What to do when the Singers’ beloved artistic director retires midway through the season and its new artistic director has yet to be announced? “You focus on joy,” says Melissa Wotherspoon, the long-time chorister who takes over the baton for the Singers’ On Broadway concert, Saturday, February 28.
With repertoire drawn largely from choir members’ suggestions, On Broadway invites us to celebrate what brings communities together in this in-between moment, one of uncertainty but also of possibility. “The program became a collective expression of what we need most,” explains Wotherspoon, “joy, connection, and hope.”
Wotherspoon, a soprano with the Peterborough Singers since 2010, has deep roots in the Broadway genre. She has been the Arts Lead at Clarington Central Secondary School for over twenty years, and she directed her first musical, Chess, before that, while she was still at university. For her, musical theatre offers the opportunity to explore the gamut of human emotion and experience—both in the specific interactions between characters that it presents and in what those interactions say about the human condition.
Melissa Wotherspoon conducts “Crocodile Rock” at the Peterborough Singers’ The Music of Elton John concert, February 24, 2024.
This concert focuses on Broadway’s expression of these universal themes across time. There are well-loved songs from the twentieth century on offer, songs about holding on to dreams, like “Over the Rainbow” and “Somewhere.” And there are also twenty-first-century hits on the same theme from Wicked and Hairspray. Songs of friendship and community include the finale of Come From Away, “Seasons of Love” from Rent, and “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen. Again, a great combination of older and newer numbers! “Raise You Up/Just Be” from Kinky Boots and “You Learn” from Jagged Little Pill celebrate diversity and perseverance. And of course there are songs just for fun, and a few surprise cameo appearances.
The featured band – Andrew Affleck (bass guitar), Curtis Cronkwright (drums), Katie Gilroy (synthesizer), Barry Haggarty (guitar) – will be augmented by excellent musicians from the choir, including Anne Normand (piano), Medda Burnett (trumpet), Erin Butler (trombone), Mary Taves (sax), and Melissa Wotherspoon herself, on tenor sax. Combined with the 120+ voices of the Peterborough Singers, the band will certainly “Raise the Roof” (The Wild Party) – and our spirits.
“Broadway gives us a language for joy and resilience, a way to reconnect through music,” says Wotherspoon. She continues, “The repertoire in this concert is musically demanding but it highlights what is at the core of us.” According to Wotherspoon, that core is best described in the words of a piece from the musical A New Brain – “Heart and Music.” Heart and music not only “make a song” but connect us, so we feel “seen, uplifted, and part of a community.”
I can’t think of a better concert experience for right now.
When: Saturday, February 28, 2026 at 2:00 pm
Where: Emmanuel United Church, Peterborough
Ticket prices: $40 adults/$10 student
