Ah Four The Moment. For 12 and a half years I sang with this amazing group from Nova Scotia. Four women from Nova Scotia with International Acclaim. I always tell young people… “Stay positive, if you are a performer do as many talent shows or community performances as you can, you never know who is watching.” In this case it was a group of women. I was only 20 years old when I got the call asking me if I could audition for an Acapella group called Four The Moment. I remember that phone call, I was living with my then, best friend Barbie Hamilton, and I was screaming and excited, and then I became over whelmed, wondering “what on earth was I going to do?” I had been performing in talent shows, primarily as a rapper, but also singing, and lips syncing, and apparently, someone had taken notice. I worked full time at George Dixon Community Centre, both day and night, and I really didn’t have a lot of time to audition. So, you guessed it; I had my audition while working the front desk. I remember it like it was yesterday… I auditioned in April of 1988. The women who came to audition me were Debby Jones, Kim Bernard and Delvina Bernard… I would be replacing Debby. I had seen these women perform at a concert at Queen Elizabeth High School earlier that same year, and I remember being afraid inside and thinking this is way out of my element. But, I faced my fears and went through the audition process anyway. Now what was really funny is because I was at work… I got the women to go into the Kiddie Kapers room, so that I had close access to the phones at the front desk, and the women. I literally would have to run back and forth between the group and the desk throughout my entire audition. I sang my favorite song, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and then they got me to harmonize Amazing Grace with them, and then they taught me a bit of one of their songs to see if I could hold my harmony. When I think back to the evening of my audition… man what a memory.

After my audition, I went back to my front desk duties, and felt very excited. I was young, eager, and scared to death.

I did not get the call right away, but I got a call from them, asking me if I would join the group. It turned out I was the right range to replace Debby Jones, and apparently my harmonies worked for them. Now, what happened next is what we call “Baptism by fire” I basically launched into a rehearsal process that involved a new style of singing, harmonies, and the group had just launched their first Album We’re Still Standing, so they had to go on tour that summer. And you guessed it I would be with them.

My first concert with the group was on June 12, 1988 at the Rebecca Cohn in Halifax, we were singing 2 songs as part of a Free Trade Rally. I was having an internal panic attack. I remember feeling trapped in my body, but singing those songs, Freedom Has Beckoned and Betty’s Blues… I remember how the women moved together, almost as one, when they expressed emotion in the songs. I remember their hand movements and body movements and trying to emulate this, but it wasn’t’ quite working for me. I remember watching Delvina Bernard in Awe as she broke out singing and stompin for the recurring refrains in Freedom has Beckoned …and then my life was different, and enriched from that moment on. I toured with the group and got to travel all across Canada to many folk festivals. We sang in Germany at the Women In E Motion Festival, we sang for Desmond Tutu at the Metro Centre in Halifax, we sang for the Free Nelson Mandela Rally in Toronto at the Royal Alex Theatre, we were on CBC TV, Much Music, New Music, we sang at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, at New York Lincoln Centre, and of course the special moment when we opened up for Dr. Maya Angelou at Roy Thompson Hall in 1996. There are so many great memories, it sometimes seems unreal that I did all of this, worked full time in the community and toured all summer, and did concerts throughout the year, but it’s real… Four The Moment was and still is a blessing in my life.

Click here for audio

- Arlina's Prayer - Shouting For Freedom - Pass The Word - Old Pictures - Voices In The Dark

In October of 2000 the group said good bye, we hung up our microphones, not because we hated one another, or because we sounded bad. It was just our time. The music of Four The Moment, it’s historical content and sweet harmonies will live on in Films like Black Mother Black Daughter and Them That’s Not, it will live on in Documentaries and in schools and most of all in our hearts. We most recently reunited in September of 2003 to open up for Dr. Maya Angelou again at the Sky Dome Theatre in Toronto. ( At Dr. Angelou’s request )… This experience was almost surreal, but one different element in the group, is that Delvina Bernard, Kim Bernard and Andrea Currie now have children. It was amazing to see how much the group dynamic changed, but I’m telling you when we hit the stage and opened our mouths for the first note in Arlina’s Prayer, there was magic in the air. We have always said there was a fifth member of Four The Moment and that is the spirit of the music that comes into our voices, and the spirit of our music our raison d’etre was still with us that night, after years of not singing together.

Four the Moment, the a capella group from Halifax, was just starting out when the quartet performed at the Maritime Music Awards at the Flamingo Lounge in 1989. From left are, Anne-Marie Woods, Kim Bernard, Delvina Bernard and Andrea Currie.

Saturday, February 3, 1996
Four the Moment takes bold steps in new record

HALIFAX (CP) -- Four the Moment has been captivating Halifax for 15 years with harmonies rooted in gospel and African folk, singing about the struggles of black Nova Scotians.
Now the female quartet is to capture the rest of the country with a new recording, In My Soul, that takes their unique sound to a new level.
They're not a capella any more, and instruments aren't the only new elements. They've added tones from other cultures. In one song they blend in Nova Scotia Celtic music -- an African-Canadian parallel to the cultural mixes fiddler Ashley MacIsaac has been adding to to Cape Breton Celtic fiddling.
Four the Moment fans have reason to rejoice. Time devoted to community activism and education has kept Andrea Currie, Anne-Marie Woods and sisters Delvina and Kim Bernard out of the spotlight for extended periods.
But, as Delvina explains, they also wanted this album to be special. Taking Four the Moment's unique spark to new a place would require time, patience and money.
They brought in musicians like 76-year-old Toronto blues singer Jodie Drake. As co-producer. they took on Billy Bryans, former drummer for the Parachute Club, a musician who works well with female singers.
Courageously, they added the Celtic element to Delvina's stirring African Nova Scotian Work Song by using Scott Macmillan as guitarist-arranger, Bruce Jacobs of the Barra MacNeils on bass and Ian McKinnon of Rawlins Cross on the penny whistle.
The Celtic-African blend carries the message that breaking your back to put food on the table is hardly unique to any one culture. The sound, with Kim's voice, is sultry.
It required imagination to record Archie's Bop, an instrumental, without instruments. The tribute to local jazz icon Archie Dixon was written by Delvina's husband Harvey Millar.
"We imagined ourselves as instruments," says Kim. "You had to pretend you were a trumpet, Vina was a standup bass. It's amazing when you conceptualize yourself like that and that's how it comes out."
"In one part of the song we're trying to be a horn section," says Andrea. "In another we sound like brushes on a snare drum. Switching around and trying to get the kind of groove that kind of ensemble would have was, musically, hard work."
The hard work should pay off. A deal between the group's JAM (Just A Minute) productions and Atlantica Music will ensure the music gets heard across the country, via Capitol-EMI Records.
For the first time, Four the Moment will engage in the music-biz necessities of releasing a single, producing a video and, later this year, going on tour.

Four The Moment
Arlina's Prayer
(Delvina E. Bernard - TRIAD Music - SOCAN)

Blessed be the woman who bindeth up her wounds
Patient is she who keeps faith that love will come by soon
But I can't wait on human grace, when beaten down to dust
Like a thief in the night, I'm running for my life, 'cause I just get double-crossed

Let me not be ashamed to cry out from my pain
Let not my soul be oppressed, my tears be not in vain
No woman ought to wonder, in her home and Native land
No man should put asunder Almighty's commands

Things you take for granted, I have never had
Sitting alone in this cold room is more than love gone bad
No woman ought to wonder, in her home and Native land
No man should put asunder Almighty's commands
My enemies afflict my soul and bear falsehoods against my name
The wicked ones who put me here shall perish all the same

No woman ought to wonder, in her home and Native land
No man should put asunder Almighty's commands
No woman ought to wonder, in her home and Native land
No man should put asunder Almighty's commands

From the album In My Soul

Produced by Delvina Bernard and Billy Bryans
p © Just A Minute Productions
Four The Moment is Delvina Bernard, Kim Bernard,
Andrea Currie and Anne-Marie Woods