Threshold Singers to hold choral vigil for COVID victims

The Threshold Singers of Hot Springs will hold a choral vigil on Sunday, May 22, for individuals, their families, and anyone in the community who has lost loved ones over the past two years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A special selection of gentle, comforting Threshold songs will be performed to honor and celebrate the lives of individuals lost and as offerings of peace, kindness, grace, and love to all, according to the group.

“It’s not a religious service … I guess you could call it a program — a quiet program — where our group, the Threshold Singers of Hot Springs, are singing songs of remembrance, of comfort, of encouragement for our community,” Kathie White, the group’s director, said.

“Our choir is part of a larger, international group called Threshold Choir International, and we sing songs that have been written particularly for our purpose,” White said.

According to its website, Threshold Choir International is a volunteer organization with 200 chapters spanning the globe, whose mission is “singing for those at the thresholds of life.” Founder Kate Munger was inspired to create the organization, which held its first gathering in 2000, when she sang to a dying friend to comfort him and herself.

The Hot Springs chapter of Threshold Choir is the only chapter in Arkansas and began four years ago this month, White said.

“We have not been able to sing for two years because of COVID,” she said.

“What we did before the pandemic … we were called upon by Arkansas Hospice and Elite Hospice and some of the other hospices here in town and we would either go to a hospital room … or a nursing home of people who were in hospice care,” she said. “We’d go, not as a choir, we’d go as two or three people. And we sing songs a cappella.

“Normally we sing in three parts. It’s a very low-key way of bringing … comfort to people, through song. We would sing the Threshold songs, but if they wanted us to sing hymns, we would sing hymns.”

The vigil, entitled “Walking Each Other Home, A Choral Remembrance,” will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22, at Grand Avenue United Methodist Church. The event is free and all are welcome.

“We just felt that our community and of course the United States and around the world … there’s been such loss that we wanted to do what we could just to reach out to people,” White said.

Submitted photos ■ The Threshold Singers of Hot Springs are back, from left, Zabe Barnes, Shannon Rivas, Mary Tom Taylor, Cindy Smith, Mary Kratz, Mary Watermann, Carol Scrivner, Dianna Thayer, Carla Haynie, and Kathie White, and seated, from left, Carol Albee, left, Barbara Guinn, and Shari Coston. Not shown are Gail Greenburg and Ann Hill. Photo courtesy of Kathie White.