With plans in place, the dress rehearsal been had, and the choristers essentially opening their mouths to sing, the COVID-19 case numbers had turned for the worse. The new Omnicron variant had spiked cases throughout the province, and Ottawa is no luckier than the rest. Cases doubling, tripling what used to be the “norm” in our city caused us to need to act fast. In an hours notice, our incredible volunteer team was able to make the difficult decisions to move our live “Messiah: part one with chamber orchestra” online. What started a Friday morning with excitement of the weekend ahead finished the day with sorrow, as we sent out social media posts and email blasts to inform our patrons not to come to the church.
Not wanting to disrupt what was already said and done even more so, we kept our original concert date and time as the recording date and time. The orchestra graciously joined us, and most of the choristers made it. A commendable few members learned entire solos last minute, as other singers had to self-isolate due to close contacts. Most admirably, even with a day’s time at our disposal, most numbers were recorded in only one take! What an incredible testament to our hard work and intensive practice for an in-person concert.
We aim to have the remastered recording out for you by Christmas Eve. We are very thankful for everyone who supported this event by buying pay-as-you-can tickets, as well as sponsoring our orchestra via the “Giving Tuesday” campaign. We realize that the event is not as you originally expected, so if you DID support in advance, you have been contacted by email to see if your intent remains.
Thank you for your continued support of the ORYC, and we look forward to seeing you once again in 2022!
