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_The San Diego Women's Chorus sings "Circle Chant" during a virtual performance._ [embedded content] Meg and Chuck Smith met as freshmen when the two joined the Oberlin
College Choir. [embedded content] Now in their 60s, singing remains a key part of life for the couple, who have been members of the choir at Plymouth Church in Des Moines, Iowa, since 1978.
But with in-person religious services, rehearsals and performances on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, countless choirs across the country have been forced to go virtual, quickly
adapting to digital rehearsals and video performances in order to keep members singing — and audiences listening — from afar. For the Smiths and the Plymouth Church choir, the switch to
socially distant singing included creating a video rendition of the song the group would normally sing at the end of services on Sunday. The resulting video, which features clips recorded at
home by individual singers — including some from non-choir congregation members who also wanted to join in — now closes out the digital services the church broadcasts each week. "I
don't think that I was really ready for what an emotional experience it was, to see all of those faces and hear those voices singing together,” Meg says of watching the video for the
first time. “That's what we've been missing, and it's hard to recreate that.” RETHINKING RISK Concert choirs have also had to rethink their seasons in light of the risks posed
by in-person rehearsals, which have the potential to become coronavirus “superspreader” events because of the aerosols — tiny respiratory droplets — generated when singers breathe deeply
and project their voices. One study from a choir practice in Skagit County, Washington, in March found that 53 out of 61 singers were infected with COVID-19 by one person. Two people died.
Singers never expected their practices to become high-risk events. "In a way it caught everybody off guard,” says Linda Morrow, 66, a retired physician and member of the San Diego
Women's Chorus, an LGBT-affiliated choir (Morrow is also the president of the chorus board of directors). “I don't think any of us expected that singing was going to be the
absolute best possible way to transmit the virus, but in retrospect, because I'm a physician, I think yes, of course” it makes sense. Though the group's spring in-person
performances and events, including a highly anticipated LGBT choral festival in Minneapolis, have been canceled, Morrow says they've been hard at work putting together a new roster of
digital performances, including a rendition of the national anthem for San Diego Pride in mid-July.