Cricket Handler and Jill Anderson - Carzona women

Cricket: Both Jill and I have been part of the Forward Thinking: Women’s Choir Conversations established by Morna Edmundson, director of Elektra Women’s Choir. We traveled to their Tapestry Festival in 2015 - an experience that changed Canzona’s life - and Morna really stepped forward at the beginning of the pandemic to bring together conductors of women’s choirs from Canada and the U.S. We’ve met almost every Tuesday for 50 minutes since June of 2020 - today we’ll be on session #76! Jill and I have made many new friends through this, participated in a 3-way virtual choir project with Mitchell Covington (Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble, Oakland) and Dori Baunsgard from Con Brio Women’s Choir, Seattle. We’re talking about doing a choral exchange in one of our locations. Our topics were pandemic focused at the beginning as we all learned to navigate Zoom and editing virtual choirs, but have branched out into many different aspects of choral leadership and participation.

In November of 2020, Scott Glysson of Cal Poly put together a community-wide virtual choir concert that included several of the middle and high schools, community choirs, Cuesta College and Cal Poly. We performed Rosephanye Powell’s “I Want to Die While You Love Me” with the Cal Poly Women’s Chorus, and also did an hour long conversation with Dr. Powell which was uplifting and inspiring. 

Jill: When our singers would ask, “What’s the point? We won’t be able to sing publicly for who knows how long…” I responded with a list of reasons for singing regularly, even alone in your own house:

You will enjoy the physical sensation of singing
You will have mental and spiritual engagement
You will enjoy the beauty of the music that you sing
You will experience a connection with composers and poets
You will be able to express feelings and passions and experience these viscerally
​​