well."
The concert, held Feb. 25 at the Okotoks Alliance Church, featured the society's vocal jazz group, the chorus, men's chorus, chamber, chorus and orchestra and the debut of the junior singers children's choir.
For more on the FPS, go to foothillsphilharmonic.com.
