Please note: This testimonials page is about the Wonderland Singers online Zoom choir. Click here if you are looking for Coco's local, in-person choir in Owen Sound, ON.
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Wonderland Singers Zoom Choir Testimonials
I have no formal music training, and I’m constantly amazed at how you are able to present ideas about harmony, improvisation, songwriting, and such so that people like me can grasp it immediately and put it into practice! You’re a born teacher, and you make learning so much fun!!!
~ Joan
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I love the summer choir. The freedom to sing whatever I want. The happiness you exude singing. Great music choices.
~ Dorothy
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Sing like no one is listening!
~ Jane from Nova Scotia
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I'm actually really enjoying figuring out the harmonies against your voice. When else do you get to sing harmonies with a professional singer??!! I'm delighted to say that a lot of the harmonies work, which is a HUGE celebration for me!! One of the gifts of zoom is that I can hear only you - and me, singing harmony with you.....
~ Cheryl from Bowen Island, BC
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Curious About Coco’s Choir?
WHAT I GOT WAS: Part choir, part class time, part community, part church, part coaching, part Conner (yay, co-host), part concert, and part campfire sing-along!!
WHAT I GOT TO DO WAS: Sing, play, stretch, harmonize, improvise, smile, connect, laugh, cry, reflect, learn, grow, appreciate, love, and feel positivity during unusual times!
WHAT I ALSO GOT TO EXPERIENCE WAS: Coco! Creative, connected, carefree, colorful, cool, charming, cheerful, confident, courageous, clear, compassionate, canorous, crazy fun, and even celestial!!
DO CHECK IT OUT!
~ Odette from Edmonton, AB
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I have been taking advantage of your invitation to sing creatively when I feel like it. I like singing with the looper, it feels like a group but I can still hear me sing. In a group I often cannot hear myself and wonder if I am singing on key.
Singing with you is a big part of my self care.
~ Marie Knapp from Owen Sound, ON
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In addition to being a great voice teacher and creative coach, you're
also a music therapist. Just what we all need: very inspiring
and cathartic.
~ Karen
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Thank you for leading this group and making Wednesdays a musical refuge in weird and trying times.
~ Lesley
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I love your workshop. What can I say, it sings to me.
I have been really wanting to learn more about harmonizing and having fun with that, the freedom to make mistakes, etc
The improvising practice and last week's song writing fest--not just fun but also eye opening about putting a song together.
all to say, thank you for expanding the sphere, my sphere.
~ Linda
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LOVE LOVE LOVE what Coco Love Alcon shares! If you like to sing, you will Love this! FIND YOUR VOICE... sing to your hearts content with total abandon in your comfy home. CATCH THAT MAGIC MUSIC FEELING... sitting around the campfire, performing on stage with jazz musicians, belting out your solo in the concert, singing with your friends in the choir... so many magic moments! Coco and her accompanying bass player, Connor take you on a rollercoaster of delight...your voice will go places you haven’t yet discovered. We learn harmonies, write songs, sing a kaleidoscope of music genre, share connection with so many beautiful faces and so much more! Don’t miss out on the fun!
~ ❤️🎶Karen
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The Zoom platform is really not conducive for ensemble or community singing, presenting many technical challenges, yet you and Connor, have designed a series of sessions that: provide singers (of any proficiency level) opportunities to solo, duet, harmonize, accompany, maintain parts, improvise and play in the process of developing musicianship skills; all the while engaging in a community of song. No small accomplishment!!!! Just saying.....
~ Kathy
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I want you to know how much joy and strength your class has inspired in me. You have an extraordinary ability to connect with a large, mostly-muted group and make it feel like you’re right there in the room with us. You are an astoundingly good musician and an equally-gifted teacher. Great combo.
~ Betsy
I'm surprised at how much I enjoy the online experience!
- Despite all those other smiling faces on my screen, it feels like Coco is singing and talking and laughing just with me!
- I can choose to sing low or high or whatever my voice wants to do that day
- I can hear myself
- I can go all diva if I want to
- If necessary, I can join a little late or leave a little early without disrupting things
- Coco's inclusive creative process is lots of fun
~ Leigh from Owen Sound, ON
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I cannot say enough about what and amazingly talented, warm, funny, playful, creative and supportive choir leader Coco is! Coco stands apart in her ability to allow me to feel really connected to her and the group even on the virtual platform. The songs she teaches (many of which are her amazing, original songs) are beautiful and not too complicated so that the learning doesn't feel arduous, but joyful and easy. Singing with Coco is just a bright spot of joy in my week -- I can't recommend her choir highly enough!
~ Kirsten
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I wanted you to know how much I am enjoying and learning each Wednesday with you. Today, I raced home to be ready for the session, and felt everything melt away as I got into the moment with you. The improv is especially fun for me, because it's something that I never got to explore in my very classical instrumental music training.
I love that you break down the improv to give us concrete and manageable assignments. Honestly, I feel so successful because of your inspiring modeling, and the way you make it seem so easily possible for us. I LOVED today, doing the improv on your chat prompts! That was a hoot, and I didn't get tangled up in self judgement because my brain was busy weeding through the chat while singing with Connor's groovy changes. Was totally in the moment. Felt great. Thank you so much for that experience.
You have an amazing gift at being able to connect with us- making us feel special like you are our private coach, yet there are 85 others in the session!
I felt today like for the first time in way too long, that my creative side was opening up and being challenged to try new things, and I absolutely loved that feeling- like going back to a favorite place that I haven't visited in a while.
I know this whole online choir thing is a new experience for everyone, and we're all learning how to make it work as we go, but I wanted to assure you that you and Connor are doing something special here with us. Thank you SO MUCH for the inspiration, challenge, and artistry that you offer each week!
~ Diana from Port Moody, BC
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Coco is an amazingly talented musician, and being caring and generous in nature, she makes sure her participants are getting good things out of the workshop for themselves. Actually, the sessions were jam packed with so many "wonderful" things. Coco makes sure that while learning, we are having fun, feeling satisfied and "joyful" as a priority. And then... She adds her chillingly exquisite voice as a back-up, for call and response, or to sing "with" us, but never over us, if you know what I mean.
Coco has it beautifully set up for us to sing whatever works for us, by demonstrating options, either for 3-part harmony, or encouraging us to use our own creativity to sing, scat, soulfully sing, or even just add "laa's, ohh's, ooo's, and woa's" - however the mood strikes that day. It's like the best campfire singing or jam session with the coolest original songs. Kudos for offering such a beautiful, educational, encouraging, technically awesome, interesting, uplifting, top notch forum. These weeks of singing like this has been a wonderful elixir for life, that is especially appreciated in these unusual Covid times.
~ Betty
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Choir night (for Coco and Connor)
Once a week we meet on Zoom
in frames of twenty-five faces
to a page.
Side arrow navigates to four more,
participant numbers escalate like
call-ins on a telethon.
Faithful followers smile, wave, and
type: hello from BC, here from Austin,
night in NS.
Faces of children beside their mothers,
slide in and out of view.
Warm-ups begin with loosening,
deep breaths and rolling shoulders.
Quilt of muted faces, mouths moving,
sings the scales and Coco’s voice,
clear and agile, leads
by calling for response.
She layers her songs in recorded harmonies
that build and build until
heads thrown back, mouths wide open,
we are singing out unheard,
safe to try new levels of abandon,
to get up and dance in the spaces
between tables and chairs,
morph into scatting
to Connor’s riffs on double bass.
Her message is one of freedom for
the sake of being alive.
Use the music of our voices
without fear of breaking glass.
Expand into our chosen parts
and take flight.
~ Danuta