City native a contestant on Christmas carol TV show
It’s a good thing Amy Rivard loves Christmas carols: Otherwise, she may have felt uncomfortable performing them onstage in front of celebrity judges, a live studio audience, and TV cameras.
“Was I nervous? Oh, yeah. One-hundred per cent,” said the Windsor-born singer.
Rivard will be on U.S. national television on Sunday as a member of one of the a cappella groups competing in The CW Network’s Christmas Caroler Challenge.
A televised singing competition, the show asked teams of vocalists to perform their best renditions of classic songs of the season.
Rivard took part as a member of the New York City-based carolling company Songful Artists.
Each team took on a different theme. “There was a Dickensian group, there was an Andrews Sisters group,” Rivard said.
“We were kind of modern and hip. We had a beatboxer. We kind of looked like a Gap ad.”
Although the show premieres on Sunday, all the episodes were recorded much earlier in the year: Rivard travelled to Los Angeles for the TV shoots in May.
“Anything you’re watching at Christmas was probably done six months in advance,” she explained.
Along with getting into the holiday spirit out of season, Rivard had to adjust with performing in the group. “It was really last minute,” she admitted. “We just jumped in there .... We had a week to prepare.”
“The five of us (from Songful Artists) — we had never performed together as a group until we got onstage. I had never met the beatboxer, ever. I met her onstage.”
You’ll have to watch the show to find out what song Rivard’s group performed, and how far they progressed in the competition.
As for Rivard’s personal favourite Christmas tune, it’s not exactly a common choice: She’s a fan of Old Toy Trains, originally written and recorded in 1967 by the American country singer Roger Miller.
“Raffi has covered it, and so has Nana Mouskouri,” Rivard said. “It’s sort of a lullaby or a ballad. It represents the joy of a child on Christmas Day when he gets his present.”
Rivard appreciates the tune so much, she made her version of it the first track on her festive new EP, Amy’s 80’s Xmas, now available on Spotify and Amazon Music.
Each track on the EP offers a holiday tune drenched in 1980s style: Synthesizers, drum machines and girlish vocals.
“In 1989, I loved Tiffany. Tiffany was the whole reason I wanted to be a singer,” Rivard said with a laugh.
For the cover art, Rivard used an authentic 1980s glamour pic of herself from a photo shoot she did at the Devonshire Mall. “Because the ’80s were the best, obviously.”
The first two episodes of The Christmas Caroler Challenger will be broadcast on Dec. 15 on The CW (WKBD-TV, Channel 60 on Cogeco Windsor) from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.