Northwest Girlchoir trying to keep ‘everything alive’ during pandemic

The pandemic has completely upended the performing arts industry as theater companies have mothballed themselves and patrons are trying to figure out how to keep their favorites alive. Many of the organizations are coping as best they can, including the Northwest Girlchoir.

Director Sara Boos joined Seattle’s Morning News to describe the process of putting together a virtual performance.

“It’s a big process,” she said. “You make practice video and audio tracks, and then each girl listens to that in her own home and sings along with it while recording herself by video. And then she sends that into us, and we engineer all those, put them all back together on a screen, and with the audio, and then it all works. It takes a lot of time, but it works.”

It’s more difficult to hide your voice when every part is essentially a solo.

“We have some really strong singers in our choir and really great kids,” Boos said. “And glad to have about, I know about 65 to 70% of them back this year, even when they found out what we were going to be up to. We’re happy to be meeting every week and keeping everything alive.”

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Each of the choirs from grades two through 12 meets for regular remote rehearsals for about 2.5 hours each week in a couple different sessions.

Annabel Wade, a member of the choir and a senior at Redmond High School, says it’s been a new experience for everyone but she’s happy that they still get to sing from home.

“It is a little isolating to have to do it on your own,” Wade said. “You kind of just have to hope that everything works out when everything is put together, but getting to practice and sing is still an experience. I’m still so happy to be involved. But yeah, it is very different doing it alone. Quite isolating.”

At first, Wade says she was disappointed that the Girlchoir wouldn’t be able to meet in person this year.

“I was really sad that I was going to miss out on the experience of being together as a group, as we had been doing for so many years,” she said. “But we recovered, and we’re still doing as much as we can. So it’s still something for us.”

This is the 48th year for the Northwest Girlchoir, and Boos says this is probably the toughest challenge they’ve had to face.

“I can’t think of another that would be quite like this,” she said. “… Each song, each three or four minute song that we sing can take up to, I don’t know, 30 or 40 hours of engineering all together … collecting the audio and then taking it apart, putting it together, fixing stuff, asking kids to resend stuff back. Do it again. It just takes a lot more time.”

KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross says he looks forward to the day when the Northwest Girlchoir, local theaters, and performing arts groups announce that they are reopening.

“I have to think the audience on that first night will be beside itself with joy,” he said.

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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