2 weeks Ago By Dan Ferguson
Their warm-up song, appropriately enough, was "singing in the rain." By then, a torrential downpour and blasts of wind from the first atmospheric river of the season on Oct. 19 had forced Langley's Peace Arch Chorus to make a last-minute change of venue, relocating from an open-air performance space at Langley City's Douglas Park, to a hastily-arranged indoor space at a clubhouse in a Brookswood residential park.
They were still finding parking spaces when the power went out. It was the first time the chorus had taken part in , an online global sing-along held annually on the third Saturday in October, which, this year, also happened to be election day in B.C.
Peace Arch Chorus marketing coordinator, and member, Sharon Von Hollen agreed it was a challenging day. "We couldn't meet outside to sing because the only creatures that would be able to sing under that much water would be whales," Van Hollen commented after the power went out. But there were windows, so the singers could perform by natural light.
"We're dry, and all you really need is a place and people to sing," Van Hollen said. Chorus director Elvera Collier laughed as she recalled it was a "beautiful sunny warm day" when they planned it back in the summertime. "We said, yeah, it's gonna probably rain in October, [but] we kind of didn't expect the atmospheric river that has shown up today," Collier told the Langley Advance Times.
Peace Arch was among more than 115 hosts in over 20 countries who organized WSD events in their cities, a list that included Bangalore in India, Episkopi in Cyprus, Melbourne, Australia, Dnipro in Ukraine, and Delavan, Wisconsin. At the appointed time, they sang "Imagine" and "We are the World" with all the other singers around the world. And if their part of the compilation video was the darkest of all the participants (see 2:36 of the YouTube clip), that was not important for Collier and the chorus members.
"If we can just make the world a better place by singing together, then we've done our job," Collier said. Founded in 2012 by Colorado musician Scott Johnson, World Singing Day aims to bring people together in their communities around the world. Online, Peace Arch Chorus (PAC) describes themselves as a women-identified a cappella ensemble, part of Sweet Adelines International, with membership from all walks of life, who perform everything from jazz to barbershop to contemporary.
Peace Arch Chorus rehearses Wednesdays at the Langley Presbyterian Church and people interested in joining can visit ..
