Though many people across the city are doing their best to go green, the singers of Ottawa’s only activist choir give the movement a whole new meaning.
Just Voices, a small choir based out of the Bronson Centre, will be drawing from its vast repertoire of nature-themed songs to perform at the first social gathering of the newly formed environmental group Transition Ottawa on Feb. 19.
Transition Ottawa is a large-scale social experiment based on a British movement that encourages people to come together within their city to create more sustainable and self-reliant ways of living.
Ottawa became a “transition city” last fall.
Heather Hamilton, one of the founding steering committee members of Transition Ottawa, says the choir will fit right in at the upcoming event.
“Everybody who is potentially coming to this meeting is there because they want to do something as an individual, but they also want to be part of this bigger movement that’s making change for what we think is the better,” she says.
“So these guys, what they sing about and the fact that they’re doing it period, is part of that bigger picture.”
Just Voices was founded in 2004 when musical director Greg Furlong, who ran a similar group in Toronto known as Song Cycles, moved to Ottawa and recruited singers to start rehearsing.
Now, six years later, Furlong says the choir consists of 20 or so members, most of whom live in the downtown area and range in age from about 25 to 70.
Though the group’s next two events – the upcoming Transition Ottawa meeting and its annual Earth Day performance in April – call for songs about the environment, the choir also sings about other protest themes such as social injustice and war.
“You realize it really all does tie together and that’s part of the message we try to get out,” says Mark Rehder, a choir member who works at the Re-Cycles Bi-
cycle Co-op on Bronson Avenue.
Rachel Sutton, 32, joined the choir just months after its inception when her housemates, already members, encouraged her to try it out.
“I guess I just thought it was a great idea to combine music and activism,” says Sutton.
She was also drawn to the social aspect of the choir; it allows her to spend time with people who share similar values and a love of music.
She says over the years the choir has expanded its repertoire. Now members have a larger pool of songs to pull from for different events.
Though Just Voices draws from existing songs, such as Paul Simon’s Peace Like a River, most of their songs are arranged by Furlong.
Some pieces in their repertoire include Air from the musical production Hair, Pollution by Tom Lehrer, and Solidarity Song by Bertolt Brecht.
In addition to its annual Earth Day performance and winter solstice concert in December, the choir also sings at many other functions including fundraisers, rallies, and other awareness-raising events.
Last year, for example, Just Voices sung at the launch of the Development and Peace Campaign and the International Day of Climate Action on Parliament Hill.
“We’ve done a lot of different things over the past six years,” says Furlong, “and we look forward to doing more as time goes by."