"One-Day Choir" Pop-Ups Fill Formerly Abandoned Gym with Music

Choir groups don't usually meet for a mere total of three hours before permanently disassembling. Choir groups also don't usually gather in abandoned Brooklyn gymnasium-turned-event spaces, complete with inexplicable doorways to crawlspaces covered in roses. But the Gaia Music Collective One-Day Choir is not a typical choir group.

The idea behind the One-Day Choir is ambitious: participants show up at the Gymnopedie in Bushwick and, after just three hours, are ready to perform a multi-part song. Guided by a choir director, different sections of the choir work on harmonizing and making sense of sheet music distributed at the beginning of the event.

This past Sunday, Kenter Davies acted as choir director, leading the group in singing Chappell Roan's hit track "Good Luck Babe!." In homage to the Western wear popular amongst Roan fans, Davies wore a denim vest with pink tassels, while sparkly pink cowboy hat earrings dangled from his ears.

"I'm so excited to be here with you today. We're not reaching for some product where it has to be perfect by the end. Sometimes beauty is what you make along the way," Davies assured the crowd.

Davies began the One-Day Choir by asking everyone to softly pound their chests to the same beat and sing affirmations. He commanded the room from the center of the circle formed by the Choir, guiding the group with ease.

"Listen to your heart. Everything I say is an invitation," everyone repeated together.

Next, Davies, who wrote the vocal arrangement for the day, asked everyone to break into small groups. In these groups, participants took a couple of minutes to get to know each other. Underneath a basketball hoop, Sara Salomon and Kelly Venable-Turner met.

"I took my mother-in-law to 'What Was I Made For?.' It was such a beautiful experience," shared Venable-Turner, referencing a past One-Day Choir dedicated to the Billie Eilish track.

"I can barely keep it together for 'You'll Be in My Heart.' I went with my cousins," said Salomon.

Participants then walked around, finding others with a similar vocal range. Once everyone identified their choir section, the groups split up to practice their part of the song.

One group met in what, unaccountably, seemed to be a classroom. Sitting on top of two school desks pushed together, Dani Martinez, 25, and Alice Downer, 23, were on a second date. After a successful first outing the previous Friday, Martinez thought Downer might want to tag along to the One-Day Choir.

"I thought it sounded like so much fun," said Downer.

"The echoey room actually enhances the sound. It just kind of feeds my soul," said Martinez, a music teacher.

Before practicing the song a few more times, Davies asked participants to sit in a circle and share the ways that "Good Luck Babe!" resonated with them.

"I feel like the song is from the perspective of a person who is queer speaking to someone who isn't out yet. When Chappell says 'Good luck, babe!' I think it's sincere," shared one participant.

"It sounds like the narrator is really grounded in themselves and who they are, and it's really sad that the other person doesn't sound like they've figured themselves out yet," said another singer.

The Choir then practiced the song in full three to four more times before disbanding for the evening. Everyone walked around the room, seemingly comfortable in their choir parts, voices rising and falling together. After the Choir finished the final rendition of "Good Luck Babe!," singers clapped and cheered, applauding each other and, of course, Davies.

@gaiamusiccollective the PASSION in the bridge 🥺 “Good Luck, Babe!” One-Day Choir originally by @chappell roan arranged & led by @Kenter 📍 Gymnopedie in NYC #singing #harmony #acapella #vocals #choir #community #nyc #chappellroan #goodluckbabe ♬ original sound - Gaia Music Collective

"The magic of this community and this city – where you don't have to have any experience but it always sounds so beautiful – it's a testament to what as a collective we humans can do," said Davies.

"People can show up with a bit of tentativeness because it's a scary thing to just do this and as it goes on you start to see people feel more safe. And that's so special."

As the event page for One Day Choir notes, there are "No auditions. No judgment. No need for perfection. Just the joy of singing in harmony with a room full of beautiful humans." You can join the waitlist to participate in the next One Day Choir gathering on November 21st where singers will belt out "Defying Gravity" from the musical Wicked, with a special appearance from a surprise Elphaba.