Local kids’ choir composed songs, while researcher observed

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Members of the Georgian Bay Children’s Choir sang their own compositions Saturday afternoon, after having been studied composing them as part of a doctoral research project.

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Their post-pandemic effort was shared at a concert at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Owen Sound for family and friends.

The youngsters, four to 14 years old, were observed over two months as they tried to overcome the effects of pandemic isolation, a challenge for them and their choir leaders, said community music researcher Fiona Evison, who’s also a choir leader.

She met with them weekly through April and May to gather their ideas for creating their own musical compositions, which Evison then put together. Part of the writing process included writing down what they felt about COVID.

This approach, where ideas are contributed by many children, then arranged by Evison, is a lot different than having a lone composer decide what the piece should be, she said in an interview before the concert.

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Typically, choirs would receive a composition which they’d learn to sing. But adding composition added a new dimension. “It’s more than just making music, it’s building a community; I guess building relationships with one-another,” Evison said.

The kids were assembled into three age groups and each helped produce a piece of music. A fourth composition was the entire group’s effort and involved some experimentation with sounds gathered on a walk around the river downtown and inspiration gathered from a tour of the Tom Thomson Art Gallery tree exhibit.

“It’s actually astounding what they came up with,” Evison said. “It’s very beautiful and really meaningful music.”

The research approach involved observation of the children, analyzing and adjusting week-by-week, she said. She’s seen their activity and how they’ve interacted with one-another, talked to the staff and understood what they observed and felt.

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The research question she set out to answer is, could this approach to composing with a children’s choir help the children and staff recover from the impact of pandemic disruptions and contribute to everyone’s well-being?

Indications are it was a success.

“We are looking at how can we incorporate this into our regular programming. So that it’s not just a research project but it’s actually a new way of being together as a choir and of learning music together,” by creating new music, Evison said.

Evison, who’s lived in the area for 20 years, now plans to interview all involved, including parents, then get to work over the summer on her conclusions and then write her dissertation for Western University.

Linda Hawkins, who is the choir’s artistic director, a co-conductor, and chairs the Kiwanis Music Festival, said COVID-19 hit her hard and the kids even harder.

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She said before the concert that Evison was very worried about COVID and the effects it would have on community music-making, which is her area of interest. Early in the pandemic, choirs were told they couldn’t sing for public health reasons.

Though they tried to keep them singing, using plastic barriers and distancing as public health officials prescribed for the first 18 months of COVID, they lacked the focus that creating their own music provided once it was safe to gather again.

“It was like starting all over and we had kids that weren’t musically literate,” Hawkins said, noting the choir’s oldest kids had left for university. “It required a complete revamp of our program to just get them singing.”

The project didn’t officially start until March, after a university ethics committee approval, required in all research involving people. But they started last September with the idea of finding a way for the children to “find their voices again, after they had been silenced,” Hawkins said.

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“They did really well, really well,” she said after the concert.

“They have kept their compositions a secret from their parents, they wouldn’t let their parents hear them or know anything about them. So they were pretty excited to be able to sing that for their parents and the audience.”

She said she thinks the exercise of coming together to sing and compose their own music helped them re-adjust from the isolation of COVID.

“The fact that the kids owned their pieces, like they all know what part was theirs. The didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag, like it was their special project and their gift to the world.”

Evison said this concert was the culmination of a lot of work and is the start of something new.

“It’s been really lovely to see how the kids embraced the work. Really got into the spirit of composing. It’s almost we shifted the norm . . . our choir culture has changed. They expect to have their creative ideas considered,” she said.

“Georgian Bay Children’s Choir will be known as, oh, you’re the choir that composes some of your own repertoire. Yes. That’s our choir.”