The exalting power and joy of choirs
It’s a cold November night in the basement of a grand house in mid Toronto. Twenty-five members of B-Xalted!, the new choral project and passionate mission of novelist Barbara Gowdy, are singing their hearts out.
I, the only observer, am at first, after a long day, tired and grumpy, then a little envious. I know some of them — a good number are writers, most of the others arts-based workers.
Their faces are happy and flushed, they are working very hard, individually and together, to sing an excerpt from Handel’s Messiah, one of the most glorious pieces of sacred music in history. They seem in the moment to have completely forgotten what a messed up world it currently is out there.
Which is precisely the point of any choir, community or professional: Make wonderful music, make it together, get better as you go, and for those few hours, leave all else behind.
Whether it’s the insanely popular open access Choir!Choir!Choir!, or a poignant music project like Recollectiv, begun by Toronto singer Ilana Waldston for those, like her mother, with cognitive challenges, it’s pretty obvious just looking at the faces of choristers
that group singing may be the ultimate simple prescription for well-being. Perhaps even more so in these politically turbulent times.
As one B-Xalted! chorister, the writer Marni Jackson, puts it, there are the individual benefits, especially if your work is solitary and centres on being hunched for hours over a keyboard: “I go home from rehearsals feeling like I’ve been at the singing gym — it’s a rigorous workout, and for a couple of hours I’m liberated.”
Perhaps more significant are the group benefits: Like others, Jackson discovered she really likes “being in a room with 25 other humans, with whom I may not agree, making our voices harmonize together.”
The night I joined them, B-Xalted! was rehearsing hard for their upcoming Dec. 11 debut concert in Toronto featuring highlights from Han- del’s Messiah. They have a professional conductor, Simon Walker, organist Andrew Adair, and five lead singers.
They also have as driving force, novelist Gowdy, who along with writer/musician Whitney Smith founded BXalted! last winter. Using a Go Fund Me page, they raised funds not only to defray the costs of the choir but to support the Regent Park School of Music.
I had coffee with Gowdy to find out why the acclaimed author of haunting and quirky novels like Helpless and most recently Little Sister would, after eight books, decide in her charmingly obsessive way, that she should give up writing and become in effect, the full time manager of a choir.
Gowdy, 68, who was once an aspiring concert pianist, doesn’t say she will never write again. She just says she dislikes everything about it: “I don’t like travelling, I don’t like readings, I am not happy when a book comes out. I don’t have anything more to say.”
She has also suffered chronic, excruciating back pain and survived a bout of breast cancer, which can clarify what brings you delight in this world. Thinking about her own mortality late one night, she realized how important music has been to her.
When the writers Michael Ondaatje and Linda Spalding spontaneously invited her to join them at Tafelmusik’s “Sing-Along Messiah,” Gowdy found a new direction.
“The music was so bloody gorgeous, all of them braiding their voices together,” recalls Gowdy. “It made me weep precisely because it was not a Trump rally.”
Partnering with Whitney Smith, she formed B-Xalted! and is now not only singing in her own choir but also as a member of a church choir. Plus devoting “up to six hours a day’ taking care of all the details involved in getting the choir ready for their first concert not to mention their original goal of participating as a group in this year’s “Sing-Along Messiah.”
Gowdy it turns out, to the surprise of no one who knows her, is obsessed with making B-Xalted! as perfect as possible.
The night I was at rehearsal, a question about serving refreshments at the concert brought near panic into Gowdy’s voice. No no! There should be no distraction from being focused on providing beautiful music, ruled Gowdy. But OK, maybe some finger foods. Last I talked to her, she seemed to be actually looking forward to the party sandwiches. Which must mean the singing is going well.
At rehearsal, conductor Simon Walker was gentle but firm in his suggestions for improvement. They were practising All We Like Sheep, one of the most familiar passages from Messiah.
“Drop your jaw, get a bit more space, you’re a little too smiley,” Walker told them. “I’m afraid it’s still sloppy on this side of the room. Sing through the eyebrows!”
For co-founder Whitney Smith, singing in B-Xalted! is all about the benefits of getting better together: “Every chorister sings 100 per cent better because they’re following the expert lead in their section, mimicking his or her expertise. This is a metaphor for how communities work best, where we learn from those with more experience.”
Here’s a further take on that metaphor: Maybe we should require all elected politicians to join a cross party choir. Or have only singing legislatures.
In the meantime, I walked out of the B-Xalted! rehearsal refreshed and thinking “I’ll have what they’re having.”