Finding Voices in Motion
By Sirima Sengupta | Participant | Voices in Motion
When I was little, my mother enrolled me in music classes in India in the Bangla-language. I realized early in life that singing made me happy, be it English singing classes in the elementary and high school or Hindi language movie songs.
My husband and I both love listening to good music and it has been a huge stress buster for us for many years. I always felt the need to give more time to music in my life, but I was just not able to make it happen.
My longing to join a choir kept resurfacing every Christmas since moving to Canada.
My elementary school, being a Carmelite institution, used to have a Christmas musical every year. All the students sang Christmas carols, and those songs were engrained in my memory forever.
I think I started googling for choirs in Calgary around January 2020. Then the pandemic struck, and I thought, “There goes my chance to be part of a choir.” But thanks to google, my perseverance and an excellent website by Voices in Motion choir, one weekend, probably in April, I landed on their homepage. Skimming through their homepage, I also found their Facebook page and landed into the magical world of the choir’s weekly sing-alongs.
The sing-alongs are so warmly conducted by Rick and Erica that it is impossible not to continue to be part of them. Another aspect that drew me close to this choir is that it is a multigenerational choir for adults with memory loss, their caregivers, and friends. I have seen my grandmother suffer from memory loss – it was painful to see her suffer and not able to help her. I wish I could have used music therapy to reduce her suffering.
While I was regularly participating in the sing-alongs, I learned about separate virtual rehearsals for a Voices in Motion virtual concert. I was keen to participate in these rehearsals, so I reached out to Erica and she added me to the weekly Zoom rehearsals.
The beauty of the virtual rehearsals is that even though I am based in Calgary, I can still sing along with all other choristers in Victoria and Vancouver. For me, these rehearsals are doses of pure musical bliss. My desire to join a choir finally took shape through Voices in Motion.