CO-LLAB CHOIR: An Oakland community brought together to sing healing music 

Cava Menzies could feel the warm sun pouring into her bedroom as she sat in silence, eyes closed, legs crossed, engaged in meditation. 

Menzies, a founding faculty member and music teacher at the Oakland School for the Arts, often draws creative inspiration during morning meditation in her downtown Oakland apartment.

But this meditation session in February 2022 brought a revelation. After her practice, Menzies wrote CO-LLAB Choir on her whiteboard, her intuition telling her to create an adult ensemble group. 

She grew up in a musical family, the daughter of celebrated jazz musician Eddie Henderson. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Menzies reminisced of the joyful moments where people came together to sing with one another. 

“This is really part of our well-being and mental wellness that we get to be in these spaces together,” Menzies said. “I missed my community. I missed places where we could be in each other’s company and make beautiful music. Imagine the most beautiful and heavenly voices, seeing these incredible frequencies, and you’re standing in that room. It’s just healing by default.”

Two months after her revelation, Menzies took to Instagram to invite Bay Area artists to join the choir. By May, the CO-LLAB choir held its first rehearsal. Today the group is at capacity, consisting of around 22 members, mostly in their 20s and 30s, from a range of professions as well as musical skill levels. Nearly half of the singers are alumni of the Oakland School for the Arts. 

The choir’s focus is on themes of healing, love, and unity, using voices to uplift audiences and themselves. Most recently, they performed with rapper LaRussell and Sunday Service Collective at a Grammy weekend benefit brunch. The singers also have provided vocal harmonies for professional musicians, including Asake, Kev Choice, Pher and others. Upcoming performances are at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco on Thursday and at the UCSF Black Gala on Feb. 20. 

“I was noticing people saying, ‘Where can I take classes?’” Menzies said. “‘Where can I join a choir? I want to pick up the piano. I used to play, but I never do anymore.’”

Adults often aren’t encouraged to keep up with creative interests or pursue new ones, she said. CO-LLAB fosters those interests and provides an outlet for them. 

For Rozz Nash, a longtime musician and educator in the Bay Area, the choir has bee a place of love and support. “Even when you’re having your worst day and you’re just like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I can go to rehearsal. I’m not in the right mindset,’ but when you go, you are always so happy that you went, because it is so nurturing and loving.”

There are scientific reasons why people feel good after singing.

Frank Russo, a psychology professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, co-directs the Singwell Project, where researchers are studying the effect that communal singing has on people’s well-being and communication.

Russo has overseen saliva tests that measure changes in the levels of cortisol, commonly known as the stress hormone, and oxytocin, often referred to as the love hormone. Russo’s lab found cortisol levels decrease after singing, regardless of whether individuals sang alone or in a group. Even more interesting, oxytocin levels were significantly higher when people sang in a group compared to singing solo.

“The one area where there is a big difference is in the mood boost,” Russo said. “The mood boost is bigger when you sing in a group.”

Choir singing also is reflected in the heart rate, as UCSF neuroscientist Indre Viskontas found in a recent study.

“When you have a whole group of people who are breathing at the same time, their heart rates are more likely to sync,” said Viskontas, who runs the Creative Brain Lab at the University of San Francisco and also has a master’s degree in vocal performance. “It looks like that synchronization of breath and heart rate is a driver of feeling attachment. That’s one of the reasons why choirs are such powerful ways in which people can feel like they’re connected to their community.”

Circled around one another inside a home in the Oakland Hills, about a dozen members of the CO-LLAB Choir rehearse “Rain” by the Sunday Service Choir and “Lift Me Up” by Rihanna, among other songs. In a soulful voice reminiscent of Rihanna, Zoe Boston sings “keep me close, safe and sound.” Boston sways in unison with Clarice Woods, who is siting beside her. Woods and the rest of the choir hum the melody harmoniously, with Menzies accompanying on piano. 

Woods said the group has “done wonders” for her mental health. An alumna of the Oakland School for the Arts, she had moved away for a couple years and returned with her children after a particularly difficult period in her life. 

“CO-LLAB Choir saved my life,” Woods said.

The group welcomed her, supported her and gave her something to look forward to weekly. They do that for each other, Woods said. In a world that can be individualistic, she added, the choir offers a shared experience, a common bond. 

“I feel like in a choral setting is one of the many ways where you can really feel what community feels like, because we’re all aligned and we are all singing the same thing,” Woods said. 

“Connecting via sound is just so healing.”

This story was published in collaboration with The Oaklandside.

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