Achill Choral Society invites those with a passion for singing to join them – virtually

By Rob Paul

When the COVID-19 hit, it put a lot of community organizations in precarious positions with no sure way to move forward and no clear end in sight. Fast forward more than 20 months, and many organizations have had to adapt to a new way of living.

Few things are as communal as music, but without the ability to meet in person and perform, the pandemic left musicians and singers in uncharted waters. For a group like the Achill Choral Society, which in normal circumstances meets throughout the year to sing and prepare for concerts, it's a world they never expected.

Moving from singing in a room full of energy to a virtual setting was almost unfathomable and it took plenty of attempts to figure out what would work best for a choir unable to meet in person, but Achill Choral Society Artistic Director Shawn Grenke and President John Lemke agree that doing something was always better than doing nothing.

“We've been on Zoom…keeping our community and our choir engaged and together,” Grenke said. “We've been doing bi-weekly rehearsals on Wednesday evenings through Zoom where we work on musicianship, sight singing, warmups, and breakout rooms where all of the sopranos can be together and all of the altos, tenors, and basses. We teach in a very unnormal way with everyone on mute while the pianist and I play through the songs and tell the choir where to breath and where not to breath and what note to sing and what to do and what not to do.”

“When we first started, it was very interesting because it's so different than a regular choir rehearsal to try and involve people in a similar way,” said Lemke. “After trying a number of different things, we did come to what we're currently doing with the pianist walking through a song. It wasn't easy getting to where we are right now.”

To galvanize the choir in a situation no singer expects to find themselves in, Grenke ensured that despite the peculiar position, they had something they were working towards to stay motivated.

“We needed a project and our project for last fall was to produce a virtual Christmas concert,” Grenke said. “We were fortunate enough to have archive video and audio files in our library, so, we went through the last five years of music and picked the pieces that sounded the best. We worked on a couple virtual choir pieces where all the singers of the Achill Choir would record their own parts at home and then we had a video and audio editor merging those together so that we could make it sound like the choir was singing together in the same room, when in fact they weren't. 

“We put together the virtual choir at Christmas and selected six or seven members to introduce the pieces and give a little history about it. For the spring we did something similar because we didn't really know what COVID would or wouldn't allow us to do and we ended up doing a virtual spring concert as well.”

If not for having the archives as a resource throughout these trying times, the Achill Choral Society may have ended up in a hole they wouldn't have been able to climb out of if they had to take time away from meeting.

“We're so fortunate that one key member of the tenor section over the past five or six years has been recording our concerts and we do two big concerts a year,” Lemke said. “He's archived all these digital recordings of concerts we've done. He's able to go back into his files and bring these back for us to use. It allows us to supplement the new things we're doing with those for our virtual concerts.”

“I think in many ways having the archives have saved the choir,” Grenke said. “The fear is that if the choir takes a hiatus, it will be so much more difficult to get everyone back together and you'd lose so much momentum. In many ways it would be like starting a new group over again and that's desperately what we're trying not to do.”

Having a committed choir group and community support have helped Grenke and Lemke navigate through an unprecedented time, and it helps that for many members this has become their getaway from the tough times.

“The choir and community have really rallied and pulled together, and we've been fundraising to keep the artistic staff paid, and all things considered, we're doing okay,” said Grenke.

“I think we're doing very well,” said Lemke. “One of the advantageous we do have is that it's a very established group that's been together for over 35 years and we have a lot of long-time members that really care about keeping it together. We've been fortunate in that way and the social aspect is a key. When we do the rehearsals there's always time left for people to socialize and catch up about what's going on in their lives.”

Going virtual has also allowed the choir to reach individuals they may not have been able to and even try new collaborative things says Grenke.

“We've had between 10 and 15 new members join during the COVID time and many of them do not live in the area, but they wanted to get their voices in shape,” Grenke said. “They wouldn't have had the opportunity to join the Achill Choir if it wasn't for COVID. Keeping the community together and building the community are two things that we've done well during this. We've also partnered with my church choir in Toronto—Eglinton St. George's United Church—and we've been rehearsing with them as well and we've done a few shared pieces with a virtual choir of about 60 people. That was neat to do and we're fortunate to be able to work with them and so there's been a handful of weeks where the Achill Choir was singing virtually every week.”

As the choir grows virtually, Grenke and Lemke continue to encourage those who are interested in getting involved with Achill to reach out because, at the end of the day, the group focused on building community more than anything right now.

“With [many of the] people that have joined since COVID, we're not auditioning them in a formal way, we invite them to come sing with us and share in the community,” Grenke said. “When we're able to gather in person safely, we'll do more of a formal audition where we can really hear the voices, but I can't remember the last time I turned someone away because I really do feel that if you want to sing then you can sing.”

“There are other choirs in this area that haven't been able to continue, choirs that have people that love to sing,” Lemke said. “Some of those people are looking for a place to at least get some singing activity and they're joining Achill. It's really great that we can be there for them. In a normal world we'd charge membership dues, and since COVID began we've waived that requirement. So, we're offering the opportunity to anybody who wants to get involved and it's free at this point. We do ask for donations to try and support our expenses and so far we've been successful in covering them. That speaks a lot about the community and people's interest in supporting this type of art form.”

With Christmas just around the corner, Grenke had the choir preparing for the Christmas concert through virtual recordings and the archives. The concert, Comfort & Joy, is online now at achill.ca through December 29.

“We're preparing for it with two virtual pieces and we're teaching those to the choir—Eric Whitacre's Seal Lullaby and a beautiful piece called O Love by Elaine Hagenberg,” said Grenke before the launch. “We're going back through our archives again and finding pieces we didn't use last year to fill out the 45-minute to an hour program that everybody will be invited to. We're encouraging people to donate to the choir because the donations are what keeps the choir going.”

To learn more about the Achill Choral Society or to donate to show your support, visit achill.ca.