Raising voices, lifting spirits This year’s public-health restrictions-free Christmas season has brought terribly missed light into the pandemic-darkened lives of church choir members across the city By: AV Kitching Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Dec. 23, 2022

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This article was published 22/12/2022 (732 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the past two Christmases, church pews have stood empty and choir lofts, typically resounding with joyful voices, were instead filled with an eerie silence.

Choral singing — a staple of the festive season — was off-limits. Choirs across the country were silenced owing to fear of spreading COVID-19. Some pivoted, moving performances online.

But now, 36 months after their last Christmas carol services, church choirs across Winnipeg are once again lifting their voices in person to celebrate the birth of Christ.

A return to normal couldn’t come soon enough for Apostolic Faith Church choir director Pelumi Ruth Enejoh. The pandemic was first time in her life she wasn’t able to worship in person.

“The art of singing worship takes me out of the world every time,” she says. “When I go through tough times, all it takes is to sing a song and my spirit is lifted. When I sing I am transported. I forget everything about me.”

Singing at Christmas brings with it a special joy.

“To be able to come together to sing carols is just wonderful,” she says. “I love Christmas season so much. I have never missed a Christmas concert in my life. My whole family sings in choirs back in Nigeria and this is a tradition for us.

“I found it very difficult that something like COVID could take that away from us. I thought now, we should never take things for granted. For me, Christmas is a reminder of the birth of Jesus. And for non-believers the season as a whole is a special time. People show so much love to each other, they tend to be super-gracious and do acts of kindness.”

Strict pandemic public-health measures forced churches to get creative by streaming services on various online platforms.

Enejoh and her choir held a virtual concert, each member performing individually at home. While far from ideal, she says lessons learned during the pandemic now form part of the church’s regular service.

“People outside the province were able to attend online services and family members living as far away as Nigeria were able to worship together,” she says.

For veteran choir member, clarinet player and keyboardist Aduralere Ojumu, virtual programs filled an unfortunate gap, but there is nothing like being together.

“You can’t compare,” he says. “Especially when it is a remarkable event in the Christian calendar like the birth of Christ. It was really challenging, but is really great that we can once again celebrate in person.”

Grace Bible Church minister of music Margot Sim, who has been in the role 31 years, couldn’t have imagined she would be without a choir for such an extended period of time.

Sim, also the organist, says carol concerts are part of the church’s identity.

“It was devastating,” she says. “It seems surreal, like a really bad dream that we are coming out of now. We are known as a singing church. Our congregation sings hymns, the whole church sings together. I feel grateful that we are on our feet again and our choir is back.”

Carol concerts are a deep-rooted tradition that were woven into her childhood; her mother was also a choir leader and church organist.

“For me, personally, Christmas is the world of carols and the beauty of choral music. It can be bright and crazy, it can be beautiful and poignant; it is like a painting. These days it’s all about stores and malls and pop tunes, but this takes us back into the church and it helps us focus.”

She thinks carols resonate with believers and non-believers alike because human beings are steeped in nostalgia and tradition.

“Even as a non-believer you would hear seasonal music wherever you were. Carols and Santa are linked together… that joy is linked together. Those who don’t go to church can still sing these songs from memory because we’ve been hearing them as children.”

Choir members Greg Klassen, who sings tenor, and soprano Lindsay MacKenzie agree.

“I think part of why they resonate with me is genetic,” Klassen says. “I grew up singing many of these songs; they are a way to bring the season to the forefront of the mind and the heart.

“I think we all look for pieces that are in our lives that point to memories of our childhood or a feeling we had that we want to reconnect with,” MacKenzie says.

“Music has a really special way of dragging out memories immediately and bringing us back to the moment that we want to remember.”

Klassen, who was “conscripted” by MacKenzie has spent four years in the choir.

“I deeply and absolutely missed singing,” he says. “There is something about singing in a choir when you sing with 20 or 30 other people… something magical happens. It’s almost like a vibration in your body. It is very special to be part of a group that’s creating a sound more beautiful than that you can create on your own.“

Calvary Temple’s choir co-directors Linda Mandziuk and Marion Hart conducted the church’s last carol service back in December 2019. They are thrilled about being able to sing collectively again.

“There is such a feeling of community and family as we worship, pray and fellowship together. It just adds another warm layer to our Christmas celebration,” Mandziuk says.

For Hart, the temporary halt to choral singing and in-person services caused her to reflect on the nature of worship, she says.

“How does one worship corporately, yet in separate settings? How can we become unified in the practice of worship through song, while we are apart? Corporate worship when we are in each other’s presence removes the individual as the centre of attention and binds us together in a unifying act of worship. Singing together in person multiplies the power of the individual voice and produces faith in a way that cannot be found by ourselves,” she says.

While things are slowly returning to pre-pandemic norms, proactive health considerations are still in place at some churches.

Choir members respect a degree of social distance and some wear masks at All Saints Anglican Church, but it hasn’t dulled the joy that comes from singing together.

Sandi Mielitz says she feels like she is “coming out of a darkness” of the last two years.

“We are all used to masks now,” Mielitz says. We actually have masks for singing. It is a special design that gives you more air space in front of your mouth using wire, so when you breathe in you don’t suddenly have a piece of cloth coming into your mouth. It also gives a little bit more resonance to the sound of your voice.”

The choir members are physically closer to each other this year than they were last December as the Omicron threat loomed overhead.

“Even when we got together, singing six feet or two metres apart in all directions, from the person next to you, you lose a sense of what choir is all about,” she says. “It was nice to be able to sing again but it felt like you were singing solo. It felt tenuous, not like a real choir.

“We are back as a real choir now, singing as one again and that fills my soul.”

All Saints’ minister Dietrich Bartel believes singing together is therapeutic for the group; it produces endorphins, and is good for the body and the spirit, he says.

“It feels a little like the family is back together again,” he says. “It’s something that we missed very much, and being able to do this together is a healing experience.

“Music is a powerful thing. It heals broken spirits.”

For Bartel, song is a enhanced form of communication, and connecting with his Creator by singing intensifies the experience.

“St. Augustine, in the early church times, was credited with saying, ‘He who sings prays twice,’” Bartel says. “I feel that way very much.

“I think… faiths throughout the world participate in that. It seems to me no matter what the religious practice, singing to the Creator, to the gods or to the deity is part of the heightened form of adoration and worship.”

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

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