One might expect to see “choral music” written somewhere near the top of the list of things logistically hobbled by the pandemic. Where does a choir assemble, much less perform, when churches are shuttered? How are choristers supposed to rehearse when for months provincial health guidelines (orders, lately) restrict social gatherings to small, face-masked bubbles?
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This year’s Christmas concert by the Grand Forks Choral Society showed that it can be done. In a special Zoom broadcast Wednesday evening, Dec. 9, The Gazette watched a virtual choir whose individual performances were digitally woven together.
It must have been on-screen magic, only the reality — the sheer volume of human effort that went into the work — is far more impressive. It started last June with a bold idea by Musical Director Kirsten Rezansoff and chorister Mary Ann Westaway: If 2020 wouldn’t allow for a real-life concert, why not put together a digital one?
The impossible started to come together after untold hours of digital editing by sound and video producer, Gary Cuthbert and a generous grant from the Phoenix Foundation, which funds artworks in rural communities.
Working from home, 21 of the society’s choristers learned, rehearsed and perfected their parts to four Christmas classics. Cuthbert then recorded them singing in pairs, one chorister at either end of his Grand Forks home studio, starting in early October.
It was Cuthbert’s first time at videography. Suffice it to say here that his audio production, long Cuthbert’s forté, is daunting enough, especially when it comes to music. No problem. He taught himself how to use a digital editing platform, relying on an online course, Google and YouTube, which he supplemented with his “experience and best judgment.”
“I got into it somewhat reluctantly,” he told The Gazette. “I knew it was going to be a huge project. I just didn’t know how huge.”
“I’m so ecstatic that I did do it. Seeing the joy on all the faces of the choristers Wednesday night made it all worth it.”
“We did it hugely for the seniors’ centres at Silver Kettle, Boundary and Hardy View lodges,” he explained. The society would normally perform at these facilities once a month, Director Rezansoff said, but the society’s last such performance was in January 2020.
Many choir members have ended their lives in these care homes, some very recently. “That was a big part of getting this production done,” Cuthbert continued.
Cuthbert has brought Wednesday’s concert to Grand Forks’ seniors’ homes through DVDs safely delivered by Mary Ann Westaway.
It was for the sake of community that Cuthbert, who usually sings in the choir, first joined the Society around seven years ago. He’d followed his wife Laura Jean there because, in his words, “it gets me out.”
“It’s a really friendly, accepting, non-judgmental community. We get together and we just sing.”
Nearly a year into the pandemic, Rezansoff reminded The Gazette that society has adjusted to a new normal that is anything but.
“All of us are feeling this loneliness that comes from not being able to go out and meet with people. We go about our daily lives as if it’s all normal, but we forget how weird it is,” she said.
We’ve done this to function in our new world; to stay sane in a head space where the things we used to take for granted — Christmas and singing, to name a couple — are either tremendously uncertain or, at best, socially distanced. It bears emphasizing here that Grand Forks needs the gift of music now more than ever. Music, in Rezansoff’s words “is a way to help people through hard times; to process and understand things through song.”
For the benefit of the community, and with the society’s permission, The Gazette will share each of the four songs laboriously produced by Cuthbert, Rezansoff and everyone else who had a hand in their wonderful work.
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