Tori Cook is serious about the benefits that an employee choir can have on a company. The choir director and blogger has even released a new e-book, "How to Start an Employee Choir in 8 Steps," as a roadmap for businesses looking to boost workplace morale by branching out into the vocal arts.

In an article published on Chorus Connection about a week ago,"Why Your Company Should Start An Employee Choir Immediately," Cook pointed to the Boeing Employees Choir as one example. Boeing's concert choral group has served as the company's ambassador in song since the early 1940s and shares the gift of music with audiences in the Puget Sound Region of Washington State. In speaking with Cook, choir members not only lauded group's ability to network different parts of the company together but also relieve stress at work.

Cook recently sat down with FloVoice to answer a few questions about employee choirs and her new e-book.

FloVoice: How did this new project come about?
Tori Cook: The idea to write about this topic has been brewing for some time now. A few years ago, Americans for the Arts launched a piece called "8 Reasons to Partner with the Arts" which highlighted a variety of ways businesses could support the arts. That same year I learned from a friend that Boeing had an employee choir. And the two ideas came together.

As a choir director myself, it made sense to me: why not bring co-workers together with a fun project to build teamwork while also supporting the arts? I ran the idea by some co-workers at the time and we all joked about starting a choir, but it was something that never came to fruition -- mostly because we didn't have a real plan of action to get it going.

When I started working for Chorus Connection in January of 2017, I learned that other companies like Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn had choirs too. And that's when I realized that 1) this was something companies were actually experimenting and finding success with 2) other companies might be in the same boat as I was at my last job -- maybe they wanted to start a choir but didn't know how to do it and 3) that there were no resources out there on how to do it. So I decided to create that resource! We have a blog that outlines the benefits of an employee choir and an e-book available for download on how to start an employee choir.

What did you learn during your research?
I learned that every employee choir operates very differently. Some are officially company-affiliated, some are not. Some have budgets; some do not. Some have employees who actually lead the choir; some have hired outside of the company. There's no "right" way to do it. There are a lot of ways you can make it successful for your company. The most important thing is to just do it -- get it up and running!

Tori Cook directing the Harborlight Show Chorus

What surprised you?
I have always worked for small- to medium-sized companies, so the possibility of having multiple choirs inside a company never occurred to me. One thing that surprised me was that some larger companies actually have multiple choirs that perform in a company-hosted competition. It's like a company version of "The Sing-Off." This added a fun element of interdepartmental competitiveness that I had not considered.

Have you ever sung in a group yourself?
Oh, yes -- many! I currently direct the Harborlight Show Chorus, a small barbershop chorus in Boston's North Shore, and I am soprano section leader in Chorus pro Music, a semi-professional community chorus in Boston. I have degrees in vocal performance and music theory, have taught a private voice studio, and have also been musical director of community theater musicals. While writing this e-book, Chorus Connection also decided to start our own choir. We only have two singers right now, which is pretty good considering we only have three full-time employees!

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