Reflections on POHC's Spring 2013 Concerts

POHC Sings at Hope Lodge, June 11, 2013.

 We have had two wonderful outreach concerts recently, and they are always such strong reminders of the importance of our mission.  On Tuesday, June 11th, we sang at the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge, a residence for out-of-town families of cancer patients, where we sang in a lovely open room that has a wall of windows and a good piano.  With a large choir turnout we were able to share our songs with passion and vigor and the audience was deeply responsive. Our audience started small, but grew as we sang, and in the end there were at least a dozen people.  Many sang with us during the sing-alongs, and they clearly knew many of our other songs. There was a very strong connection with them as we sang and we could feel them drinking up our words of hope and encouragement and reminders of joy--even though this time in their lives is particularly stressful.  After the concert they were very appreciative and some stayed around for a while to talk to the choir members.

POHC Sings at Rivington House, June 15, 2013.

Saturday afternoon, June 15th a smaller group of choir members gathered at Rivington House, a home for AIDS patients, where we sang in the penthouse, a very nice venue.  Here our audience was also smaller, 7 or 8, but the concert was just as beautiful.  The three sopranos held their own wonderfully and the audience thoroughly enjoyed the songs and joined us in the sing-alongs.  We did rousing renditions of New York/ New York, Feeling Groovy, Aquarius, Siyahamba, and  Stand by Me, along with a gentler Die Gedanken and the addition of Tumbalalaika.  We ended with Give Me Hope and Let There be Peace on Earth to much appreciation from the audience.  We could all feel what a lovely gift music is for folks who are struggling.

-POHC Soprano

High Notes on the High Line, April 27

It has become a tradition for a member of POHC to do a post-concert write-up. It started when our Sign-up Coordinator began emailing her summaries to the other members in order to entice newer members to sign-up to sing at community concerts held early in the season. It didn't take long for Concert Write-ups to become greatly anticipated amongst our members, so we share them here in hopes that you'll join us at a future concert. 

POHC sings in the glow of the setting sun, on the High Line, Saturday, April 27.

It wasn’t exactly like singing in the subway.  Yes, we kept repeating our few good songs because the audience was fluid and transient.  But the High Line crowd was no in-a-hurry crowd. They were out for leisure, on an in-Manhattan getaway from Manhattan, taking a stroll on this road above the road, with wild grasses and flowers on either side. 

Tucked away in a bend of the road, with the Hudson River behind us, our backs to the setting sun, was the Choir.  People streamed by from both directions, some turning their heads to look and listen even if they didn’t stop, others collecting at the railings to stay for three or four or five songs.  But even this stationary audience wasn’t like a regular audience.  They hadn’t come on purpose to hear us.  We just happened. 

We did two sets--mainly repeats of Siyamba, Give Us Hope, Od Yavo, Down by the Riverside, and This Land is Your Land.  Our two brave a capella tries were Aquarius (René had to re-start us at the key change), and 59^th Street Bridge (this one worked pretty well!).  In between the sets, and sometimes in between the songs, POHC Tenor Gary worked the crowd, announcing who we were and what our mission was, then walking among them to give out pamphlets.  They took him at his word when he said, “There’s only one thing we like better than singing, and that’s hearing other people sing, so please join us.”

A highlight of the evening was the little girl with the curly hair who stepped up to us, then stood still, staring at René.  He got down to her level, very close to the ground, conducting all the while.  All at once, as if a switch had been thrown, this still little girl began to jump up and down in time to the music. 

POHC has fans of all ages. On the High Line, April 27.

Everyone, choir and audience, was in a good humor, and René didn’t seem to mind that he occasionally had to shield his eyes from the sun with one hand while he conducted us with the other. We’ve sung outside before, but always at ground level.  There’s something about being above it all while life goes on below that changes everything.

-POHC Alto 

Friday Night with Friends: POHC at YAI, April 5

It has become a tradition for a member of POHC to do a post-concert write-up. It started when our Sign-up Coordinator began emailing her summaries to the other members in order to entice newer members to sign-up to sing at community concerts held early in the season. It didn't take long for Concert Write-ups to become greatly anticipated amongst our members, so we share them here in hopes that you'll join us at a future concert. 

We lined up in the hall while POHC Tenor, Anthony went in to introduce the Choir.  Applause.  Then, from inside, René gave pitches for “Siyahamba,” but they reached the hall only faintly. So POHC member Angela took up the call, singing the soprano part loud and clear while she walked down the line.  We picked out our own pitches and took up the song as we marched in.  By the time we were all assembled in rows, we were singing full-strength, Zulu, English, Zulu, English, with René on the drum.  There was rhythm in the room and joy on the faces of our young audience at YAI.

Then came the rest of the songs, starting with Imagine.  The audience sang along sometimes, listened quietly other times.  One young man recorded each song on his cell phone, somehow managing to hold the phone still in his hand while the rest of his body gyrated to the music—an isolate-that-muscle feat worthy of a subway entertainer. 

We always encourage our audiences to participate, but this time, I liked that the audience did not clap along to This Land is Your Land. Instead, they were holding the song sheets, reading and singing. Clapping might have distracted them and it was nice to join voices.  During that song, one girl in the front row pointed to us and herself every time we came to the line “This land belongs to YOU and ME.”  They did clap along during Down by the Riverside, though, and they liked shaking hands with the choir members who walked through the audience during the verse that says “Gonna shake hands around the world.” 

We know this audience.  We’ve sung for them many times, yet our connection with them always feels fresh. They’re good listeners, good participators, and they enjoy the introductions as much as the music. They pick up the mood of the songs and reflect them back.  During Bright Morning Star, one young lady who likes to speak and share comments during the performance, was quiet during the first part.  For a moment, she thought the song was over and started to say something, but when she saw that it was continuing, she was quiet again.  Our music hath charms to soothe... 

It was nice to have our former director, Abby, in the audience.  Also nice to see the man in a pin-striped shirt and tie in the back row.  I have no idea who he was, but I enjoyed watching his face. He listened intently the whole time, but during the last song, Give Us Hope, he looked as if a spark had lit up his insides. And the German song, Die Gedanken, introduced by POHC Alto Susannah, was special for me after she had previously shared some thoughts about her daughter. 

What better place for our first concert of the season than YAI, where we’re always welcomed with exuberance.  (That’s an understatement.)

-POHC Alto 

POHC Sings at Ronald McDonald House, Dec 21

It has become a tradition for a member of POHC to do a post-concert write-up. It started when our Sign-up Coordinator began emailing her summaries to the other members in order to entice newer members to sign-up to sing at community concerts held early in the season. It didn't take long for Concert Write-ups to become greatly anticipated amongst our members, so we share them here in hopes that you'll join us at a future concert. 

On my way to the Ronald McDonald House building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I noticed a guy with a nice hat carrying a drum. Could it be POHC Musical Facilitator, René? I sped up a little and said "Hello there!" He turned around with a serious look, but realized it was me, Wilfred!

We chatted until we got to the security desk where we had to use a registry computer to sign in (a bit confusing, but security helped us out). We thought we were all clear, but then Tenor Anthony, arrived and brought our temporary picture IDs that we had left downstairs with security..

The rest of the group arrived and we were a few minutes late starting our warm up. After we finished, we waited for more audience to show up, so we took a little rest until it was time to start the actual show. The audience was quite packed and then we were ready to begin.

Baritone Larry opened the show with his welcome speech as well as introduction of the song, Siyahamba. We followed with Jingle Bell Rock. Soprano Cheryl was in the group for this performance so we sang Hafinjan and started with her solo. Of course she was great, no question. We also sung Down By The Riverside while several members headed toward the audience shaking hands during the "I'm gonna shakes hands..." lyrics. Deck The Halls was next and we recevied a nice applause from the audience. We moved on to Imagine,  then This Land Is Your Land (only a few audience members sang along), and Peace Salaam Shalom. We had enough altos to sing 50 Kilowatt Tree, A La Nanita and Little Bitty Pretty One (the last song with with Alex, Nancy and myself singing solos). We all rocked the house! Then we finalized the performance with Give Us Hope and  our theme song, Let There Be Peace On Earth, with Larry and René doing the closing speeches. The audience really enjoyed the performance with one audience member sharing her positive thoughts on the performance after the show. Afterwards, everyone left very happy. Happy Holidays to all!

-Wilfred, Tenor Section Leader

POHC Visits Rivington House, Dec 18

 

It has become a tradition for a member of POHC to do a post-concert write-up. It started when our Sign-up Coordinator began emailing her summaries to the other members in order to entice newer members to sign-up to sing at community concerts held early in the season. It didn't take long for Concert Write-ups to become greatly anticipated amongst our members, so we share them here in hopes that you'll join us at a future concert. 

On Tuesday, December 18, POHC visited Rivington House on Manhattan's Lower East Side. After showing our photo IDs to security and receiving our bright red visitor stickers, we were instructed to press PH in the elevator. This brought us to the pent house on the fifth floor.  It consisted of two large rooms, one with chairs set up in rows and a grand piano covered with a red Christmas cloth, the other with physical therapy tables complete with pillows.  We stored our coats and bags near the PT tables, and Tenor Anthony’s mom put out the pizza-with-everything she had brought for us. 

 

Back in the first room we did our warm-ups as a few staff members made final adjustments to the chair arrangement and someone on the loud speaker announced a Hearts & Voices concert (meaning us) in the pent house. The residents--some using wheelchairs, others using canes, some walking without assistive devices--dribbled in as we were still running through a few bars of each song, deciding what to sing.  They took their seats and watched intently, so we explained that this was just the rehearsal.  It was fine with them—they seemed to like this taste of what was to come. One guy shouted out that he remembered us from last year. 

 

Five minutes later, we began the real performance.  As always, Siyahamba got us off to a rousing start. This audience loved everything we did.  They clapped.  They sang along.  When we got to the line "gonna-shake-hands-around-the-world" from Down By the Riverside, and were making our way through the audience, a woman said “Happy Holidays” to me while I was singing and shaking her hand.  René gave the audience instructions on how to join us for Little Bitty Pretty One, and they followed him to the letter, even to the softer and softer fade-out at the end.  When he gave the final cut-off, they did so exactly on time! Tenor Wilfred and Soprano Gwen did a great job on the solos--without microphones. 

 

Lily (former choir member, and the one who was the contact for this gig) slipped into the back of the audience while we were singing the third or fourth number.  So when we got to the closing song, Let There Be Peace On Earth, I invited her up to sing it with us.  A woman in the front row thought I was inviting her up, and she came to stand next to the altos. This woman hardly smiled throughout the concert, but clapped and sang along from her seat. Now, standing in front with us and facing the audience, she still didn’t smile, but she knew all the words and kept her eye on René and did everything she was supposed to do as a member of the choir. René caught her eye to let her know he knew she was up there and that he was including her.  After the applause, while we were still standing before the audience, she went back to her seat. Though she didn’t say anything, we could tell that this had given her a lot of pleasure. A nice reminder of how our mission to bring music to those in need includes allowing their voices (and hearts) to join with ours.

 

-POHC Alto

Singing After Sandy: POHC Visits Kings Hotel, November 24

It has become a tradition for a member of POHC to do a post-concert write-up. It started when our Sign-up Coordinator began emailing her summaries to the other members in order to entice newer members to sign-up to sing at community concerts held early in the season. It didn't take long for Concert Write-ups to become greatly anticipated amongst our members, so we share them here in hopes that you'll join us at a future concert. In this edition, we have write-ups from two POHC Tenors.

Several weeks ago, just as we were all re-emerging from our homes after the Superstorm Sandy, one of the earliest members of the Peace of Heart Choir suggested that an additional outreach performance should be added in support of the hurricane recovery effort. Our schedule was already more than full, but the idea was so wonderfully in concert with our original Choir mission post-9/11 that it was clearly worth pursuing. Three weeks, and about two dozen phone calls later, after an attempt to sing at the Park Slope Armory storm shelter was foiled by its closure, we gathered at the Kings Hotel, deep in the heart of East New York, on a breezy Saturday afternoon, just two days after Thanksgiving.

The Kings Hotel sits on a lonely industrial stretch of Atlantic Avenue, deep in the heart of Brooklyn. An elevated portion of the avenue runs overhead down the middle of the street. It's a plain brick building, next to what looked like a recycling center for collected cans and bottles. Julia, a very polished blond volunteer at the shelter, greeted us in the lobby with her small dog.

We headed downstairs, through a maze of small rooms in the basement being used as social areas where people could sit, talk, play cards, and read. A dozen or more smokers congregated outside on the side of the building. The dining hall in the basement was a simple but decent-sized room. We cleared out the center of the room for the choir, so we were surrounded by chairs and tables on three sides.

During the early part of the warm-up, there were a few minutes of trepidation for Alto Pearl and Soprano Cheryl as they were the only people in their sections. But in the end, we had a full complement of about a dozen singers, with every part covered.

We sang for perhaps 30 older folks. Clearly, they'd been through a lot the last few weeks and were tired. Many were wearing their coats. These were mostly residents from Belle Harbor Manor and one or two other assisted living facilities in the Rockaways, who'd been moved to the Kings Hotel when the Armory was closed.

We began with Siyahamba, which is undoubtedly one of the best opening numbers we've done. It welcomes the audience wonderfully, and catches their attention.

René got the whole audience trained up to join us as we sang backup on Little Bitty Pretty One, which was fantastic. So glad we simplified the arrangement. It's a great sing-along opportunity, and Tenor Alex did a nice job on the solo.

The audience was clearly appreciative, but fairly quietly throughout, applauding each song, but not getting overly excited. Still, as at most Peace of Heart Choir performances, there were a few people who were clearly more touched by the music than others.

One older women, with no visible teeth, was singing along and smiling through most of the show. Afterwards, she complimented Cheryl on her voice. She was there with her friend. She'd lost her walker, her clothes, and almost everything else in the flood, and didn't even know what was left behind to salvage at this point. But she was happy to be alive and well, and had truly enjoyed the concert.

Another Kings Hotel resident, a middle-aged man wearing a beret and several layers of clothes, began singing and dancing along for a song or two. Before the show, he had been combing through his music for things he might join us on. Looked like he had a lot of Sinatra-era classics. He said he was performing with his group there on Sunday.

A black man with large glasses, who'd been sitting very quietly as we talked with others after the show, asked when we might see them again, and hoped that we could at least make it out to The Rockaways to sing for them again. At this point, I don't think they're sure if the facility they were living in will reopen, or when. But we'll check, and perhaps try to make the trek out there in a coming season.

After the performance we met Caron, a shelter volunteer who'd helped set up the show. She'd come straight from a bar mitzvah in Park Slope, but caught most of our performance. She was so happy we'd made it. Apparently when this group was at the Park Slope Armory they had a virtual parade of performers coming through. But few have made the trek to East  New York.

Overall, a lovely performance. We offered our sympathy, our music and the solace it can provide, and offered of ourselves.

-POHC Tenor

POHC Performs at Kings Hotel for displaced residents taking shelter after Superstorm Sandy, November 24

This is Wilfred telling you about today's outreach. I had a bit of confusion getting to the area of Brooklyn, since the street where Kings Hotel is located is a V-shape. As I was trying to get to Atlantic Ave, I somehow went the wrong way. Luckily, I got back to where I suppose to be and finally reached the building. I was about an hour early waiting for others, and as they arrived, I found out they had also been confused by the street. The lobby area was a bit small for our group, so we went downstairs to the lunchroom, to rehearse.

We set up the chairs, did our warm ups and rehearsed several songs. The audience there was crowded, and we waited until it was time to perform.

My fellow tenor, Gary, started the choir introduction and we started the song with Siyahamba. We followed with Peace Salaam Shalom and Od Yavo. During Od Yavo, we tried to get people to clap but people didn't seem interested in joining in that way. Maybe because they weren't familiar with the song. They did applaud at the end of the song, then we moved on to This Land Is Your Land.

Now here's my favorite part. When we sang the next song, Down By the Riverside, I noticed one audience member put on his glasses, and soon after he was dancing and snapping his fingers, singing the song with us. It must have been his favorite song of the day. We also did our Christmas lullaby, A La Nanita Nana, then Little Bitty Pretty One, and Alex alone was the soloist for this song. Then we sang Hafinjan and Cheryl was the soloist . We finished up with Light One Candle, then Imagine,  and Give Us Hope. Gary made a closing performance speech and introduced our theme song, Let There Be Peace on Earth.  I did the solo on this one and yes I'll admit, I missed Deb singing the female voice of the solo with me. The audience sure did leave us with a nice applause, and we were ready to find our way back to the subway.

-Wilfred, POHC Tenor

Queens Library Promotes POHC December Performances

Queens Library will host two POHC community concerts in December. Check out the custom flyer Queens Library created to promote the POHC. Very nice! We hope you'll join us on Saturday, December 1 at 3pm at the Central Library Auditorium, and on Saturday, December 22 at 3pm at the Jackson Heights branch.