Through the doors of the stately white church perched on the hill at Pandora and Chalmers streets, past its pillars and up the stairs, a room bathed in gold fills with the sound of two voices raised in harmony.
They aren't members of the congregation, but Lisa Feeney and Damian Ritchie are calling the Church of Christ, Scientist, home.
As members of the Victoria Bluegrass Association, they're two among many. Thanks to a new partnership with the church, the VBA will host its first concert in the main hall Tuesday - a partnership that the church hopes to replicate with other community groups, since building a new performance platform.
"We're so excited to have them," said Robin Jones, a member of the church's committee to build the platform.
But the story didn't begin as a happy one for the VBA. The association learned last month that it would lose Fernwood's Orange Hall, its home of 12 years, on short notice.
"They only gave us two or three weeks' notice that the building was being sold," said VBA president Alan Law. "It's such a wonderful hall. We played there every Tuesday for 12 years and then, bang, find a new place."
The 100-year-old Orange Hall had hosted several community groups - from theatre and yoga practitioners to the worshippers of St. Mark's Traditional Anglican Church. It was sold to a family, who is expected to convert it into their home.
Enter Feeney and Ritchie. As the newest and only 20-something members on the board of the VBA, their first assignment seemed like an impossible one: Find a new home for the association in time for Tuesday's concert, only weeks away at the time.
The board had already scoured the town, looking for a venue that could accommodate weekly jam sessions, as well as monthly open stage events and periodic concerts, with no luck. Following their own unsuccessful day of searching, the young musicians noticed the church on their way home.
"The door was literally open and we were walking down Pandora after looking all over," said Ritchie, 29. "The first person who greeted us said they had a new stage and wanted to get more involved in the community."
The church, which opened its doors in 1920, has hosted only a handful of other public concerts in the past. Most recently, they hosted three benefits for Our Place and one for Wayside House three months ago, featuring Celtic harpists and singer-songwriter Kate Gibson Oswald. In addition to the VBA, they've also lined up Quinn and Qristina Bac-hand as well as the Larsen School of Music for future shows.
"I've been here 32 years and I don't remember really anything other than those three concerts that we did for Our Place," said Jones. "This is just an opportunity to reach out to the community and provide something."
The main impetus for tripling the area of the low stage, which was originally about two metres deep, was to bring the service closer to the congregation. Church-goers tend to sit at the back, said Jones, so they decided to bring the service closer to them. But they also consulted musicians outside the Christian Science (not to be confused with Scientology) community, including opera and choral singers as well as chamber musicians.
"We had a lot of input from musical groups when we started to do this and they told us things about how big it should be, how small it should be, how this venue was a different venue than most of the others in town," she said.
Jones said there will be a selection committee to review potential musicial guests.
"We're not going to allow like, loud heavy-metal stuff in here," she said. "It just doesn't respect the space, I don't think."
Small orchestras, choirs and quartets would be most appropriate - but they're very pleased with the VBA, which has already begun hosting weekly jam sessions in the foyer.
The church's 400-plus capacity will be a significant adjustment for the VBA. Their Orange Hall shows were typically packed - but the hall had a capacity of only 90. In one case, the Foggy Hog-town Boys from Toronto played two back-to-back shows - one at 6 p.m., then another at 8: 30 p.m. - to accommodate the previous venue's small size.
"It's kind of fun, being in those small, intimate spaces," said Ritchie. "But this one here's kind of the same, but much bigger."
Law looked around the cavernous space, with rows of golden cushioned pews and 28 golden windows with curved arches under a white domed roof.
"We'll never fill this place, I don't think," he said. "The thing about this room though is, even if it's not full, it's going to be nice.
... It's very comfortable, it's very welcoming and the sound is fantastic."
The first test will be Tuesday's concert, when the DownTown Mountain Boys hit the stage at 8 p.m. Law called the Boys an "all-star" group of bluegrass musicians from Seattle, with Terry Enyeart on bass and vocals, Dave Keenan on banjo and vocals, Don Share on guitar and vocals, Tom Moran on mandolin and Paul Elliott on fiddle. Tickets are $20 general, $15 for VBA members, available at [email protected] or an VBA event.
"I can't wait to hear the vocals coming off that stage," said Law. "The foundation of bluegrass is the singing. And when you get two or three voices together in bluegrass, if it's being done right, you get this sound that happens that isn't like anything else. It's just got this feeling about it that penetrates, in a good way. It goes right to your heart. So I'm looking forward to that - to just hearing what this stage will do. I'm pretty sure that the sound here is going to be spectacular."
