The members of Quayside Voices came home from a competition in the United States with an award — and some positive vibes.
The group recently competed in the Pacific North West Regional division of the Harmony Sweepstakes A Cappella Competition in Olympia, Washington. Quayside Voices won Best Original Song for Breathe, which was written by member Stephanie Lam and arranged by bandmates Lam and Danjel Young.
“I only wrote it two months ago. It went from conception to winning an award on stage in about two months,” Lam said. “And a huge part of that is, I think is the group connected to the music and the lyrics. … This is something that I think people can relate to.”
Lam said she’s found people to be increasingly more open to talking about the stress, mental health issues, and anxieties they’re feeling, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I wrote Breathe about that moment of when you think you're going to have a panic attack, or when you feel the anxiety coming and just being able to kind of get yourself out of it, in the moment,” she explained.
Quayside Voices is comprised of Lam, Young, Elyse Kantonen, Aerhyn Lau, and Troy Martell.
When introducing the song at the March 15 competition, Kantonen asked audience members at the Washington Centre of the Arts if they’d ever experienced a panic attack — with many of the 700-plus attendees raising their hands.
“Elyse said, ‘We invite you to put your hand on your heart, and everyone take a deep breath with us,’” Lam recalled. “The whole room took a breath with us. And then we started our song.”
This year marked the second time Quayside Voices had ventured to Washington State for the Harmony Sweepstakes A Cappella Competition. Last year, the group came home with two awards — Best Original Song and Best Original Arrangement.
But as departure day for this year’s competition neared, the group was a little worried about travelling to the United States, given the current economic climate. Believing they would be in safe company among other a cappella groups, they hit the road and headed to Olympia.
Lam said Quayside Voices was welcomed with open arms by other competitors — and audience members.
“We were nervous about how we would be perceived. If you've driven down the I-5, you see different political signage on the roads,” she noted. “We're a pretty diverse group. We have diverse cultures, genders, sexual orientation.”
During the intermission, members of Quayside Voices were approached by audience members who thanked them for attending the competition and encouraged them to keep attending in future years.
“We had folks coming up to us and … saying, ‘We just want to say thank you so much for making the effort and coming down here. We are so sorry for what's going on,’” Lam said. “It was very eye-opening.”
More travel planned
Quayside Voices’ busy schedule includes working on plans to host a 10th anniversary show sometime this year.
International travel is also on the horizon for the popular a cappella group, which has been invited to do a tour in China next year. While there, Quayside Voices will perform Canadian songs, plus a few originals.
Details are still being finalized for the four- to seven-show tour, but Lam has her fingers crossed the group may be able to perform at one of the City of New Westminster’s sister or friendship cities in China.
“That would be kind of cool,” said the New West resident.
Quayside Voices did a tour to Edmonton in 2023 with The Real Group from Sweden. In addition to the competition in Olympia, the group also performed in Toronto last year.
“Next year we're going to China,” Lam said. “And then we also have in the works, Sweden for 2027.”
The opportunity to perform in China arose out of a collaboration — one of many — that Quayside Voices has been working to establish with other groups.
“We love collaborating with people,” Lam said. “Lately, we have been doing a lot of collaborative shows because we found that: why are we competing for audiences when a cappella is such a niche market anyways? So almost all of the shows we've been doing, we've been doing with other groups because we want to share our audiences, in hopes to kind of keep it alive.”
Lam and Martell, who were the founders of Quayside Voices, were recently reflecting on their decision to start the vocal group. That happened while they were sitting in a car after attending a rehearsal for a different choir they were in at the time.
“And now, we're in our 10th year now, planning international tours, which is very, very cool,” Lam said.
A decade after forming, Quayside Voices continues to entertain audiences with a mix of covers and original songs.
“The music we write has complexities in it for people who might have studied music, played piano, sung in a choir,” Lam said, “but we're also really, really entertaining.”
Folks who have never heard Quayside Voices may be surprised when they hear what sounds like musical instruments — when none are being used.
“For someone who's never seen us, I think they're going to be really entertained,” Lam said. “And they're always very wowed, especially when they hear the beat boxer. Because they're just like, where is that coming from? And it's like, one mouth, one voice.”
What sounds like a bass guitar is actually Martell. If it sounds like a Mariah Carey lick is playing in the background of Christmas songs, that’s not the case; that’s Kantonen.
“People are often entertained by that because that's what we're doing — we're up there, and we're singing, and we're making these noises that people expect to hear from instruments, but we're doing it just with us,” Lam said. “So, I would say that if you've never seen Quayside Voices before, you would be entertained.”
