Him Sing
Western Living, Dec. 2002
The name tag reads “Jeff, Gettin’ Higher Choir.” I’m tempted to ink in a question mark. Yes, I’m a paid-up newcomer to Victoria’s 317-voice, no-audition (read: all are welcome) amateur choir. But I'm wondering whether this harmonious company needs an unschooled yelper and enthusiast who raggedly croons along with Neil Young and David Gray on the home stereo. The gentlemen of the Tuesday night bass section are an entirely more refined breed. They understand the dynamics of singing as one, of blending their rumble with the melodious tenors, altos and sopranos arrayed on all sides. By comparison I’m tuneless and tin-eared as we work on a South African freedom song.
Mere rookie jitters, Shivon Robinsong tells me later. The choir's founder and co-director argues that the ability to make a joyous noise is a human birthright. The “either you’ve got it or you don’t” syndrome kicks in early, she says, and renders most of us mute. Robinsong (her genuine, entirely serendipitous married name) figured she was the talentless one in a musical Winnipeg family that includes her Juno Award-winning guitarist brother Oliver Gannon. It was at Hollyhock Institute, the renowned mind/body retreat centre she co-founded on Cortes Island, B.C., that she discovered one her life’s callings while studying with mentors like singer Anne Mortifee.
Just 40 people turned out for the first GHC in 1996. Three CDs and many fund-raising concerts later, it stands as a local institution and role model in a burgeoning community choir movement that, to some degree and until a peformance date nears, emphasizes keen participation more than disciplined musicality. Robinsong’s workshops have seeded choirs across Vancouver Island. Calgary’s Westwinds Music Society has four levels of choir, including a “green” division for neophytes. Activist Edmontonians can enroll in Notre Dame des Bananes, which has been belting out feisty labor songs since the ‘70s (including a set alongside Bruce Cockburn at the G-8 summit last summer). Flin Flon’s community choir has performed with the Saskatoon Symphony.
“Learning to listen,” Robinsong advises, is key for any team-oriented chorister. So for now I’m singing softly, working on my breathing patterns and slowly developing the confidence to step forward and be one strong voice among many. That’s enough on evenings when one does indeed enter a gentle, sweetly swoony altered state by inhaling rich volumes of oxygen, finding one’s place in a community of voices and riding on the wings of the repertoire (which ranges from U2 to Bach) to higher ground. My credo for now and until further notice: to sing is human, to hum divine.
Mere rookie jitters, Shivon Robinsong tells me later. The choir's founder and co-director argues that the ability to make a joyous noise is a human birthright. The “either you’ve got it or you don’t” syndrome kicks in early, she says, and renders most of us mute. Robinsong (her genuine, entirely serendipitous married name) figured she was the talentless one in a musical Winnipeg family that includes her Juno Award-winning guitarist brother Oliver Gannon. It was at Hollyhock Institute, the renowned mind/body retreat centre she co-founded on Cortes Island, B.C., that she discovered one her life’s callings while studying with mentors like singer Anne Mortifee.
Just 40 people turned out for the first GHC in 1996. Three CDs and many fund-raising concerts later, it stands as a local institution and role model in a burgeoning community choir movement that, to some degree and until a peformance date nears, emphasizes keen participation more than disciplined musicality. Robinsong’s workshops have seeded choirs across Vancouver Island. Calgary’s Westwinds Music Society has four levels of choir, including a “green” division for neophytes. Activist Edmontonians can enroll in Notre Dame des Bananes, which has been belting out feisty labor songs since the ‘70s (including a set alongside Bruce Cockburn at the G-8 summit last summer). Flin Flon’s community choir has performed with the Saskatoon Symphony.
“Learning to listen,” Robinsong advises, is key for any team-oriented chorister. So for now I’m singing softly, working on my breathing patterns and slowly developing the confidence to step forward and be one strong voice among many. That’s enough on evenings when one does indeed enter a gentle, sweetly swoony altered state by inhaling rich volumes of oxygen, finding one’s place in a community of voices and riding on the wings of the repertoire (which ranges from U2 to Bach) to higher ground. My credo for now and until further notice: to sing is human, to hum divine.
Shivon Robinsong
