Kitchener, Ont. church choir’s virtual performance goes viral on YouTube

A video of a virtual choir performance posted to YouTube by members of a church in Kitchener, Ont., has quickly gone viral.

Members of the New Apostolic Church Canada in Kitchener posted a video featuring more than 240 people from around the globe singing We Will Keep Our Faith Alive on Sunday, and it has already garnered thousands of views.

Stefanie St. Denis says the video was initially a project to allow choir members at the church a chance to continue their passion.

“We became familiar with the virtual choirs that are kind of getting some traction on YouTube,” she explained. “So we decided to give it a shot for ourselves.”

St. Denis said the church put out a call for parishioners to submit videos of themselves singing the song, which soon spread around the globe.

“We put up a website that gave the specifications … for anyone who wanted to participate in it,” she explained. “So they would record their videos from home following the little bit of guidelines we put out for them just to make it work technically.”

The church sent out the request to local members, but it soon spread on social media to the point where the church received submissions from the United States, South Africa, Hong Kong, Rwanda, Germany and Australia.

“It sort of became more of an international thing,” St. Denis said. “It wasn’t necessarily the intention initially, but it ended up that way.”

The New Apostolic Church Canada says members then paired the performances together.

“These were then joined together using technology to create a ‘virtual choir’ experience, adding to the YouTube phenomenon and offering comfort to thousands worldwide,” the church said in a statement.