How it started

Shirchadasj & Band started as a vocal group at the former Reformed Social Academy, the latter "Vijverberg" and now part of the "Christelijke Hogeschool Ede".
When this HBO-school started, Bert Leeuwis - who just graduated - got a job as a psychology teacher. As it wasn’t a full-time job, Bert Leeuwis also gave some music lessons. The students in Ede didn’t find any "student life" here and met each other more and more during the weekly music lessons and later on also during the breaks.

So in that time there was more and more a need to start a choir in the evening. Bert Leeuwis agreed, but  on the condition that everybody would do their best. He was used to work with discipline with another choir in Wageningen. More and more he began to see how singing and different settings on stage could reinforce each other.

In those days the gospel musical in the United States began to be popular and Bert Leeuwis brought for the first time a gospel musical to The Netherlands, costumed, with light effects and chorographical arrangements.

United States of America

Bert Leeuwis started to practise big musical arrangements, like "The Apostle" of The Continental Singers that was just set up in America.
Soon the choir grew until 60 members and there was even a waiting list. There were positive reports about the choir and from all over the country came requests for concerts. One of those concerts was in the place Vollenhoven. A day after the concert, Bert Leeuwis got a phone call. An American man who attended the concert the day before was so impressed. He liked to invite the choir to come over to the United States. He would take care of the contacts with the local churches.
That was a big change...

Now the choir should become an association with a board and with statutes. And with which name should we go on? After a price draw the name "Shirchadasj" was founded. It is a Hebrew word that means "a new song".
Then there was a wonderful tour of three weeks, visiting places like Toronto, Chicago and Grand Rapids with concerts in churches, parks and shopping malls. There were even TV programmes recorded!

30 years Shirchadasj

Back in Holland Shirchadasj became more and more known. The group was invited for radio and TV programmes, had performances at big festivals, had concerts, but also gave some musical support to church services, especially in the area near Ede and Veenendaal, the home base of the group.

Bert Leeuwis didn’t want to become Shirchadasj a copy of other foreign choirs, like Oslo Gospel Choir, who were very succesfull. "That is no challenge for me". As artistic leader of the group he kept on searching for other ways.
Again and again he found new songs that were still unknown in Holland. Besides that, he was able to gather a group of professional people around him to improve quality on all aspects.

After thirty years, Shirchadasj & Band is known as a professional music group. Although this group has developed from a small choir into a complete music theatre group, the passion, spontaneousness and pleasure in making music has been the same in all those thirty years, and will never change!