Covid-19 Cantala Singing update
If you would have told me last March 9th that this would be Cantala’s last rehearsal for an undetermined amount of time… I would have been shocked.
Here we are; singing in the time of Covid. We have teamed up with the choir at Forest Hill United Church to bring music to their services. It is a way to bring purpose to our singing.
I had no idea that a tsunami was about to hit the singing world; and I still look back with astonishment.
Last spring, after our rehearsals abruptly stopped, we started to discover “zoom” and what the heck latency was. Overall, it was not a positive change. We were all adjusting.
After the looming darkness of COVID surrounded us and pitched a tent, I realized, with a heaviness of sadness, that choir was over for the foreseeable future and I would have to regroup and figure out how to make my choir organization have purpose again.
In the late summer, when nothing seemed to be changing, and the potential of us to sing in person was not looking possible, it came to me that a golden opportunity was at our doorstep. As an organization, every year, we look for ways to be involved in our community. We have been rehearsing at Forest Hill United Church for many years and they have supported our organization in countless ways. They were (and still are) worshipping online and I am providing all the music for their services. To brighten their services even more, and to give Cantala reason to sing, I decided that we would work to infiltrate their services with special music, responses, introits and benedictions.
We are now in our 7th week of zoom rehearsals online. We are experts on how it all works now. You mute yourself when you sing. Thumb’s up for “good to move on”. Thumbs down for “one more time”. We rehearse all the parts and then the singers record on their own against my reference track, upload it to our one drive and then we have video editors put all of our faces and voices together.
Its quite a process and takes a lot of hands and minds, patience and time. But we are doing it.
Is it as fabulous as choir used to be?
No.
It is anything like choir was before?
No.
But can it be fulfilling and fun?
Yes, in different ways. But that is for another blog.
They say every cloud has is a silver lining. If you are still reading this and know me personally, I am super optimistic. Have I always been optimistic during this time? No. But with self care and the support of people in my life I have come out of the misery and darkness of last spring and am seeing the silver lining in our singing cloud.
There are people waiting for us to sing. Every week, online, at 10am. And it feels incredibly wonderful to be able to give back to this community when they need music in their day.
Check out our most recent virtual choir project:
More to come, stay tuned.
Warmly,
Nancy and your Cantala singing team.