Two and a half miles north of Roseburg, OR sits a sleepy high school where students convened this week for their routine choir practice. But this particular week's rehearsal was different. Students and faculty were still feeling the reverberations of last week's shooting at Umpqua Community College.
As choir director Brooks Gingerich reflected on the day's selection, a hymn titled "Be Still, My Soul," a parallel made itself evident.
"It occurred to me that the text was extremely significant to the perspective of the victims' families," he told the Oregonian, which reports that he then asked his students if they would be willing to dedicate their song to the families of the nine lives lost in the tragic event. "The music then took on a whole new intensity and meaning. I could tell the kids recognized that."
The five-minute rendition of the hymn has been viewed tens of thousands of times in the short time since it was posted on the choir's YouTube channel, and after even just a few moments of listening to their moving tribute, it's not difficult to understand why.
"When words cannot speak," they wrote in the video's description, "there is singing."
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