Healing Chorus

Meet the musicians who refused to let the music die

- KAYLIN KAUPISH

Almost a year ago, in March 2020, the Covid-19 pan-demic shut down most of the country. People sheltered at home. Businesses closed. Churches suspended services.

Everywhere, music fell silent. Artists feared for their livelihoods. People of faith wondered when they’d sing together again.

The silence didn’t last long. Turns out, it takes a lot more than a pandemic to suppress our human need to sing, play and be transported by music.

Singers, songwriters, choral groups and instrumental players devised new creative ways to bring God’s glorious gift of music to their communities.

GUIDEPOSTS went in search of these resilient musicians. Across the United States, we found people of faith and goodwill meeting the challenge of the pandemic with a song in their heart and music at their fingertips. We’d like to introduce you to a few of these inspiring artists.

Dimitri Pittas and Leah Edwards

Charleston, South Carolina

Married opera singers Dimitri Pittas and Leah Edwards were stuck at home. Singing engagements were canceled. “It could have been so easy to step away from it all and say, ‘What’s the point?’” Dimitri says.

Yet something compelled the couple to keep practicing, singing arias and scenes from operas. The lockdown was depressing, but they sang anyway.

One day, a neighbor said she’d enjoyed overhearing them practice. That gave Dimitri and Leah an idea.

“We thought it could be fun to stage a mini-concert outside,” Leah says. A pianist friend played in the driveway while Dimitri and Leah sang from the porch. Neighbors listened from their yards.