As many of you know, NBC put together a combination charity fundraising/reality show in December called “Clash of the Choirs.” Five celebrities from five cities had open auditions for local talent. Their task was to get twenty people together and in a matter of just a few weeks get them to unite as a choir good enough to compete against and beat the other four choirs. At stake was a quarter million dollars targeted for the celebrity leader’s local charity. Unlike American Idol, there would be no harsh critics. Everything depended solely on votes from the American Public.
Cincinnati was represented by Nick Lachey, a Kentucky native who grew up in Cincinnati. He attended Cincinnati’s School for Creative and Performing Arts and is best known for being one of the vocalist in the group “98 Degrees,” selling over seven million albums from 1997 to 2002. During the four day competition “Team Lachey,” through solid and ever improving performances, systematically eliminated Houston, New Haven, Oklahoma City, and finally Patty Labelle’s powerhouse choir from Philadelphia, securing the $250,000 prize for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
So, what does this have to do with the Cincinnati Church of Christ? The answer is simple, through God’s grace, the Cincy church held a 10% majority share of the singers. We were represented by the father/daughter duo of Wil and Arielle Underwood. I was blessed to be able to pull them away from their busy schedules on January 6th to take a few minutes to talk about their experiences.
Arielle Underwood, 20, is a model who quit school in New York and returned home when her mother’s breast cancer returned. A 2005 graduate of the School for Creative and Performing Arts, she made it to the Hollywood rounds as an “American Idol” contestant while an SCPA senior.
Will Underwood, 47, is an employment trainer for Easter Seals. He was the elder member of the group and sings regularly in the Cincinnati Church of Christ choir.
During the interview, the Underwood’s shared how they found out about the contest and how they overcame several obstacles including confusion on where the auditions would take place and how they helped each other during the auditions when Wil had trouble remembering the words to the song and Arielle came to his rescue. The event was so moving it was featured by NBC during the first episode of the four night show. NBC also showcased the Underwood’s several times talking to Wil, Arielle, and Wil’s wife Kathy, who is still undergoing chemotherapy treatments to fight reoccurring breast cancer.
They talked about the trip to New York which was unexpectedly pulled up due to an impending snowstorm and how that raised stress levels. Arielle shared how her Dad helped calm her down noting that everything was being controlled by God and for a good reason. (They managed to finish getting ready and made the early flight which resulted in them being the only choir that had an extra day in New York City to go sight seeing!) She was appreciative that God continued to stack up a series of great opportunities: to get her back to New York City which she loves; to have an opportunity to perform; to be able to do it with her Dad; and to be able to perform on national television which in turn has started to open up many additional opportunities.
Wil talked the process of turning twenty strangers into a choir. “Every choir had to select twenty people in a very quick process. They were not only looking for great singers, (Nick Lachey and Stephen Zegree were able) to take twenty solo singers and make them into one voice (which) was something that was next a miracle to do. But it seemed to be very easy with this group because these people were very well grounded, very spiritually motivated, and very focused on just being their best and not going there with ‘diva minds’ and ‘diva attitudes’ and that was amazing to me. It was really easy to fall in love with these kids because they had a purpose and a vision and had a dream and God just really put things in motion.”
“Coming from a spiritual perspective it’s amazing because as long as we maintain our spiritual integrity, as long as we focused on our purpose there, and being our best, not just as singers but in representing our God in big cities known all over the world, with every eye looking in that direction: Being able to do that with confidence . . . and humility that helped us stay grounded, was something that was really exciting and very rewarding and such a learned experience for us because it drew 20 people who didn’t know each other together as one family. We stopped becoming a choir and became a family which became something greater than what just a choir would offer.”
He talked about what they learned in their 40 hours of practice in Cincinnati and how it helped in New York. In New York “it became an incredible experience of watching God work in how everything fell in place. In productions this big, it’s not normal for production people to fraternize with any of the entertainers or anyone who is performing. It was amazing in the time that we were there that everyone fell in love with Cincinnati’s choir, and I truly believe a lot of it had to do with our spiritual attitude or focus, our humility and our love for everybody else. And those are the qualities and the factors that really make up a great Christian; a great disciple; someone who really loves God and that was something that seemed to permeate through all of us.”
In closing, the Underwood’s shared about how everyone joined together and supported each other to learn their choreography, and how their positive attitudes helped make the production staff’s job’s joyful and how that made them stand out. They also talked about what other opportunities have started to materialize, and closed by telling us what they really think about Nick Lachey.
You can listen to the complete interview here
You can watch a video of them performing New Year's Eve on Fountain Square here.