Holidays
One week after
fire, solace and
joy in caroling
with Middle
Collegiate’s choir
BY TEQUILA MINSKY
For members of the choir of
the East Village’s Middle
Collegiate Church, caroling
at Cooper Triangle Park —just
south of Cooper Union—had
been planned long before a Dec.
5 fi re destroyed the 128-year-old
church structure that was their
home.
Singing on Dec. 12, one week
after the devastation was a way
for 20 members of the choir
family to breathe together and
support each other.
Says choir member Joy Lau,
“You could see how much they
need it, a safe way to gather outdoors
and be together.”
Under pre-Pandemic times, the
gospel choir numbering 50-60—a
diverse mixture of seniors and
young, professional musicians,
artists, and even frontline health
workers—was known for its
incredible harmonies, its professional
quality and performances.
PHOTOS BY TEQUILA MINSKY
When Middle Church indoor
services halted in March and
continued on-line, approximately
40 choir members began to meet
weekly by Zoom, even attracting
some who moved away. “It’s just
not the same,” says Lau.
Also recognizing some attendees
are not technologically
savvy and just can’t participate,
in the warmer months Lau started
monthly gatherings in parks,
mostly Washington Square, where
people could distance themselves
Cooper Triangle Park, a perfect venue for Middle Church’s
choir caroling with a program of familiar songs.
and be social, sing, picnic and
combat pandemic isolation. They
met four times.
“Not so easy singing through
a mask,” she reports, admitting,
“It’s not about the sound. It’s
about being together.”
On an unseasonably mild mid-
December afternoon, festively
dressed choir members —Santa
caps, stuffed antlers and ugly
Christmas sweaters—sang their
way through a healthy selection
of well-known carols including
Jingle Bell Rock and Rockin’
Around the Christmas Tree.
Choir member, musical artist
Deborah Berg, recruited by Lau,
conducted the holiday songs for
the joyful, spirited, and very fi rst
ever outdoor caroling with the
choir— a perfect anecdote for
pandemic isolation.
Side musicians including three
plastic ukuleles and a plethora
of tambourines augmented the a
cappella caroling.
Middle Church’s gospel choir
started in 1986 by the late Jerrise
Johnson and now carries his
name.
The church then had a dwindling
following and the choir,
attracting all sorts of performing
artists, creatives from the neighborhood
and others who loved
to sing, helped evolve the church
into an artistic and cultural center.
Music became its revival.
On Saturday, following the
caroling program of 18 songs,
many of the singers walked the
one block to 2nd Avenue. Staring
at the shell of the church that had
been their home, remaining choir
members belted out two gospel
songs—God is Here segued into
God Put a Rainbow in the Sky.
Lau, like the others, was
confronting again what had happened,
just one week earlier. She
sighed, “The whole thing was still
surreal.” But singing helped.
“Somehow, singing in front of
the burned down church, with
the choir, allowed me to grieve
and come to terms with it,” she
says. “In that moment I was in a
safe supportive environment and
I recognized the church is not just
the building but the community.”
Gospel soothes the soul of the grieving.
Schneps Media December 17, 2020 17