After pandemic pause, choral groups making a joyful noise again

With one voice, local volunteer choirs are reconvening to say: It’s time to sing again.

Driven by concerns that COVID-19 could be at high risk of spreading because of the aerosol droplets propelled through singing and wind instruments, choirs called off rehearsals and concerts as the pandemic struck last year.

But now with vaccines widely available --- and with the holidays approaching — over September and October choirs have started to venture back into rehearsals and concert seasons for the first time since the shutdown.

Doing so safely has required a variety of modifications that choirs — and their audiences — are adopting to once again make a joyful noise once again.

Chorale Midwest

“Will we have an audience?” some members of the semiprofessional Choral Midwest ensemble based in Cedar Rapids asked as they prepared to host a fall concert — their first since the pandemic first struck in 2020.

When a crowd packed First Lutheran Church in Cedar Rapids on Oct. 17, they received their answer.

“While I’m refreshed with it, I’m not surprised,” said Brad Barrett, the director.

Returning to in-person rehearsals in September and then their first concert five rehearsals later — three short of the usual number of rehearsals — required more strategic preparation. Since the group of 65 hadn’t sung together in 18 months, Barrett did something out of the ordinary for preparations: separating the men and the women for practice.

“I did this so I could solidify that great men’s sound and the great women’s sounds we’ve always enjoyed before we start our music for Christmas,” he said. “By doing so, I achieved what I envisioned.”

With those sounds ready to move forward, the group was able to make up for lost time and is on schedule for its Christmas concerts, where men and women typically sing some separate pieces for the holiday.

This year, all singers must be masked in rehearsals and during performances, as well as be vaccinated. Audience members must be masked, too.

Singers rehearse socially distanced, and extra distance is placed between the choir and the audience during performances, as singing poses a risk for spreading viral particles much farther distances than talking.

“It’s not optimal,” Barrett said, “but the sound was not a muffled sound. Clarity and enunciation was fine. A lot of that was because we knew we would have to overdo the diction and overdo the expression to make up for being masked.”

“As soon as we could see each other in person, immediately you could feel the energy turn around. The enthusiasm returned full force — we’re stepping back into it with a renewed sense of purpose.”

Cedar Rapids Concert Chorale

Cedar Rapids Concert Chorale launched its 62nd season Sept. 18, adding vocal bounce to Brucemorchestra’s salute to Rodgers & Hammerstein, performed with Orchestra Iowa and Revival Theatre’s all-star soloists outdoors at Brucemore mansion in southeast Cedar Rapids.

“It was just a wonderful, joyous celebration,” said Gerald Kreitzer, the chorale’s artistic director. “It was the perfect way to get back.”

Now it’s time to go from theatrical sunshine into the darkness that COVID-19 has wreaked at home and abroad. So on Sunday afternoon, the 80 Concert Chorale members, along with four guest soloists and a small orchestra, will perform Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor, his Mass for the dead, and his "Ave Verum Corpus," which translates to “Hail, True Body.”

Cedar Rapids Concert Chorale

What: “A Pandemic Memorial Requiem,“ featuring Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor and ”Ave Verum Corpus,“ with chorale, small orchestra, and soloists Jessica Pray, Lyn Curry, Ian Butler and Bradley Barrett

When: 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021

Where: First Lutheran Church, 1000 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids; masks required

Tickets: $15 advance at crchorale.org/tickets.html or $20 door; free for students through college

Details: For information on Cedar Rapids Concert Chorale and its upcoming season, go to crchorale.org/2021-2022-concert-season.html

OTHER GROUPS

Chorale Midwest: choralemidwest.org

Vocal Artists of Iowa: vocalartistsofiowa.com

The Quire of Eastern Iowa: thequire.org

This main-stage programming was “born out of the pandemic, and evolved from a Catholic Mass to a community memorial in my mind,” said Kreitzer, 65, of Cedar Rapids.

“It seems kind of odd to be coming out of the gate with Mozart’s Requiem,” he noted. “I think we have to acknowledge right off the bat that this pandemic has been awful, and that we want to acknowledge that it in a meaningful way — and hopefully also celebrate that we're coming out of it.”

He also wants the concert to serve as a tribute to those taken or touched by the novel coronavirus.

“So many people passed without benefit of a gathering or music or a memorial service,” he said. “And in an effort to make this really inclusive, I’m having a member from every faith community in Cedar Rapids do a prayer or a reading between movements … Jewish, Christian, Islam, Buddhist, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist and Native American.”

He’s hoping the concert will create “a feeling of community, of humanity, and of our communal experience of coping and grieving and releasing lots of feelings and emotions that none of us have ever gone through before. It’s my first pandemic — hopefully my last,” he said, adding that he missed the first Brucemorchestra rehearsal because even though fully vaccinated, he had contracted a mild breakthrough case.

The concert will begin at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at First Lutheran Church, 1000 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids, where masking is required for all performers and audience members.

Kreitzer said the vocalists have become accustomed to singing with masks and rehearsing in the large sanctuary instead of the much smaller choir room, where physical distancing is difficult.

As director of music activities at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, he’s also kept up to date with the research on the spread of aerosol droplets through singing and wind instruments, cited early on as a high-risk way for transmitting COVID-19. When the positivity rate falls below “substantial,” he thinks mask recommendations will ease, but until that time he and his musicians at school, church and chorale will continue masking.

The pandemic downtime gave Kreitzer, the chorale board and singers time to reflect on and re-imagine their roles with each other and the community.

They previously discontinued auditioning, and now have adopted a less formal look, moving away from tuxes and gowns to black slacks and tops for men and women. They also have added a couple of afternoon performances in their concert lineup; abolished membership dues; and have rebranded the ensemble and its mission. Kreitzer said he’s excited about the new tagline, “The Song that Flows Through Our City.”

“I think we provide an outlet for all singers,” he said. “We have some very trained singers (and) we have amateur singers that just love to sing. We are very connected with Cedar Rapids’ other arts organizations. We provide an opportunity this year to sing three times with Orchestra Iowa, and next summer we're going to perform with the municipal band.”

Through the pandemic, he said, “We’ve learned a lot about being hopeful and being optimistic and holding onto the faith that things will get better — and that we made it through. We endured, and there's a lot of life lessons in that.”

The Quire of Eastern Iowa

Each year, The Quire of Eastern Iowa puts a pop of color into the otherwise all-black dress code for performances. This year, that pop will be their masks.

Like other groups, The Quire is requiring masks for all singers and attendees. Since in-person rehearsals resumed in September, all members have been masked and socially distanced.

Unlike other groups, the LGBTQ choir will have rainbow masks designed for singing, ensuring both their faces and their voices are as vibrant as possible.

The masks made by a local volunteer come in custom sizes and have a few modifications. A stronger metal nose piece will hold the fabric more taut and allow more space to open the jaw. Its fabric also will be slightly thicker to ensure the mask isn’t being sucked in during the sharp inhales that singing sometimes requires.

Though most singers were comfortable using less comprehensive masks, board chair and choir tenor Nolan Petersen said they were dedicated to going above and beyond to accommodate all comfort levels in the inclusive group.

The Quire requires all members to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and is considering whether it will ask attendees to be vaccinated for their upcoming winter concert, as well.

“ (Our requirements) have proven to be very comforting to a lot of folks who were very concerned about participating in anything with us,” Petersen said. “We aim to be as accessible as possible to the community.”

As an LGBTQ choir, he said, many older members lived through the AIDS crisis that ravaged gay communities for decades, prompting many to take the current pandemic concerns seriously.

Heading into its 26th year, the Iowa City-based choir is one of the longest continuously running LGBTQ groups in the state that is not centered on a social space, like a bar, Petersen said. Though the all-volunteer group has struggled to regain its footing in some respects since resuming activities this year, he said they’re looking ahead to a bigger, better, stronger future.

“We’re in the process of trying to find what the next 25 years look like in terms of how the organization can grow into itself a little bit more,” he said. “(The pandemic) has definitely tested our resiliency.”

For their 25th anniversary, the choir held a virtual performance where singers learned and recorded their own parts at home. This year, their first in-person performance was earlier this month at Iowa City Pride.

Though they started at about the same time they’d usually start rehearsing for their winter concert, the first month was focusing on the Pride performance, which this year was held in October at the beginning of their fall season.

But even after a long pause in in-person activity, the group of about 50 people rehearsing this fall is poised to make their comeback better than ever, he said.

“As soon as we could see each other in person, immediately you could feel the energy turn around,” Petersen said. “The enthusiasm returned full force — we’re stepping back into it with a renewed sense of purpose.”

Vocal Artists of Iowa

The roster of this semiprofessional choral group reads like a who’s who of area music directors, teachers, opera singers and in-demand soloists — beginning with Artistic Director David Haas, 37, of North Liberty, director of choral activities at West High School in Iowa City, director of music at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Cedar Rapids and a doctoral student at the University of Iowa.

He began the ensemble in 2017 to provide high-level musicians with “the opportunity to sing choral music together in a project-based setting,” he said.

With the tagline “Singing for Joy,” this ensemble, based in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, has 50 to 60 members, depending on schedules, and performs five or six concerts a year.

Their first project out of the pandemic was as high-level as it gets, bringing in internationally known composer/conductor Z. Randall Stroope to give a lecture Oct. 2 at the UI Recital Hall, and conduct his own compositions in Vocal Artists of Iowa concerts Oct. 2 and 3 in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

Like many other events, this concert was planned for 2020 but then put on pandemic pause. When it finally did happen, it was “really, really wonderful,” Haas said.

“The concert … was special in a lot of ways, but it was hard to distinguish if it was really special because of the visit from Dr. Stroope; if it was special because we've had a little bit more rehearsal time for this concert than we've had for other concerts; or if it was just because we were able to be back and singing in front of a live audience,” he said.

“Which one of those things was the sweetest thing? But I think it certainly was a combination of all of them coming together that just made it a really special weekend.”

It began with an email he sent to Stroope and Eric Whitacre, another high-profile composer/conductor, shortly after Haas graduated from Luther College in Decorah in 2007. He was hoping to watch either work, and in return, he would “get them coffee or make them copies or carry their bags or whatever.”

Stroope, who was teaching on the East Coast, replied that he’d be happy to host Haas at his summer music camp, where the newly minted graduate helped run sectional rehearsals and other tasks, and sang bass in the choir. He and Stroope kept in touch over the years, and when Haas told him about the Vocal Artists ensemble, the composer agreed to work with the group.

All had been vaccinated, and elected to rehearse without masks or participate via Zoom. In concert, they performed without masks, standing about 18 feet away from the audience members, who were masked, Haas noted.

As is typical for the singers, they had just three rehearsals leading up to the concert. For each event, Haas sends the material ahead of time and they’re expected to learn it on their own, then come together to polish the sound.

“Admittedly, it's a difficult thing, and it only works for a certain clientele,” Haas said of this rehearsal style. “But for the ones that have been able to make it work, I think it's been a really impactful experience in their lives.”

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