Okotoks choir singers make waves across the pond

The Big Rock Singers got to rock Italy last month.

The choir group landed back in Canada around April 28 clutching honours and experiences of a lifetime.

“Many of them had been to Austria in 2015 and Ireland in 2019, but for them and the first-timers, it really exceeded expectations in every way,” said choir director Carey Gruber. “As the only North American choir competing against European choirs who have a very different choral tradition, we were probably the only choir that sang with piano accompaniment.

“The music we presented was very different than the other choirs, and perhaps very different from what the adjudicators were used to.

"So, it was impressive way they performed in the competition, and the real grace under pressure they displayed.”

The focus of the tour was the Verona International Choral Competition, where the choir placed in the bronze category.

The pieces performed, Gruber added, were distinctly Canadian, including High Flight, based on a poem by John Gillespie Magee, an a cappella song called To the Peak of the Mountain, the Rankin Family’s We Rise Again and the French-Canadian folk song J'entends Le Moulin, as well as an a cappella version of Michael Buble’s Everything.

“When we were still in Verona, one of the most special experiences was a friendship concert we performed with a 30-voice men’s choir,” Gruber said. “They are all members of an Alpine military organization, and by goodness, it was just so special.

“We sang together, then they had us to their clubhouse for literally a late-night full meal. It just seemed like the whole town came out to be part of this.”

From there they went to Florence and St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

“To sing in the largest church in the world, songs all in Latin, meaningful is kind of an understatement,” Gruber said, adding she got an unexpected honour from the priest presiding over the mass.

“I had been asked to give him a note with our name, so I put ‘Big Rock Singers, Canada,’ but when he announced our name, he said ‘The choir here today is the Big Rock Singers from Okotoks, Alberta, Canada.

“Then people clapped, in a mass. It was so cool.”

One of the first-timers was Jaden Stewart, who joined her mother Dena in the choir and on the trip.

“Honestly, it was an amazing trip,” Stewart said. “The way they structured it was very relaxed in the beginning then got more intense near the end, which was very nice.

“It was my first time off the continent, I felt like I was pretty lucky to be able to do something big like this for my first time.”

One of the younger members on the choir trip, Stewart enjoyed broadening her horizons.

“Everybody was so welcoming and kind,” she said. “Every person was so full of character, it’s just so different from Canada, but in all of the best ways.”

This isn’t Stewart's first rodeo either, having sung in choirs most of her life, but certainly her first of this scale.

“I’ve been in choirs since elementary school, so I’ve been in a couple of competitions, but I’ve never had the opportunity to travel super far to be in a competition and have the opportunities to sing in such beautiful environments,” Stewart said.

“I’ve sang in churches before but nothing comparable; the acoustics were different, the architecture was different – the way sound just bounces back to you.

“It was hard to imagine singing during mass in the (St. Peter’s) Basilica, and even when we were sitting there, I don’t think it hit me until halfway through how cool of an experience it was."

The Big Rock Singers are already back to work on their upcoming East Coast Kitchen Party concert taking place May 27 at the Foothills Centennial Centre. For more information visit bigrocksingers.com.