Men’s Choir in the Park
Fellowship comes in many forms… and voices
It was a warm June day as I traversed the well-populated Central McDougall Park, located south of the Royal Alex Hospital. Young children were running jubilantly in the fresh-cut grass, birds were chirping their joy for water left over from the spray park, and parents watched over their flock. On my previous visits, families largely stayed away from the solidly built gazebo, which often sheltered roving drug users. Today, I noticed something was different — many bikes were corralled around the perimeter and a combination of voices and keyboard in unison gently broadcast from under its roof.
On my approach, I noticed a group of mostly men, with songbooks in their hands, singing a familiar pop song around a central keyboard player. The variety of timbre and experience in the group covered a range that lent a bit of class to a Beatles standard without making it a practiced affair. The lone 'gal' encouraged me to come closer. I learned later her name was Eva and she was clearly the keeper of the books.
After performing their signature parting song "Downtown" popularized by Petula Clark, the group started packing up and I was able to get a quick interview. "Is this a cycling and singing group? Is it a church group?" I asked. "Not really," I was corrected by Evan Thomas, who joined in 2016 as the lead piano player. "It's the Edmonton Downtown Men's Choir!"
"How do you guys decide what songs are in your repertoire?" I asked the group. "We just choose something that's popular so that we can all sing what everybody knows," a member perked up. "It's all popular. A little bit of Queen or Roy Orbison, basically any pop classic." Eva Bostrand, affectionately referred to as the 'girl' in the group, explained they wanted to keep the barrier to entry open to anyone.
Eva has been the group's acting organizer since the beginning about 15 years ago. "I was reading in the [Edmonton] Journal about a program they had started at the Stanley Miller Library... Instead of calling the police and asking people who may be homeless to leave, they hired social workers to help the down and out," Eva explained.
She volunteered to start a choir to give the same people something purposeful to do with their time. But initially, the people sleeping in the library might come by and listen but not always participate, as their priorities were different. So that's when the group expanded to focus on a broader range of members and became the Edmonton Downtown Men's Choir.
I asked how members found out about the group, and Eva replied that some walk by just like I did and join in. Others are members of the O-day'min Village (formerly Melcor YMCA Village), where they meet when the weather is less than hospitable. With some members of the core group drawn from the target population the choir is designed to serve, and many drawn in by their support of community and fellowship, I could see why the song "Downtown" was delivered with such enthusiasm.
If you would like to know more about the group or catch their next meetup, you can find details at www.singforlife.ca/community.
Thank you for this article, to see how music uplifts people. We need positive support, and music boosts positivity. Plus, there is friendship, which helps us feel needed and wanted... less lonely. It is cool that the author chanced upon this story ... and wrote about it. Such a good response. Thank you, Sherridon Routley.