You're responsible for providing the music for the city's Christmas tree lighting. The event is in four days and half your group is in quarantine. What do you do?
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The annual tree lighting at the Evansville Civic Center is a much-anticipated event and official kicks off the holiday season for the city.
Evansville Director of Communications Noah Stubbs said with all the bad news we’ve had this year, they were determined that the tree lighting would go off on schedule.
He said, “This would be the one event that people could still enjoy and bring cheer to people who have been down in the dumps from everything that has happened this year.”
But this is 2020, and very little works the way you plan.
Stubbs continued, “About a week before the event, Governor Holcomb put further restrictions to limit social events and gatherings to fifty people.”
By now, we’re used to what happened next.
“At the last minute, we decided to make it a virtual event and we were left with literally days to reorganize everything and put it together virtually,” he concluded.
The high school choir selected to provide holiday carols for this year’s tree lighting was the Signature School Choir. Director Henry Maurer said initially, he didn't know what to do.
“Well, I got the email on Friday and wasn’t able to come to full terms with it until Monday when I had to go in front of the choir,” he said.
Remember, this is 2020. About half of Maurer’s students, including some of the most experienced senior class choir members, were in quarantine because of a close contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. It wasn’t going to be as simple as recording the choir singing the carols.
“They didn’t shy away from the challenge. I think it was just a learning opportunity for all of us," said Maurer, "They’re really good at thinking on their feet and rolling with the punches, and this was definitely one of those.”
If not for the quarantined members, t would have been simple enough to make that recording, but remember this is 2020. They would need over a dozen different recordings to get the full sound of the carol.
With just four days before the tree lighting ceremony, Maurer decided to use a hybrid process. Some of the choir members sang their parts in person, while those in quarantine used computers, cell phones, whatever they had on hand to individually record their parts.
Seniors Larson Parker and Madi Aydelotte recalled the challenge of recording their parts for the carol.
“If you’re listening to it, you have to listen to a metronome while you’re singing and then he gives us a cue to clap at a certain time so he can synch it all up. And then, you can hear the background track and you have your sheet music in front of you or on the computer screen and you can sing along while you’re recording," said Parker. "It was more of the background noise, eliminating other factors at home that was more difficult. Like my cat was in my room making a lot of noise. So I had to figure out how to get my cat out of the room so I could record.”
Aydelotte said, “I did it a couple of times ‘cause there’s more room for fixing your mistakes. I wanted to get it as good as possible, so little things would be off, like timing-wise, so that part was hard.”
When asked for a more accurate number of her recordings, she chuckled and said, “I would say at least five or six times.”
Beaten down by the virus most of the year, half the choir in quarantine, the choir had just four days to record and stitch together a messy jumble of hastily recorded audio files into an intricate mix of vocal leads and harmonies. It seemed like an impossible task.
But remember, this is 2020. Henry Maurer and the Signature School choir had all had enough. This is one round the virus would not win. Evansville’s annual tree lighting ceremony would go off on schedule, and there were would be choir music to launch the season.
Maurer recalled the choir members' response. “It was definitely sort of a Victory Garden mentality, you know, for performers. What can we do? It’s hard and specifically for wanting to perform around the holidays. No musician wants to be silent in December and not get to perform and bring holiday cheer. They were really committed. None of the kids really suggested that we not do it.”
Noah Stubbs said he was suprised when he found out how they recorded the carols. “On the day of the event, on Thursday, he sent over the final copies of the two songs. And they were great. I followed up with him and I asked, ‘Did you record this with individual singers?’ That’s when he told me that he had a group that was in school, recording, and then several students who were separate, at their homes presumably or elsewhere. I thought that was amazing that he was able to put that together.”
