Michael Roy and the RCC Choir virtually founded the mixed-bag style that pairs a versatile formal chorale capable of singing any choral idiom, with authentic bluegrass and country instruments, and maintaining the chorale as the primary performing ensemble. The bluegrass string band is there to perform a few instrumentals, but mainly their job is accompany the chorale. 

 

During the eleven years MR was at the Redland Church, there were seven full production C/Bs. Rehearsals always began before Labor Day, when the choir returned from summer hiatus, and continued feverishly until the concert was scheduled late in the fall. They missed one in the fall of '92, when the church was still in ruins from Hurricane Andrew. 

 

One more C/B concert was added by the Redland Singers, a para-church professional chorale, in 2002.  The mantle was then picked up by the Immanuel Singers. When MR became their music director in 2003, four more C/Bs were added to the well-attended series. In all of these concerts, every seat was taken. This unusual series of concerts had a wide, enthusiastic following all over So. Florida (as did the ancient concerts).

 

Below are selections from those nine initial, groundbreaking concerts. Alongside the chorale is a five-string banjo, string bass, acoustic guitar, and fiddle. The bluegrass band allowed Diane to join in on pi-ana, due to her vast experience in related idioms: Southern Gospel, revival-time styles, and "old-timey" country church.  She disturbed nary a note of purist bluegrass pickin' and grinnin'.