Live Wire: Nields’ Welcome Table Chorus concert to benefit Food Bank of Western Massachusetts

NORTHAMPTON — Two things that have an almost innate ability to bring people together are food and music.

And that combination will be the focus of an upcoming Welcome Table Chorus concert at Northampton’s Bombyx Center for the Arts on Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. The evening will feature a massive chorus of singers and proceeds will benefit the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.

The Welcome Table Chorus is the brainchild of Nerissa Nields of local folk duo The Nields. Nields said she had created a similar folk chorus when she was in college in the late 1980s.

“So, it’s something I’ve been interested in my entire life,” she said. “The college chorus was called Tangled Up in Blue and that was sort of a template for me.”

Although she is best known for her work with The Nields, who blend folk, rock and pop into their sound, Nields is no stranger to choral music. Along her music journey, she has created and conducted choruses for children, including one in Northampton which turned into three different groups and ran for five years until the pandemic hit.

Of course, COVID stopped most live music and community events in their tracks.

Then last April, Nields and her husband went to Boston with friends for the “No Kings” rally and one of her friends happened to be a parent of one of the children from a previous chorus.

“She asked me if I ever thought about starting a chorus for adults and said that if I did, she’d join it in a second,” Nields said.

The idea intrigued Nields, but initially she thought it would be too much work. But after mulling it a bit, she called her sister (and bandmate) Katryna, who had been running a few youth choruses already and asked her if that’s something she would want to do together.

“And she didn’t even hesitate. She immediately said ‘yes.’ But we debated it and went back-and-forth and wondered if it would be too much time or if we would lose our minds,” Nields said with a laugh.

In the end, the sisters decided to forge ahead.

“I think this is something that people need; we need to sing with other people and be in community with other people,” Nields said. “Especially with the twin things of people being more cautious and isolated after COVID and the political climate being what it is, it’s important that people do gather.”

So, they put out the word, expecting to get maybe 30 people.

They got 80.

“We started out with about 80 singers — there were no auditions so anybody could join. But people whittle themselves away, and now we have about 60 to 70,” Nields said.

The songs that will be performed are about inclusion, love, and activism, Nields said, but it will be a diverse set list. Some of the songs on the setlist include Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’, “Crowded Table” by The Highwomen, “Don’t Carry It All” by the Decemberists, and “Dreams” by The Cranberries.

The chorus will be singing all these tunes in four-part harmony and putting that together so quickly (the chorus just started in September) is a daunting task. But fortunately, Nields relied heavily on her former chorus work.

“A lot of the songs we chose were ones that we already had arrangements for,” she said.

The chorus itself is also diverse.

“It’s a mixture. I got all kinds of different all different kinds of people. Some are quite good, and some are complete beginners. I have some parents from the earlier choruses. We have people who are Nields fans, and we have people who don’t know anything about us,” Nields said. “I even have one of my classmates from college who is doing it 40 years later with her husband.”

Nields mused about why singing gives people a sense of community.

“I think there’s a kind of spiritual thing that happens, which would be kind of hard to define in words, but we all know it when we feel it,” she said. “But from a technical point of view, when you’re singing with other people – at least the way we’re teaching it – you really have to listen. You have to pay attention to what your neighbors are singing. You have to look each other in the eyes if you’re singing together. It’s pretty intimate.”