This father-daughter duo formed a Taylor Swift choir to keep the Eras Tour alive. Here’s how it’s going
Co-created by Mark Engler and his 12-year-old daughter Cylvia, the small-but-mighty Getaway Choir will perform 20 of Taylor Swift's songs — Eras Tour style — on Jan. 11 at Studio 34.
Before the Eras Tour’ final performance ever in Vancouver on a recent Sunday night, a dozen Swifties — and their slightly less-enthused friends — were packed into the living room of a Spruce Hill apartment rehearsing for a marathon Taylor Swift tribute of their own.
The theme: The Eras Tour (Philly’s Version).
Started by freelance journalist Mark Engler and his 12-year-old daughter Cylvia, the Getaway Choir only sing Swift’s songs, drawing from 11 studio albums. It began in October as a way to celebrate Swift’s record-breaking world tour before morphing into a bonafide community and, eventually, a way to mourn the concerts that brought them together.
Now, the group is preparing for a free performance at West Philly’s Studio 34 on Saturday, Jan. 11, where they will sing more than 20 songs from each of Swift’s eras. The vibe is “more big raucous sing-a-long” than a night with the Tabernacle Choir, said co-organizer Leewana Thomas, so attendees should brush up on the lyrics.
“It’s not really about Taylor anymore ... It’s about the lore and the story she created for all of these people,” said Thomas, 32, who identified as a secret Swiftie until 2014 when 1989 came out. “Her songs help get me through the day and I think they help a lot of these other folks get through the day, too.”
Swift’s Eras Tour kicked off in March 2023 in Glendale, Ariz., landing in Philly for a three-night stay at Lincoln Financial Field before crisscrossing Europe, South America, Asia, and then North America again to conclude 21 months later. The highest-grossing tour of all time, according to Billboard, the Eras Tour also developed a reputation for the way it got Swift’s fans to show up for both a concert and one another. It’s inspired a political action group and a grassroots war against Ticketmaster, but also an addiction recovery community, a litany of college classes, and even a little choir helping Swifties find their sparkle.
During Sunday’s Getaway Choir rehearsal, Cylvia and her friend Sophia Karakasheva from seventh grade were joined by a mix of adult Swifties and their plus-ones, like Engler’s brother, an academic who told the group he doesn’t mind Swift because her fans are natural-born organizers. Not everyone is a trained singer, Engler said, and they play with a live band of musicians Engler convinced to take a chance on Taylor.
The group pulls from an extensive 28-page songbook that Engler regularly updates. It contains the words and chords for 40 of Swift’s songs, from crowd-pleasers like “22″ to deep cuts like “The Albatross” off The Tortured Poets Department. Not that it matters; most of Getaway Choir’s members don’t even glance at the lyrics.
“Usually with a [choir] people have to learn the material. You wonder: Will people know this song? Will it work?” said Engler. “But with Taylor’s stuff, everyone already knows the words to every song. People are already so committed to the music.”
Sunday’s rehearsal had the Getaway Choir breezing through their repertoire, with Engler working to reinterpret several of Swift’s production-heavy songs into hybrid acoustic and choral versions. “Lover” — a pop waltz — becomes almost bluesy thanks to a bass solo, and the group’s version of “I Forgot that You Existed” feels like something out of a Glee performance, the synths replaced with a capella vocalizations.
Some songs require almost no adjustments, while others needed fine-tuning. Engler’s gentle creative process already had some in the room feeling like a pop star.
» READ MORE: Throwback: Why Philly area Swifties trekked to Europe for the Eras Tour
The Getaway Choir “built my confidence in my musical abilities and made less self-conscious about putting myself out there because we’re all doing it together,” said Jordan Winter, 31, who commutes from Devon to West Philly to rehearse. Winter came up with the group’s name, a play on the fandom favorite from Reputation “Getaway Car.”
The trek is worth it for Winter, who said she didn’t have much of a Swiftie community — outside of her mom and sister in Virginia — until she found a post about the choir in a Facebook group.
The choir is an outgrowth of Engler’s passion for throwing what he refers to as hootenannies, or improvised sing-a-long parties. Normally, Engler opts for a mix of classic rock and Americana, like the Rolling Stones and the Indigo Girls, but Swift started making her way into the rotation in 2022 after Cylvia heard “Anti-Hero” for the first time and fell in love with the Reading-born singer.
“When Cylvia became a Swiftie, Taylor just became the soundtrack of our house,” Engler said of his precocious daughter, who told The Inquirer she likes Swift because she “tries really hard to be relatable.”
Cylvia has found a set of new friends in the Getaway Choir’s older members, leading spirited debates in their groupchat over which songs they can do away with and begging her dad to host everyone for a sleepover to watch a livestream of Swift’s final concert. (He declined.)
In the middle of Sunday’s rehearsal, Cylvia and Thomas toasted to the end of the Eras Tour over champagne, sparkling apple cider, and a spread of chips, dip, and homemade chocolate chip cookies.
“Here’s a toast to my real friends,” Cylvia started, quoting a lyric from “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.”
Then, it was back to work.