New Tradition Chorus Concert goes Virtual

The last time the members of the New Tradition Chorus heard each other’s voices was in March.

Word spread quickly that singing together can be fatal as happened in Washington state on March 10. 2020 A church choir of 60 people decided to hold a rehearsal and sang together for two and half hours. Later, 45 of them tested positive for COVID-19. Two of them died.

.By April 1, the leadership of the chorus drew up a plan to keep the chorus meeting weekly. Their director, Dan Wessler, who had resigned to return to graduate school in Boulder Colorado, agreed to stay until he was replaced. After all, it didn’t matter where anyone lived since it was all online. Dan Wessler hasn’t missed

On April 3 Zoom rehearsals began, and even though members could only hear their director or themselves, two thirds of the members continue to come to rehearsal. It has been clear, even through Zoom provides a flawed technology for singing, people still want to be together. As researchers at Oxford University have found – and most singers already know - choral singing helps establish bonds and boosts feelings of connectedness.

The plan chosen by the Music Team, headed by Glenn Mills, was to produce a virtual holiday Show. Because the chorus has a paid director and must rent rehearsal space, performance space, and pay for music (among other costs), it was decided that they would use the virtual show as a fundraiser. A streaming service was found and the chorus members recorded their individual parts to 14 holiday songs. Two “tech-savy” members (Barry Cain and Al Landry) took the member’s recordings and blended their voices and creatively merged the videos into an hour long show, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”