"Teachers Were Moved to Tears." 400 American Students Sang a Song in Belarusian

Screenshot of the performance video

The Tacoma Refugee Choir has been singing in Tacoma (Washington State) for ten years and consists of immigrants, refugees, and anyone willing to participate. Initially, it included 22 refugees from the city; later, the number of participants grew to 800 people from over 70 countries. During its existence, the choir has performed for over 50,000 people at public and state events across America.

One of the choir members, Belarusian Katsiaryna Marynevich, has been singing in the Tacoma Refugee Choir for four years. She told "Belsat" about how she came up with the idea to teach the choir members to sing in Belarusian.

"We sing songs about homesickness in the languages spoken by the choir members. For example, we've sung in Mongolian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Swahili, and Tagalog. I've been in the choir for four years, and all this time I couldn't find a song in Belarusian that we could all sing together. At first, I thought about learning 'Kalykhanka,' but then I realized that people would go crazy trying to learn it. And after NaviBand's latest album was released, I heard the song 'Life' — and it perfectly coincided!"

Just last spring, the choir was looking for a new song for a concert in a foreign language. At that time, NaviBand's new album was released, featuring the band's first optimistic song since 2020.

"That same evening, I sent the song on YouTube to our choir chat and said I had found the song we needed. And everyone replied: 'Yes, yes, very cool!', and the next day the choir director said: 'Great, we'll take this song.' So we started learning it as a choir. Everyone really liked the song, but it was very difficult for the choir members to pronounce the Belarusian words, although they tried very hard," says Katsiaryna.

The Belarusian-language song "Life" was the last one at the choir's final concert last year — the entire hall sang it.

"Overall, the choir really liked this song, and we received very good feedback. Since then, we have sung it at numerous events, including before the state governor and at events attended by a congresswoman. Before starting to sing, I always give a speech and explain why we are singing it. I talk about Belarusians being scattered all over the world right now and that this is the band's first optimistic song they were able to write after leaving the country. I want people to understand the meaning of the song and that Belarus is currently going through dark and terrible times, but at the same time, we are confident that we will continue to dance and still stay together. And there wasn't a single concert where people didn't come up to me with tears in their eyes and say: 'That was something else!'"

The choir also teaches singing to school students in Tacoma and holds a large joint concert at the end of the academic year. Teachers and students in 2026 also chose a Belarusian-language song for performance.

"This song deeply touched the teachers; they were moved to tears when they heard it and wanted us to learn it with the students. Afterwards, I spent three months teaching this song to elementary, middle, and high school children. We also showed them a presentation about Belarus and explained why we sing this song. The children liked it so much that many later came up to me and said: 'We can't stop singing it.'"

Павялічыць

The Tacoma Refugee Choir has been singing in Tacoma (Washington State) for ten years and consists of immigrants, refugees, and other volunteers. Photo: organizers

NaviBand musicians also organized a Zoom call with the students, where they talked about themselves and about how their music cannot be listened to in Belarus. Like many other musicians, they are banned in their country and have "extremist" pages on social media, so even listening to their songs can be considered unauthorized picketing by the authorities. The musicians told stories about some schoolchildren in Belarus who wanted to sing their songs at school concerts, but they were not allowed to. Now, instead of schoolchildren in Belarus, American schoolchildren are singing songs in Belarusian.

"Surprisingly, the children had excellent Belarusian language and pronunciation overall! Older students even wanted to sing the first verse solo, and five or six people each took a line, while the rest was sung by the choir of four hundred children. Overall, it was a wonderful, almost incredible moment. This is a dream I never even dared to dream — that I would be in America teaching children to sing in Belarusian," says Katsiaryna.

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