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Elmer Iseler Singers take to the virtual road

June 10, 2021   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Upper most in the minds of Conductors, Artistic Directors and all leaders within the arts community is keeping those communities vibrant and united in times when coming together has actually not been possible, a time when it is a Zoom event – or the like – get together.

For singers, this is particularly difficult because there is a time lapse between singing and hearing.

To that end, the Elmer Iseler Singers (EIS) are releasing their virtual tour of Canada with a performance of ‘We Rise Again,’ by Leon Dubinsky, with five community choirs from across the country. The five choirs are: Cape Breton Chorale, Wiarton Concert Choir, Agincourt Madrigal Singers, Thunder Bay Symphony Chorus and White Horse Community Choir. 

Ever positive, Ms. Lydia Adams, Music Director and Conductor of the Elmer Iseler Singers said simply, “We adjusted to the new times and technology.”

She went on to tell the Citizen about the remarkable trans-Canada virtual tour the choir is doing with those five community choirs, a fabulous concert, an online musical event to be enjoyed on June 20, 2021.

“How did this happen,” Ms. Adams began. “The tour came up as ways for the choir to be engaged, to keep our community engaged, which is so difficult, but also to give life to amateur choirs. It has its tremendous set of challenges. I thought it would be nice to visit some of the choirs.”

The plan was formed to do a cross country tour, in combination with five community choirs. In “normal” times, this is the mentoring tradition of the EIS, when they truly travel throughout the country for their summer concerts. In most of the cities they visit, they contact the local community beforehand and mentor them on the music they will sing with them. So, there are days of discussion and rehearsal, followed by public concerts. As much as possible, they are doing the same this year but, of course, under the duress that Covid has imposed everywhere.

Ms. Adams has also been doing interviews with the conductors of each of the choirs for EIS YouTube channel. For example, with James Pinhorn, conductor of the Agincourt Madrigal Singers, he talked about how choirs have managed to stay together; also, the future and what choirs mean to people. 

“You cannot sing together over Zoom,” Ms. Adams started to explain, “You can’t hear them. You can lead them and teach them but you can’t actually hear them – if they’re learning what you’ve taught, how to fix something wrong. It’s a huge vacuum, like on a stand in an empty auditorium; you miss that energy.

“So, [with this] you just work and work and the singers work on what they’re doing.”

She noted that there are computer programs out now that allow singers to actually record in rehearsal time and correct the music later but there’s nothing yet to allow singing together though technology.

“It’s made everybody realize how great it is to see how important to the community is a choir,” Ms. Adams commented. “No one will ever doubt again how great is the healing – the spirit just heals you somehow.”

Each member of the EIS is mentoring. They help each of the singers learn the music, in the community choirs, the choirs with whom they are visiting.

It is complicated: “We’re able to go via zoom. We send music to the singers in Thunder Bay and White Horse. Our singers go virtually into their living rooms and sing the music. They learn the music individually and, then, they individually record it on their own equipment and send it to the engineer and the EIS singers do the same – record in their own homes and send it in.”

No easy matter to get it right but it can be done and done it will be.

We were told, at the time of the interview, that “21 is a go in through Zoom. Shawn [Grenke, the EIS accompanist and a conductor himself] – he helped us out and he and I met with conductors each time. Shawn had the list. Once we came into the virtual room, there were 50 or 60 people in the room. Most of them have never done this before.”

Giving the details, “You got the ear bud in one ear, listening [to] the music. They can only hear themselves, while, normally, they are able to join in the group and make great music.”

This time they were each all alone. All each person can hear is him/herself’

Lydia Adams advised , “Don’t be hard on yourself but the truth is if someone makes a mistake, we can turn it about.”

In each case, someone taught them how to record yourself; how to front light your face; be your own self-filmed living room studio.

Blissfully, the singers from each of the areas are sending photos of their own area. The “techie is Bryan Estabrooks. He’s including the highlights of photos of their areas. Some of them are fantastic,” said she.

There are approximately 150 singers across the country participating in this cross-country event. The release is June 20 on the Elmer Iseler YouTube channel.

We Rise Again is a message of rising up again, written by Leon Dubinsky in the mid-1980’s and became an anthem for resilience and hope when Cape Breton was caught in an economic crisis.

“We want to get this through to everybody that we will get life again; the horribleness of this will past and we’ll be glad to see each other again,” Lydia Adams urged.

She added, “This has been a terrific experience for me to connect with five choirs across the country. All of the conductors – to make that connection and it’s all about connection. It’s not just about rising up again; it’s about immigrants coming to Canada and their children benefitting from coming here.”

She told the Citizen, “Most of the student singers, their grandparents are immigrants. This piece is written for them, their struggle and society at large around the world – to have a message of hope to rise again.”

Jesse Iseler, General Manager of the EIS commented, “It’s been a wonderful way to engage our choir in these difficult times and we’ve been able to celebrate the power of music in our lives in these times in 2021. It’s been an extraordinary experience – the sharing of joy – it’s been an exceptional moment in time.”

She said, “One of our great supporters remarked that it’s such an extraordinary time in our society, a cultural opening up of our eyes. The world will never be the same, to open our eyes and to try to make the world a better place.”

As for the Cape Breton Chorale, conductor, Ryan Billington talked about his choir’s close relationship with We Rise Again.

His comment: “It shows the resilience …that members of our chorale connect to. They are just in tears about the loss of the mining and fisheries. This is almost an anthem on how they will rise again.

“It’s very emotional for them to sing it with choirs across the country,” he said.

For more information about the cross – Canada We Rise Again event, go to www.elmeriselersingers.com

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