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Mostly Cloudy Baldwin chorus group did not fall flat at their November competition
Members of the Greater Nassau Chorus, GNC, made a soulful return to international competitions, reviving their passion of singing.
Members of the choir spent 18 months preparing at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Baldwin to enter the spotlight again. Due to the pandemic, the group hasn’t been participating in any in person competitions for the past four years. This changed in early November when the group traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to perform several songs.
“We performed Hit Me With a Hot Note,” Harriette Walters, director of the GNC, said. “But the ballad that we performed was an original song that was written and arranged in our organization.”
Walters, who has been the director of the group for almost 40 years, explained that the group rehearsed both virtually and in person. It went back to fully in person a little less than two years ago. She noted that the music that was practiced was sometimes not the ones that were performed at the competition, as she was overall just focusing on honing the craft of the singers.
“This event was a renewal of what we’re passionate about,” Walters said.
Walters said that she was happy to be back to doing what she loved to do. For her, it was “hard” to not perform during these past few years. There were strict health protocols when the group rehearsed, according to Walters, as singing is a “super spreader event.”
The choir’s team coordinator, Andrea Macey, said that the preparations for this competition was “joyful” for the whole team because everyone was ready to get back into doing what they enjoy. She mentioned that during the past competitors, the singers made connections with people from different states and countries. This is something that she and the rest of the group were particularly excited to experience again.
“It’s always nice to see these people again,” Macey said. “It’s like you enter a bubble when you go to these competitions. It’s singing all week long and just friendship. So I think we were looking forward to the joy of it and working hard as well because we are a group that has a goal and a focus and be serious about what we do.”
Walters echoed this sentiment as she said that the group has very high standards. Walters explained that she wanted the love of singing, “the real purpose” of the group, to shine through. She said that this was possible through the competitions.
“Competitions are great,” Walters said. “They are motivating, inspiring, and it helps get you be the best version of yourself.”
To keep spirits high throughout the rehearsals, the group would have a “rah rah” every couple of weeks, which involve the singers doing something fun. For example, Macey said everyone wrote about something that GNC meant to them. Then, they placed that on a silhouette of the Statue of Liberty.
“It was a fun way to get our heads in the game and have a visual representation of our inspiration,” Macey said.
At the competition, there were about 34 choruses. The GNC placed 11th, which allowed them to be the microphone testers on the last day of the competition. They were able to work with the stage crew to make sure that the microphones were working properly before the finalists sang.
There will be another event coming up in April, which will be a regional competition in Albany. The group has already started preparing for that and learning new music to sing there. After a few weeks off for the holidays, the group will go back, full force, into preparing for this next competition.
