Alberta Gold Chorus -
A moment of closeness for the history book!
Adelines love to sing. That is a forgone conclusion. They love to sing in the barber shop style. Another forgone conclusion. COVID has put a great dint in both of those conclusions. At that point the big question was,” What should we do now?” No one thought this pandemic would go on for so long.
Alberta Gold leadership chose to try the Zoom style of practice. It wasn’t great but it was better than nothing. We got to sort of see each other and that was most welcome. The problems we had were the same as the problems every other chorus in the region experienced so I won’t elaborate but like others choruses a solution of any type was sought out.
When protocol in Alberta allowed it, we began to take advantage of meeting in person. Standards put in place then still are in place for us. Everyone must have two vaccinations and be prepared to wear masks. We are wearing singers’ masks. I can only speak personally but wearing any mask to sing is a challenge. I hear myself clearly but the other parts are muffled sounds that I hear. We are very widely separated in a different part of the building than the one we had previously used for our practices and it is larger and tiered so spacing was not a problem. Because it is tiered we can see the director, Holly-Jean, well.
Is it great? No. Is attendance as good as before the pandemic? No. Can we do anything to improve the situation? No. Only time can change it. We have set up a lap top computer so those who choose not to attend can still see and hear what is going on.
All of the world has been struck by COVID and no one knows conclusively how much longer this blight on society will go on but it is up to each of us to do the best we know how to support others as well as ourselves.
As one late orchestra director used to say at the end of any performance “Keep a song in your heart”.
Submitted by
Helen Brown, Alberta Gold Chorus
Alberta Gold prepares for rehearsal, distanced and masked.