Nashua Choral Society sings together from a distance
The Nashua Choral Society is inviting new singers to join its 2021 spring season, which is just getting underway. The non-auditioned community choir has found some creative ways to rehearse while maintaining social distance, including weekly virtual rehearsals over Zoom and monthly “driveway rehearsals” where members can gather in person and sing together from their cars.
When Covid hit last spring, the choir was just polishing up an upcoming performance with Symphony NH, featuring a full program of Haydn music, and a performance with the Nashua Chamber Orchestra, which was to include the premiere of a new song written for the choir.
Those performances were postponed, but instead of losing momentum the choir has gotten stronger — active members have stayed, less-active members have become more involved and new singers have joined, artistic director Dan Roihl said.
“Obviously, performance is a big part of [being in a choir], but I think there is some intrinsic reward in the communal aspect of just singing together, hearing your voice with other voices and creating works of beauty,” Roihl said. “That’s been enough for people right now.”
Still, moving from in-person rehearsals to virtual rehearsals was a bit more complicated than expected, Roihl said.
“As most choirs quickly figured out, singing together live over Zoom just isn’t practical because of the lag time,” he said. “It’s just not possible to synchronize.”
To get around this, Roihl has been encouraging members to record themselves singing the pieces on their own and send him the recordings, which he mixes together and plays at the rehearsals so that members can hear how their voices sound in unison. He also plays the instrumental musical tracks and has members sing along with their microphones muted.
“That way, they can at least have the simulated experience of singing together in real time,” he said.
In addition to the weekly Zoom rehearsals, the choir meets once a month in person for a “driveway rehearsal” in the parking lot of the church where they used to have their regular rehearsals. While remaining in their cars, members sing together using wireless microphones. The sound is run through a mixing board and played back through an FM radio station that members can tune into and hear each other. The choir had its first driveway rehearsal on World Choral Day on Dec. 13 with around 30 members in attendance.
“It was almost magical, because at that point we hadn’t been able to actually hear what we sound like together in real time for about nine months,” Roihl said. “It’s just really amazing to experience singing together again, even if it is just through our car windows.”
The driveway rehearsals are not only more personal than the Zoom rehearsals, Roihl said, but also more productive.
“It’s a lot more like a real rehearsal because [singers] can respond to my gesture, and I can get feedback on how they are responding to my gesture in real time, which is something that had been sorely lacking in the Zoom context,” he said. “It allows us to really assess how we are doing so I can still do some music teaching and we can work on our techniques.”
While the Nashua Choral Society has performed primarily classical music, Roihl is working on developing a more versatile repertoire to include pop song arrangements, familiar hymns and “everyday-use songs” that he believes will appeal to a wider audience and expand the choir’s performance opportunities.
“We always hope to keep one foot firmly planted in our classical wheelhouse, but I think having some easier songs that we can do a cappella or on short notice or if we don’t have the full [choir] there … will give us more flexibility,” he said.
While the choir has no public performances scheduled at the moment, Roihl said they’ve been “kicking around the idea” of doing some community-based drive-in performances in the parking lots of hospitals, nursing homes and such, using the same mechanics as their driveway rehearsals.
“We know it’s not quite the same as a [normal] live performance, but at least [audiences] could see me out there waving my arms and hear us singing in real time,” he said. “It’s more about letting people know that we’re thinking of them and that we’re looking to share the joy of the art we bring.”
Nashua Choral Society
Singers of all abilities are welcome to join. No auditions necessary. Spring season runs now through mid-May, with virtual rehearsals via Zoom every Monday from 7 to 9 p.m., and monthly “driveway rehearsals” in Nashua. Visit nashuachoralsociety.org or facebook.com/nashuachoralsociety or email info@nashuachoralsociety.org.
Featured photo: Artistic director Dan Roihl leads a Nashua Choral Society “driveway rehearsal.” Courtesy photo.
