What Adilman and his friend Daveed Goldman had done was to pick a song, arrange it in parts, and then get everyone to sing it together. Actually, it was two songs: Nowhere Man, by the Beatles, and Just a Smile by Pilot.
But people enjoyed themselves so much that they demanded an immediate repeat. As Adilman recalls, the first sessions took place “in a friend’s real-estate office, and then in my living room”, until settling in a bar, Clinton’s Tavern, two nights a week — and becoming part of the Canadian arts landscape.
Hundreds of people buy tickets to take part in the Choir! events, which can range from themed nights to major fundraisers for specific charities.
In their early years, Adilman and Goldman were visited by the founders of Israel’s mass singing phenomenon, Koolulam, which specialises in enormous numbers of people gathering together — from Holocaust survivors to those celebrating Israel independence — to sing.
But the Choir! dynamic was not really invested in such massive numbers to begin with, preferring more manageable and perhaps more intimate events.
Goldman and Adilman (Vanessa Heins)
Adilman comes from a deeply entrenched arts background — his father was an entertainment writer for the Toronto Star. “I have a theatre degree that led to TV work. I was a writer and then learned to make films.
“My whole life has been in this world. I hosted a food programme called Food Jammers, and a high-school quiz show, with my brother, for Canadian Broadcasting called Smart Ask.
"I made films, acted — a very peripatetic life in the arts, where I did everything and tried everything.”
As far as he was concerned, he says, Choir! was “a nothing burger” — but he had learned over the years to trust the instincts of his friends, using them as “a litmus test” to see if a project would be successful.
Now, though he still does other things — including, currently, recording a second solo record —Choir! is Adilman’s primary business.
Daveed Goldman grew up in a traditional Jewish household, soaked in music, taking to the piano aged three, and being aware of harmonies and arrangements from an early age. “The only thing I ever really wanted to do was to sing and make people laugh, it’s the only thing I’ve ever been passionate about.”
While he was keen to perform, he strongly disliked having to promote himself. And his family, while happy to encourage him in making music, made it clear that “it was not a career”.
His father was a professor of paediatrics, his mother a nurse, and even though his father was deeply immersed in Yiddish culture, creating a huge annual klezmer festival in Canada — KlezKanada — Goldman says he “got a lot of pushback” and was repeatedly asked, “What are you doing [for a living]? Why can’t you go to medical school, or law school?”
The idea of performing for a career, he says, “was not something my parents would have supported” — though they are properly excited about Choir! today.
In fact, by the time he and Adilman met and joined together for that fateful friend’s birthday party, Goldman was managing a local restaurant in Toronto, Aunties and Uncles. The two didn’t really know each other.
Adilman says: “I can’t emphasise enough how casual Choir! was, to begin with. We weren’t really following any instructional handbook on how to start a choir. Daveed and I came from different backgrounds and we were actually discovering the excitement of what we were doing [at the same time] as people were showing up to an event, which they thought might be structured and planned in some way.
"What I love about Choir! is its complete chaos. You have strangers in a room, there’s no audition to come and sing, but there’s a conversation going on, between Daveed and I and the audience.”
The early success of Choir! led to a lot of people calling Adilman and Goldman and asking for their business plan so they could start versions in their own cities. No such business plan, of course, existed — “find something you love to do and do it” Adilman and Goldman advised.
Over the past 12 years Adilman and Goldman have done well over 1,000 Choir! shows — not only all over Canada but in America, too. And the approach is just as eclectic as it ever was. How do they pick the songs? I ask — and they respond by saying “there’s thousands of songs to choose from”.
Sometimes it’s a tribute to entertainers such as Canadians Justin Bieber, Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell.
Or a news event can trigger what song is sung. After the 2018 terrorist van attack in Toronto, Choir! ran a fundraising event for the families of the 11 victims and the song was Everybody Hurts by REM.
“When David Bowie died, we were actually doing a Justin Bieber night but we cancelled that and did Space Oddity.
"Six hundred people bought tickets and it sold out in about eight seconds.” There’s been a Prince tribute evening, too, and an Abba show — and the show coming to the UK and Ireland will be an “epic 80s” event, with Goldman acting as a sort of human jukebox with his encyclopaedic knowledge of pop lyrics.
Choir! has now branched out into videos of their shows, frequently with guest performers. Rick Astley joined them for a hugely popular rendition of his hit Never Going to Give You Up, while the one-time Talking Heads frontman David Byrne took the whole process so seriously that he spent time in the audience, learning the backing vocals to the song for which he was going to be the soloist.
Byrne, in fact, revealed that he and musician Brian Eno often watched the Choir! videos at home, singing along to the TV.
It is important to both men in charge of Choir! Choir! Choir! to talk a lot on stage about being Jewish, whether the audience is Jewish or not.
In the enjoyable atmosphere that Adilman and Goldman create, they say that “humour wins every battle”.
Their ambition, they say, is to have a Choir! show on Broadway, and they are also in talks to put their phenomenon on TV.
It seems there are no limits for the choirboys.
Choir!Choir!Choir is touring Ireland from March 18 and then the UK from March 21 to April 2. Shows will take place in Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Oxford, Brighton, Stoke, Newcastle and London
