The 55 girls in the DR Pigekoret choir got a bit of a shock shortly before Christmas. For months they had been rehearsing for one of the highlights of the year, the Christmas concert, but with two days' notice, the Concert Hall was shut down after a mass outbreak of Covid-19 in DR KoncertKoret.
Like the ”adult” choirs, the girls had learnt to comply with various restrictions. These included the distance requirement of two metres when singing. This in itself is quite a challenge. The choirs are used to standing shoulder to shoulder when they sing. But at a distance, what the girls hear is completely different to what they are used to. They don't just hear themselves, but also the others in the choir. It requires more responsibility for their own voice, so to speak, and a recollection of how it used to sound.
In practical terms, it also poses major challenges. With so many people having to keep their distance, there are only two places in DR that have space: the Concert Hall and Studio 2. The Concert Hall isn't really an option and Studio 2 is in high demand, so it has been necessary to find locations in the city.
But even that is now on standby for an uncertain future, so if there is to be singing together, it will also be for the Girls' Choir separately via Zoom on the internet. Not optimal, so we need to think outside the box. And that's exactly what they're doing. So while the girls are sent home, DR's production team is working on many fronts to ensure that the audience can still see and hear the popular choir.
The choir's artistic director, Anne Karine Prip, makes no secret of the fact that this is a frustrating period for the 55 girls, who are used to spending a significant part of their free time working seriously on singing and with great unity. For many of them, they have been together since they were six years old.
- Singing days are an essential part of their identity. That's why there's only one thing that's important, and that's to get back to meeting for rehearsals, because even with modern technology you can't be concert-ready without being together in the rehearsal phase," explains Anne Karine Prip.
In the spring, the many postponements of the possibility of physical meetings with the audience made Anne Karine Prip and the choir's conductor, Phillip Faber, think in other directions. This was the start of Morgensang. Neither the two musicians nor the DR departments responsible for programme selection could have imagined in their wildest dreams what an audience success the daily morning broadcasts and later the Friday “sing-along” quickly became. Quite simply, they had an audience of millions.
And the Girls' Choir's Facebook page went from 10,000 followers to five times that number.
- We are inundated with requests for performances from the Girls' Choir, and we spend a lot of time and effort saying yes and no to the various requests when it becomes possible again. It's important to make sure it doesn't become too much," emphasises Anne Karine Prip.
The great success does not take away the fact that many of the choir's loyal supporters have been disappointed to learn that the concert they were looking forward to has been cancelled or postponed indefinitely. And for the girls, rehearsals with their singing teacher and ear-training teacher can only take place online, at least until Easter.
The cancellations include planned tours on Zealand and in Jutland, a concert in Holmen Church scheduled for March, and a brand new project called ”classical lighthouses”.
- "The Girls' Choir and the Symphony Orchestra will work together to engage audiences other than those who traditionally attend the Thursday concerts," explains Anne Karine Prip. "The idea is to - so to speak - invite new audiences in through the back door and then unfold the classical music for them through the composition of the programme and staging. That project has been postponed from May and indefinitely, says the choir's artistic director and producer.
On the other hand, the closures also offered new opportunities to see and hear Pigekoret. Most notable were the New Year's songs, which were edited together in record time from new recordings of the girls singing from home and received no less than 1.8 million viewers on DR, where it can still be found on DRTV.
Finally, a four-part series is on its way, following Phillip Faber and the choir behind the scenes. Filming took place in the autumn and will premiere on 23 February on DR 1.
Anne Karine Prip is also in charge of the Choir School, which is subject to the same distance restrictions as the Girls” Choir, which is even more difficult for the children. Attempts have been made to organise rehearsals for smaller groups, but it's not easy. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Junior Choir had a successful November at the Danish National Opera with four performances based on Janne Teller's novel ”Nothing".
- So we don't just sit down and wait. We're ready behind the scenes," says Anne Karine Prip, who has experienced an even busier workday during the lockdown than before.
Intensive efforts are being made to unfold the Pigekorets tones even more on digital streaming services. You can already find the girls on streaming services today, and it has been a great success. What's more, the choir has reached number 11 on the Danish charts, with world names such as Britney Spears at the top. Both new studio productions and live concerts are on the drawing board. On Koncerthuset's YouTube page, you can also find Pigekoret. What they all have in common is that they have professional broadcast quality.
The latest addition to the Pigekoret is streaming. It is Phillip Faber's music for DR1”s ”Grænselandet”, and a recording of three hymns is on the way. They will be released in early March under the title ”Om lyset”. Later, there will be ”Om natten” and ”Om sommeren".
- They are all small collections that point towards optimism, which is absolutely necessary in these times," concludes Anne Karine Prip.