Hello inspiration!

When Covid-19 shut down the globe, Beth Wilmurt took on the tricky task of transitioning 100 older adult singers from a live choir to a virtual choir. To gauge comfort levels, Wilmurt—a performer and choir director in San Francisco—emailed her singers and asked, “Have you ever heard of Zoom? Do you have a computer? What kind?” Soon her inbox was flooded with funny and touching email messages, which provided comfort during a stressful time. Wilmurt then decided to turn them into songs.

“Their messages were keeping me going, things like, ‘Thank you, Beth,’ ‘We can do it!’ and ‘How about an inappropriate song like I Want to Rock and Roll All Nightand Party Every Day,” Wilmurt explains. “So I grabbed my ukulele and wrote twenty songs in one night. I had the best time singing their words and thinking about them in a deeper way, musically.”

Once the songs were completed, Wilmurt partnered with For You—a project that pairs an older adult with a performer to create a custom piece of art. For You email subscribers received one of Wilmurt’s songs in their inbox every weekday for a month.

Wilmurt,age 53, a self-described “theater animal,” has performed in over 60 productions, composed music for multiple theater/dance companies, and been recognized by San Francisco Magazine as one of the Top 100 Artists in the Bay Area. For the past twenty years, she’s led children’s choirs at The San Francisco Community Music Center—a non-profit offering low-cost/tuition-free music classes. Then, “about five years ago,” she started leading choirs for older adults, ranging in age from mid-50s to mid-90s. At first, she worried that older adults might not appreciate her playful approach as much as the kids. She’s found the opposite to be true.

“I’m surprised by how easy going and upbeat they are,” she says. “They’re very forgiving and if I’m a little scattered, they’re very patient with me.”

Adopting a nimble attitude proved crucial when the pandemic put the kibosh on group singing —specially for tech-shy Wilmurt, who didn’t even have internet access in her apartment.

After saying goodbye to so many things like going outside and seeing our friends and families, the word ‘hello’ started to sound kind of radical. So we became the ‘Hello Chorus.’

Beth Wilmurt

“I was skeptical that we could retain members that were 20 years my senior. If I didn’t have internet, what was their situation? Mostly, I worried about leaving people behind,” she says.

While she feared she might not be “plugged-in” enough to shepherd her singers onto Zoom, Wilmurt was encouraged by her singers’ willingness to give it a try. So, with the help of a kind neighbor’s Wi-Fi password, she set up the first Zoom session. 

To her delight, 65 members logged on that first day. In spite of synchronization issues that prevented members from singing in time together, connecting face-to-face provided the perfect salve for the soul.

Heartened and moved by that experience, Wilmurt grew emboldened to teach herself how to use a multi-recording app, iMovie, and post videos to YouTube—digital tools that helped transform her singers’ emails into songs. 

“I got really inspired by each of my students and their stories,” Wilmurt says. 

The resulting song collection beautifully captured the emotional highs and lows of the choir’s journey to stay in harmony by whatever means necessary.