EDMONTON – There’s music in the air at Edmonton International Airport (EIA) these days.
Each day during the holiday season, the EIA is inviting a school choir to perform at the airport’s arrival area. The young singers belt out an assortment of Christmas tunes for people arriving in Alberta’s capital, and for people on their way out of town.
On Friday, students from Edmonton’s Florence Hallock School took to the stage. The school’s choir director, Connie Uhlmann, was excited when her choir was asked to perform.”We jumped on it,” she said.
“As soon as we found out about this opportunity, we were eager to come and sing.”
The airport has been inviting schoolkids to sing for the past eight years, in early to mid-December.
“We take from our stakeholder areas; from Edmonton, Leduc, we have Sherwood Park; we have them from all over,” said Barbara McGee, EIA’s community and corporate relations advisor.
“We invite about 20 schools per season, so we try to do two weeks, and we work around their schedule.”
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For the children taking part, the joy isn’t just in getting the morning off school and getting to perform. The real reward is seeing the reactions of passersby.
“I think it was a great experience to have, being able to perform and see everyone meeting their families, coming home from long trips,” said Kaydence Kasavant, a member of the Florence Hallock School Choir.
“I think it was a really important thing to do, and it was amazing to see.”
Last week, a school choir was getting ready to sing when a family of Syrian refugees arrived. Without any prior planning or practice, the choir sang ‘O Canada’ for the newcomers.
READ MORE: Syrian family welcomed to Edmonton as massive wave of refugees expected to follow
“I think that would be an awesome thing to do,” said Uhlmann. “To stop and sing ‘O Canada’ and welcome them, to show them what a great place Edmonton is and Canada is, and to show how happy we are to have them here.”
Reaction from travellers has been overwhelmingly positive.
“They look over, they see the choirs, they stop, they pause, they smile. Some of them get their luggage, and they come back to see the choirs,” said McGee. “Quite often, they’ll actually come over to us, and say ‘I don’t know when you started this, but I really like it.’ So we do, we get positive feedback.”
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