PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — An Oregon choir has found a way to sing together again amid the pandemic.
Students a Chemeketa Community College are tuning in on their car radios and rehearsing in the parking lot.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way and we had a will to create music and to create community again,” Kerry Burtis, the Director of Music at the college said.
“It’s so much better than on Zoom,” Student Michael White said.
Burtis had the idea after coming across driveway car choirs.
“I had researched. I learned from other people. I’d ask, or say, what kind of equipment and how are you doing this? And so when the college approved it in December I was like, ‘Yes!’”
The group meets on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
“So what happens is each student has a microphone in their car and that’s how they input their sound. It’s wireless, and so that signal goes to the mixing board. Instead of putting in speakers to it, we use an FM transmitter. It’s just like a drive in movie theater. There’s zero latency. And so literally they’re in the same room with each other on that FM radio station in their car.”
“It’s been kind of surreal. I haven’t’ been able to do much music wise since the pandemic, so it’s been really nice,” student MacKenzie said.
“Singers are passionate people about singing and they will get together and any circumstance to sing, I could have said we’re going to meet underneath this overhang and they’d come. And so rain or sun or sleet or snow or wind, it doesn’t matter. Singers want to be together to make music together,” Burtis said.
