Singing through Cyberspace: Virtual Choirs Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic

On my first day of 9th grade choir I remember my teacher telling us she hoped we would all finish the year having had at least one of those moments: the magical kind when you’re singing in a choir and hear an angelic harmony from all the voices around you, and you realize your own has melded into coherence with your colleagues, so your heart melts in awe.  I have sung in a couple choirs throughout my high school career, and I love how those moments, and singing in a choir in general, allow me to be a part of producing beautiful music and also bring me closer to my peers. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, most in-person choral activity was suspended due to the health risks associated with a highly infectious virus, and choral groups have sought to replace the loss of community interaction and collective musical production. While some choral groups tried to adapt in-person rehearsals to be socially distanced and outdoors, the logistical limitations of securing a large enough outdoor space and uncertainty over contagion made it difficult or impossible to do so safely. Hence, most choirs turned to digital tools to continue singing together like the virtual choir, which I explored in this project.

The virtual choir was pioneered by composer Eric Whitacre in 2010. Whitacre distributed a recording of Sleep by the British choir Polyphony online with instructions for anyone to record themselves singing the different choral parts in the piece. Then, he took in all of the individual recordings and put them together using audio editing software to make a digital chorus. He coined the term “Virtual Choir” to describe his creation and has since repeated the process several times with his own work. [1] He most recently released “Virtual Choir 6” in July of 2020 in which 17,572 singers from 129 countries collaborated on “Sing Gently,” an original piece by Whitacre composed “especially for the Virtual Choir during the pandemic” [2]. Whitacre has shared testimonials from singers about how Virtual Choir 6 gave them “hope and a sense of belonging” amid “the covid-19 lockdown,” and how it was “inspiring” and “a strong emotional force” [3].

Since Whitacre’s first virtual choir, many organizations have produced virtual choirs of choral music, and virtual choirs have served to bridge geographical gaps and allow people to sing together across oceans and cultures. Pre-pandemic virtual choirs have been studied and testimonials often mirror the ones shared on Whitacre’s website, that while virtual choirs are not the same as in-person choirs, they allow people to connect in a unique and definite way. They have been described as “embody[ing] the ideals of cyberspace—intercreativity, open access, and exchange across cultures” [4]. One psychological study compared the experiences of singers in virtual choirs and physical choirs by measuring “social presence,” or the consciousness of “being with others,” and “emotion regulation strategies,” or how people regulate their emotions around others. The study found that surprisingly members of virtual choirs showed greater social presence despite the common association of digital worlds with isolation, confirming previous ethnographic research revealing how singers in virtual choirs develop a sense of community and form social bonds. The study also found that singers in virtual choirs used fewer emotional regulation strategies. [5]

However, when in-person choirs transitioned to virtual choirs after the onset of the pandemic, many singers reported feeling that for all the virtues of virtual choirs, they could not fully make up for the loss of in person choirs because the experience of singing live with others is lost when one sings all alone into a microphone. With internet lag making synchronous group singing impossible online, the lack of alternatives to virtual choirs has highlighted problems with technology like how common microphones that are built to capture spoken words are ill-suited to capture all the colors of a singing voice. In addition, singers do not receive the same feedback from hearing each other sing and adapting their voices to blend and harmonize optimally as they would in a physical choir, which can make emotion and affect difficult or impossible to incorporate perfectly. [6] I personally have sung in two virtual choirs from my high school since the pandemic started. It was not the same as singing in person because I could not hear my friends singing while recording, so I cannot tell how well I was blending, but it was wonderful to hear my voice together with my friends’ once the virtual choir was finished.

For the bulk of my project, I focused specifically on how Boston Children’s Choir (BCC) has adapted to the pandemic. Boston Children’s Choir is a local choral organization which has several choirs for children in Boston among beginner, intermediate, and advanced singers. They perform around the world, have collaborated with several renowned musicians, and have received critical acclaim for their concerts and albums. BCC also strives to be a voice for the Boston community and seeks to educate singers and the world about the complex social contexts of their music through programs like their “listen in” speaker series, in which experienced speakers give talks about the social issues surrounding the music and the season’s topic. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, BCC had to shut down in-person events and rehearsals and transitioned to an online format. BCC had previously established an online presence including a website and a YouTube channel where they would post announcements, promotional materials, and some performances, and they developed these during the pandemic. They have used both as an outlet for the several virtual choirs they produced in the spring as well as extra content like behind-the-scenes details on their performances, student testimonials, and webinars detailing their season and programs. For my research, I mainly examined their YouTube videos to learn more about how BCC has functioned before and during the pandemic. I also spoke with two staff members who provided additional insight on how BCC has adapted: Irene Idicheria, the Chief Program Officer, and Robbie Jacobs, the Director of Artistic Programming.

The first musical production BCC performed after the onset of Covid-19 restrictions in March was a virtual choir performance of “We Sing” by Jim Papoulis. They first posted a video of 4 staff members and an accompanist performing the song. Then, singers, alumni, and staff each sent in videos of them singing their own parts, and Robbie Jacobs edited together the videos into BCC’s debut virtual choir. Both can be found below.