The Occidental Community Choir’s first virtual concert in its 42 years swelling west county with music was an undertaking for everyone involved, led by program director Crystal McDougall-Purdy and music director Gage Purdy, who digitally mastered the pre-recorded show.
The choir is premiering its free winter concert, “Somewhere to Begin,” on Saturday, Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. at a YouTube link posted to its website, according Andrea Van Dyke, longtime choir member on the group’s program and publicity committees. Supporters can visit the choir’s Patreon to donate.
Purdy rose to the role of music director in January before the pandemic tore the curtains down, leading the choir to cancel its season finale in May. The singers, mostly west county locals beyond the age of retirement, resolved to keep a December performance on the calendar, he said.
The Occidental Community Choir is a family of friends supporting each other in music and life, according to McDougall-Purdy. “If someone needs a little extra help, if someone’s having a surgery, we’re always making sure that everyone is aware of it and keeping connected with each other,” she said.
On a typical Wednesday night rehearsal in Occidental, she said members would show up early to socialize, chatting over snack breaks and before the pandemic cast its shadow over the world and chorus groups in particular, they hosted parties and holiday get-togethers to blend voices.
“So when the pandemic came down and we realized that we were not actually going to be able to see each other, we talked about many different ways to keep our community together and what really just kept coming back was everyone really wanted to continue to try to sing together,” McDougall-Purdy said.
“And so even though we knew that this was going to be a really challenging experience, we had enough people who see the value in singing together, enough that they wanted to really try.”
And as many discovered in March, they would have to try hard to make their time on Zoom resemble harmony.
Choir makes music out of the Zoom experience
Initially the group tried to rehearse together live on the platform, Purdy said. “The difficulty there is, no one can hear each other because if you’re all on at one time, it just leads to quite the cacophony.”
The directing duo ultimately chose to record vocal tracks of themselves singing each part for the choir to listen to and each member practiced on their own at home to perform with an audio recording playing in their ear.
“It’s kind of the downfall of choir, is it was never meant to be done virtually,” Purdy said.
But the Occidental Community Choir found somewhere to begin and kept at it for six months. Purdy said the group began pre-recording rehearsals by sectionals — soprano, alto, tenor and bass — over Zoom together, asking the directors questions and returning to their vocal recordings to work out solo during the week.
McDougall-Purdy said that on top of setting a white or plain background to record and positioning oneself a certain distance from the camera, “you had to have not only a device to record yourself, but also headphones that plugged into another device so that you could be playing the accompaniment track in your ear while watching the director’s video and recording at the same time.”
It was a feat, she said.
According to Purdy, aligning the singers visually in their videos made the image cohesive in its totality, but it also meant people didn’t blast into their microphones.
“The more audio editing we have to do, the less organic it sounds. We were striving for an organic choral experience through the virtual world,” he said.
Listeners won’t be able to hear it after the editing of the December performance, but McDougall-Purdy said every song actually starts with a choir-wide clap so she and her husband can align each individual recording that, together, conjures the concert.
“And then we have to painstakingly go through and stack the tracks on top of one another. We went by sections, and then we line up their sound as best as we could and then start working on the sections above them,” Purdy said.
“Which sometimes can be even a tenth of a second,” McDougall-Purdy chimed in. “One person can be a tenth of a second off and you have to go through that whole section and figure out which person is a tenth of a second early and then move their video a tenth of a second back so that they’re with everybody else.”
While the Occidental Community Choir brings together around 45 people or so, ultimately 23 vocalists were able to commit to the winter show between interest in performing, COVID-19 and the west county wildfires.
Sustaining the heart through song
McDougall-Purdy said the true aim of putting on this season’s concert was to get the choir community through the adversities of the time and stay thriving.
“Singing is such an amazing way of staying connected,” she said.
“One of the things that I really love about singing is that when you’re singing together in a group, your heartbeats actually synchronize. And your breathing synchronizes when you’re singing together. And it’s a kind of connection that isn’t present in a lot of other things,” McDougall-Purdy said.
Purdy said the pandemic has been hard on morale, but the choir’s members continue to find ways to move forward. The singers make extra time before and after choir Zoom calls to just enjoy each other’s company and warm up their voices in vocal exercises.
Once the group overcame its trial by Zoom and other technology, their spirits lifted too, “because it’s just the frustration of getting all this together that really weighs heavily on you,” Purdy said. “Because you don’t have the consolation of singing together and harmonizing in a space where you get all of that live interaction. So, you are really doing all of the work without getting to see the results immediately.”
Less than two weeks shy of the premiere, Purdy said the season was a success, with around 30 choir members joining for a virtual game night. McDougall-Purdy said the altos started a monthly virtual book club in March that’s still going strong.
The music director said longtime member Julie Middleton arranged the concert’s leading piece, “Somewhere to Begin,” sustained with cello throughout. He said the song considers how people find where to begin to become resilient through difficult times, as people ask themselves now how they progress into a post-pandemic era.
Purdy said the program’s themes include calls to action, like the song “Changes,” about confronting the problems of today directly within a larger question of moving forward and strengthening connection in a time of great distance.
