When can we have choir again?

Snapshot of some comments on a survey to choir members.

“When can we have choir again?”

I am asked this question frequently these days. I find it a stressful one, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Do I want to have everyone back together to sing? Of course I do. But I also can’t be reckless with peoples’ health and safety. There are so many factors and considerations that go far beyond “I miss choir, so let’s get back to it.”

I want to be cautious, but at what point am I being too cautious?

Am I overcorrecting my own impatience?

Am I using the crutch of “let’s wait and see what happens” to justify my own discomfort about trying to balance and mitigate all the various risks and comfort levels of my singers?

If I’m honest, I am scared of making the wrong choice – whether that choice is to start up or to wait.

This pandemic isn’t over, and it isn’t going away anytime soon. But, as it has always done, all it gives us is more questions and no answers.

Take Heart

Today, March 11, marks one year since my last pre-covid choral experience: a dress rehearsal in the church where our concert was to take place a few days later. A normal rehearsal of polishing and details and logistics (stand here, enter this way, exit that way).

I remember a chorister looking at his phone and being surprised to see that the NBA was shutting down – one of the first of the major sports/cultural institutions to do it. I think that was the turning point for me, and for many people, to finally believe that this was bigger than we could imagine.

Everything changed within a few days, and now here we are.

What would I have done differently if I had known it was the last time we’d be together in the way it had always been? I’d have focused less on the minutiae. I’d have ensured we did as much singing as possible. I’d have left there with my heart and spirit full, and braced for the crash.

But we weren’t ready. How could we have been?

What we are still feeling is grief. A year later we are still mourning the things that we never got to do, the things we miss doing, the things we may never do again, the people we haven’t seen.

My friend and colleague, Brian Mummert, shared these thoughts with me:

So much of the music we love was written in exactly this context. Humans spent hundreds of years living with the plague…and so communities developed and strengthened communal rituals in part to process these experiences.
I think we wildly underestimate that, absent any kind of germ theory, coming together in large groups to perform or observe artistic and religious rituals is one of our species' major coping mechanisms for this kind of collective grief.
What might make this situation unique, then, is that greater understanding of germ theory: we've discovered that the mechanisms society has used in the past are exactly the ones that become super-spreader events, and ultimately have neither the biological nor the cultural evolutionary tools to process this past year as a result.
I don’t think there will be much processing happening until we can be together in groups participating in rituals (which can be as simple as wine with friends). They’ll look different, sure, but my guess is that some degree of physical proximity and biological entrainment are necessary for communal processing in particular.

We sometimes feel that we should have figured this all out by now, that we should be okay and fine with everything. I just don’t believe that is a realistic expectation.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel in the vaccines, but they aren’t magic wands that will make it all go back to the way it was before. It is going to take time, and that gives us plenty more chances to feel difficult emotions.

It’s exhausting, right?

Geese returning to Winnipeg on their yearly migration north, March 2021.

Be kind to yourself. Take the time and space and rest you need, and reach out to find the support that will help you. Allow yourself to grieve, and try not to be frustrated if it comes up again and again – “Haven’t I been through this already?!”

Take heart, we will come through this, and we will sing together again. That “last” rehearsal isn’t actually my last ever, no matter how unlikely it feels right now.

Difficult Decisions

One of the things that has happened during this pandemic is that I - and all of us - have had to make a lot of difficult decisions in all parts of life. My choir life has been the most changed since this all started. From cancelling everything in the spring, to trying to navigate new research, to adjusting to new realities, and readjusting to changing circumstances, there have been many tough calls to make.

However, when we look at it, many of these decisions aren’t actually that difficult. They are actually very easy decisions to make. If we care about the health and wellbeing of our choir members and our colleagues, then deciding to cancel a concert or gathering in person out of concern for keeping everyone healthy is very easy.

The difficult part is our own emotions about the cancelling, the changing, the waiting, the hibernating, the pausing. For me, I feel a lot of disappointment. And anger that my grand plans are on hold (and why did I wait so long to get them going in the first place?). And sadness that so many people are missing their communities, their income, their passion, their anchor. And right now, I’m wondering if I’m ‘giving up’ by not trying to run a choir virtually.

On the other hand, perhaps some things are worth waiting for. When we can hold a potluck to celebrate a concert (not to mention all the rehearsals leading up to it), it will be the best meal. That day when I can get up in front of a gathered Beer Choir Sing-Along Messiah and conduct the Hallelujah Chorus will be like no other performance of that piece.

Then again, maybe things will never go back to how they were, and I’ll just have to reimagine everything anyway, so why not get a head start. To be honest, I’ve been unmotivated to do much thinking or innovating about choir in the past number of months. I am continually amazed by colleagues who have such wonderful vision and innovative ideas, but I haven’t got there yet.

I feel that shifting, though. I want to get back to sharing what I love about choir, and I think writing is going to be my way forward right now. If I can’t get up in front of a choir and show you in rehearsal, well, I can at least post it on the internet!

To all my friends, colleagues, teachers, conductors, singers, composers, accompanists, administrators: You are doing so well. Whatever you’re able to do right now, with the resources you have, is enough. You have made difficult easy decisions already, and there will be more in the future. But we are a strong community, and we will come out singing.