The Holy Heart of Mary High School Chamber Choir was ranked in the top 10 of the CBC Music Canadian Class Challenge — and the experience helped students come out of their shells, says the choir’s director.
After a few years of intermittent online learning, Robert Colbourne said he noticed his choir seemed a bit flat.
“There was some hesitation among the students,” Colbourne said in a recent interview. “They were afraid to sing, they were afraid to move when they sang, they were kind of like, for lack of a better word, zombies.”
Holy Heart is no stranger to the challenge, having won their categories in 2017, 2019 and in 2020.
But when the pandemic hit, they took a break from making videos for the annual national event, which invites school bands and choirs to make a video of their performance of a song from a list of selections from Canadian artists.
When the music list was dropped earlier this year, Colbourne felt it was time to start over – and the choir recorded their version of the rock classic Trooper. We’re here for a while (not long) in September.
“As you can see from watching the video, I mean the joy that’s on their faces, it’s pure, like they’ve come out of their shell again, and that was the point,” he said. -he declares.
With arranging help from an American composer named David Allan and video and editing handled by the Lee Creative Company of St. John’s, the choir got back to doing what it loved.
“It felt like a night out and we didn’t even think about the fact that we were making a video – we were just having fun with our friends,” said Grade 11 student Lindsay Clarke.
The choir placed in the top 10 in the senior voice category, won by JH Bruns Collegiate in Winnipeg.
You can watch the video below to see how much fun the Holy Heart Choir had.
The Holy Heart Chamber Choir of St. John’s participated in the CBC Music Canadian Music Classroom Challenge earlier this month.
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