Transforming a concert into a community and an audience into a choir 🎶 Nobu Adilman of Choir! Choir! Choir!

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Read: Transcript with photos and videos!

Episode at a glance:

GUEST: Nobu Adilman

COMMUNITY: Choir! Choir! Choir!

HOSTS: Bailey Richardson & Kevin Huynh

Show Notes

In 2008, Nobu Adilman, Amanda Burt, and Daveed Goldman got a 13-person choir together to sing at a mutual friend’s surprise birthday party. Even with such a small group, they knew they had something special.

Still reflecting on that night two years later, Nobu and Daveed posted on Facebook asking if anyone wanted to sing in a choir with them, this time at a real estate office where a friend worked.

Over 7.5 million people have watched this performance with Rufus Wainwright on YouTube. (It’s how we first heard about Nobu and Daveed.)

“We thought maybe some friends would show up and we’d just have a couple beers,” Nobu told us. He and Daveed prepared some minor arrangements to “Nowhere Man” by The Beatles and “Just A Smile” by Pilot. “It was kind of extraordinary what happened that night. People we didn’t even know showed up.”

At the end of the evening, Nobu remembers, “people were so into what we did, which was very little, that they wanted us to do it again the next day.” Choir! Choir! Choir! was born. Nobu and Daveed were motivated by such a passionate reaction. “We ended up doing it every Tuesday for the next year.” By 2012, they were getting hundreds of people together to sing one iconic pop song each week.

Daveed Goldman (center) and Nobu Adilman (right) onstage in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Photograph by our very own Kai Elmer Sotto

To participate in a Choir! Choir! Choir! event, you simply show up to their venue, pay five dollars for a lyrics sheet (more if they’re touring), rehearse a three-part harmony, and then perform it with a crowd of strangers. Many of their videos have gone viral, from Prince and David Bowie tributes, to sing-a-longs led in-person by famous musicians like David Byrne, Rufus Wainwright, and Patti Smith.

In our interview, we ask Nobu about how Choir! Choir! Choir! went from something he and some friends started in a real estate office in Toronto to the phenomenon it has become.