MY POP CHOIR IS FOR EVERYONE – BUT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN YOU?

My Pop Choir performing at Sankofa Square, Dec 2025

My Pop Choir has always welcomed everyone, no matter what their musical background. For some members, this may be their first encounter with sheet music and for some their first time singing in a choir. Scroll back to our February blog to read about their experiences.

But can you find a musical home with My Pop Choir if you’ve been playing piano since you were a youngster? If you’ve performed on stage?  Or had years of singing lessons?

The answer is yes, if you are looking for a community choir designed above all to conjure up joy, humour and fun!

We asked four members of the Downtown Toronto Evening choir with extensive music backgrounds what they’ve found in My Pop Choir.

“If you’re looking for a celebration of music and getting the chance to share your voice and your love of music with a community that feels the same, you will not go wrong with this choir,” says Marlee Maslove, whose love of music began when she was a child.

She has an early memory of watching The Sound of Music on her fifth birthday and knowing the lines because she’d already seen it so often. She performed in her first show when she was 10 – Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.  “It was just an incredible experience,” she recalls.

Marlee went to the Rosedale Heights School of the Arts for Grade 12 and then on to Sheridan College for the Music Theatre Performance program.

When she joined My Pop Choir, she found that the music was simple, but in a good way. “Just being able to focus on some of the basics was really great and feeling so solid musically just lets me have fun!”

Tracy Parris’ early musical experience was also in music theatre in a Montreal group, starting when she was 11. “The kids wrote, produced and choreographed all original productions and we travelled across Canada on tour.”

Over the subsequent years, she has taught acting, dancing and vocals. In Toronto, she was looking for a choir that sings pop music and a Google search brought her to My Pop Choir.

“If you’re looking to have fun and just sing, it’s ideal,” she says. ‘And I love the easiness of it. You get to go out once a week and just sing. Plus there’s the flexibility of different choir times, so you can always fit it into a busy schedule.”

Robin Goodman’s musical life started early as well. She began sitting on the piano bench at the age of three beside her favourite aunt, while she practised. “Then I would pick out the music afterwards,” she remembers.

Robin studied piano to the level of Grade 10 in the Royal Conservatory of Music program and also played and sang with her high school band.  Her love of music is evidenced by the keyboards and guitars that are always around her house.

A friend first told her about My Pop Choir and she thought it sounded like a lot of fun. After the first session, she found herself humming as she walked out.

“I have a pretty busy job and pretty busy life and to walk out every Thursday night humming and singing all the way home - I thought ‘wow’ this is amazing!”

Aviva Cipin also played piano beginning in childhood and then had an opportunity in her early 20s to play for a community musical theatre.  “I was enjoying playing in the pit and then someone said can you direct a show?  So I said sure and I directed shows off and on for about 20 years.”

After that, she led a choir for a couple of years and started singing in a choir just prior to Covid.  After the world opened up again after the pandemic, Aviva decided to try My Pop Choir. “I was a little bit worried about being on the other side of the baton!” she laughs.

For her it’s all about the music and the camaraderie. “Some of our arrangements are quite lovely,” she says.  “I love to hear how they come together – that’s very satisfying.”

Are there challenges to singing in a choir where its members have varying levels of experience and you have a considerable background in music? As it turns out, even those musically trained can find their own ways to keep extending their skills in My Pop Choir, even while they are there for the joy and camaraderie.

“The song choices are great, but sometimes the arrangements are just higher than my range. So I am challenging my voice,” says Robin. “But I get to sing and that’s really all I need. This choir is there to soothe my soul.”

Aviva has had the same experience with MPC. “I’m not a singer. That was never my specialty, so it’s a challenge just for me to sing. But it’s all about the people and how the music makes you feel.”

And many singers, both novice and experienced, likely share Tracy’s challenge.  “Trying to sing songs that I am very familiar with is actually hard,” she says, commenting on how her part in the arrangement may not be the melody. “It’s hard to change it up, because I so much want to sing it the way it is in my head!”

The song choices were a bit challenging for Marlee at first because of their pop style. “I’ve always been a very musical theatre focussed person – that’s most of what I listen to in my spare time,” she says. “When it comes to singing with the group, I just want to make sure that I’m blending. And I also hope that I can be helpful and maybe a guiding voice for people who aren’t that confident.”

So if you want to explore another outlet for your musical self, in a warm, comfortable community, My Pop Choir can offer you a new home and perhaps even new friends!