Edmonton university choir featured in the 2022 Winter Games videos

An Edmonton university concert choir was given the opportunity of a lifetime to make their mark on a global stage after two years of not being able to perform.

The voices of the Concordia Concert Choir will be heard around the world as part of the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.

Three-hundred performers from 27 countries in five continents took part in the 2022 Sing for Winter Olympics music project and 12 students from the Edmonton choir represented Canada.

In November of last year, John Brough, the concert choir director, said he was invited to participate in the project by the Centre for Language Education and Cooperation in China.

A massive undertaking considering the time crunch the singers were under during an already busy time at school.

“I approached the choir and asked them, and I thought they would say no right away,” Brough recalled. “But they were all ready to go into it, jumped in with both feet and did a wonderful job.”

“It was something unique.” Josiah Maxfield, a fourth-year music major and choir member, added. “It was special and it was a challenge that we worked towards, a goal that we worked towards as a choir.”

From start to finish the group had about two week to memorize the music, record individually, learn Mandarin and produce the final product.

“It was pretty intense,” Brough explained. “We had to learn the music for one, but we also had to learn a foreign language that none of us really understood.”

“It was a little nerve-wracking,” Maxfield said. “The music wasn’t too difficult, but the singing in a different language was tricky.”

The singers had some previous experience with the language following a cancelled tour to China in 2020, but a lot of what the students had learned was forgotten.

Brough said they hired two diction coaches to help.

“Even though I had some experience with it, it was still very difficult to get your mouth around the text,” Pottle said.

“Over all my years of singing I’ve sang in tons of different languages, so it was just another one on the pile,” Hendrick Baerends, a fourth-year music major and choir member, added.

Concordia Concert Choir featured in Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. (Source: YouTube)

Now that the adrenaline has had time to settle, the singers are extremely pleased with how the final videos turned out.

“I feel extremely blessed to have been part of this project and to work with our amazing choir. You know it’s cheesy but we’re really a family so it was great to work together like this,” Pottle smiled.

“I didn’t think they would show me,” she laughed. “When I actually saw myself up there I was like, ‘This is crazy, I’m not only representing Concordia but Canada,’ so I was very proud of myself.”

Baerends said he was expecting to only hear himself in the background for a quick second, but it ended up being quite the opposite.

“The fact that we actually had so much exposure was pretty darn cool.”

As for Maxfield, he kind of “recoiled” seeing the video.

“It’s tricky, as a musician there’s always a little bit of anxiety I guess seeing yourself and knowing that people are watching you.”

But after years of being completely virtual without any opportunity for live performances, they all agreed they went out on a high note with this one.

“I think this was a great way to come back,” Pottle said.

“I’m glad that we went through with it,” Baerends added.

• Winter Olympics with Me 《冬奥有我》

• Winter Olympics 《冰雪冬奥》

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Jessica Robb