Vocalpoint! Seattle Presents: Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolution
1963-1966 celebrates a period of intense musical innovation in the history of popular music.
Featuring songs by The Ronettes, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, The Beatles, and more!

On June 4, we will conclude this first, post pandemic SCC year, with a majestic spring concert, “Amazing Grace”. In celebration of the rich, centuries-old collection of choral music formed for church liturgy, the choirs will share hymns, anthems, psalms, spirituals, gospels and even folk arrangements that speak of the eternal.

Kick off the summer right with romantic and whimsical jazz in BlueStreet's 2021-2022 season closer at The Triple Door MainStage.

Con Brio (conducted by Dori Baunsgard) and Concord (conducted by Giselle Wyers) present their Spring 2022 Concert.

Our recent experience with the epidemic leads us to contemplate how the people of medieval Europe viewed such events. The themes of intercession and deliverance are central to Christian thought, and deliverance from sin, from pestilence, from adversity and from hardship, especially through the intercession of the saints, commonly finds expression in the music of the time. Visions, miracles, and direct interventions from the heavenly realm were part of popular culture and, reflecting a deep spirituality, were never far from the lived experience of believers. They provided consolation in times of loss and the promise of a better future. Help us celebrate our own deliverance by exploring its musical expression from times long past.

Follow a 1000-year journey of Byzantine music, from medieval Constantinople to the Greek communities of California. Infused with 19th-century Italian, Russian, and Viennese choral traditions, the musical seeds carried by Greek immigrants to the New World blossomed in the next generation with soaring Renaissance style and Hollywood flair.

We welcome you to gather with us as we indulge the deep human need for musical expression. Music has a unique ability to meet us where we are. It can contain any human emotion it meets: sadness, inspiration, grief, joy, anger, or wonder as the world around us changes rapidly.

Zoltan Kodaly’s Esti Dal finds a soldier cold and alone. Harry T. Burleigh’s My Lord What a Morning meets despair with hope. Ola Gjeilo’s lush setting of Ubi Caritas reminds us of the strength we create when gathering with others: “...From a sincere heart, let us love one another.” Sarah Quartel’s arrangement of How Can I Keep From Singing? sums up how we feel as a choir. Arthur Sullivan, Heinrich Schütz, Abbie Betinis, and Susan Brumfield are among the other composers who offer us solace through their music.

Please join us in welcoming Chorus member Egija Ungure to the podium for Ēriks Ešenvalds's "My Song". Egija is a Latvian choral conductor on cultural exchange in the United States. She joined the Northwest Chamber Chorus in the fall of 2021. She is excited to lead us in a song that inspired her journey towards choral conducting.

JUBILATION IN MY SOUL
A Song Gallery of Dynamic Black Lives
an original choral work by Kent Stevenson

Seattle Peace Chorus, directed by Frederick N. West

with special guests
Shades of Praise Choir
directed by Frederick N. West
featuring
Stephanie Scott Hatley and Cleve Ticeson, narrators
and Kent Stevenson, pianist and composer

Drums: Steven Banks (Saturday), and Jeff “Bongo” Busch (Sunday)
Double Bass: Michael Stickler
Violin: BJ Montoya

For the fifth concert in our Masterworks series, ChoralSounds Northwest and VocalSounds Northwest collaborate with Northwest Symphony Orchestra to celebrate 250 years of Beethoven by performing his powerful and exquisite Mass in C, Op. 86. This earlier setting of his two masses shows Beethoven’s respect for Mozart and Haydn in this genre but also displays his own unique voice that continues to astound listeners two and a half centuries later. This performance will be offered in Burien and Bellevue.

Who’s ready for a brand new day?

Choir of the Sound celebrates the power of storytelling with songs from some of the world’s great poets and lyricists. We are singing the sun out from behind the clouds with words of hope from poets Rumi, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson. The times, they are a-changin’, so let us lift your spirits with songs from pop legends David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, and The Beatles. Are you ready for some dancing in the streets?

Join us for an evening of looking back, looking within, and looking ahead through music.

Moritz of Hesse-Kassel was the first patron of Heinrich Schütz, financing the composer’s first trip to Venice, where he studied with Giovanni Gabrieli. We will perform selections from Schütz’s Italian Madrigals and settings by the dedicatee of that collection, Duke Moritz himself. Modern “madrigals” by contemporary women composers complete this program and our season.

The Kulshan Chorus and Sno-King Chorale join forces to present a choral celebration of the late Stephen Sondheim’s music. Accompanied by Washington’s most talented instrumentalists, these performances will entertain and inspire you and whatever Company you bring! Don’t fear any demon barbers and come and enjoy A little night music. These Saturday performances will have you smiling for at least 24 hours, inspiring you to take some time Sunday in the park or a stroll into the woods. See you when the curtain is raised!

The Way Home honors America’s cultural heritage in a way that seeks to foster a mutual respect for the values of all persons and groups—including immigrants and refugees—as well as enrich our humanity by broadening our understanding of ourselves. Music from trailblazing young composers such as Saunder Choi, Melissa Dunphy, Caroline Shaw, and Derrick Skye explore the peril and helplessness faced by many refugees, while songs from the beginning of the millennium connect similar experiences across human history.

How can we keep from singing when a memory ignites the flame and we open ourselves to a song? We shall sing. We’re determined to use our voices. Join us as we share songs of joy, strength, resilience, and love and discover why we sing. For Tickets visit https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/5448278

Come hear Northwest Girlchoir close our 49th season on a joyful note as we present our annual June concert, Because We're Happy! 200+ choristers from all six Northwest Girlchoir ensembles (grades 1-12) perform choral repertoire from around the world, spanning musical history in one unified concert event. Join us as we explore happiness in all its forms, from the ridiculous to the sublime. Laugh along with Rossini's musical jokes in Duetto Buffo di Due Gatti, marvel at the gleeful rhythmic complexities of Diana V. Sáez's Festejo, celebrate the life of Stephen Sondheim with his expansive showstopper Sunday, and "clap along if you know what happiness is to you" while all choristers combine for the Pharrell Williams smash hit, Happy.

Featuring Prep Choir, Fresca, Amabile, Vivace, Amore, and Ensemble. Tickets to be announced soon!

Columbia Choirs presents their Spring 2022 Children's Choirs Concert.

Artistic Director Katrina Turman and Jennifer Faul present the Spring 2022 Youth Concert featuring Lyrica, Bel Canto, and Cantabile.

We welcome you to gather with us as we indulge the deep human need for musical expression. Music has a unique ability to meet us where we are. It can contain any human emotion it meets: sadness, inspiration, grief, joy, anger, or wonder as the world around us changes rapidly.

Zoltan Kodaly’s Esti Dal finds a soldier cold and alone. Harry T. Burleigh’s My Lord What a Morning meets despair with hope. Ola Gjeilo’s lush setting of Ubi Caritas reminds us of the strength we create when gathering with others: “...From a sincere heart, let us love one another.” Sarah Quartel’s arrangement of How Can I Keep From Singing? sums up how we feel as a choir. Arthur Sullivan, Heinrich Schütz, Abbie Betinis, and Susan Brumfield are among the other composers who offer us solace through their music.

Please join us in welcoming Chorus member Egija Ungure to the podium for Ēriks Ešenvalds's "My Song". Egija is a Latvian choral conductor on cultural exchange in the United States. She joined the Northwest Chamber Chorus in the fall of 2021. She is excited to lead us in a song that inspired her journey towards choral conducting.

With THE SISTERS, The Esoterics will present a program of Orthodox choral music by the Ukrainian composers Bohdana Frolyak and her late sister Hanna Havrylets. Hanna died tragically this year on the third day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when she suffered an aneurysm and was unable to get medical attention in time.

Hanna's younger sister, Bohdana, has recovered her scores and shared them with director Eric Banks along with her own works. Eric has transliterated and translated these Ukrainian scores, so that The Esoterics can perform these sisters' music together.

No tickets or reservations are required for this concert, and a free-will donation will be taken at the door. All of the proceeds from this concert will benefit humanitarian organizations in the Ukraine that have been selected by Bohdana.

Sno-king Community Chorale and The Kulshan Chorus join to perform A Sondheim Serenade. Concerts are Saturday June 4, 2022, at 3PM in Bellingham at Bellingham High School and Saturday June 11, 2022, at 3pm in Edmonds at the Edmonds Center for the Arts. Accompanied by Washington’s most talented instrumentalists.
These Saturday performances will inspire, entertain, and have you smiling for at least 24 hours. See you when the curtain is raised!

Program includes William Byrd's Mass for Four Voices, Randall Thompson's Frostiana, and a selection of shorter works including a world premiere of a new piece by Brian Butz. As at all Northwest Chorale concerts, admission is free, but donations are accepted and all proceeds will be donated to Northwest Harvest, in accordance with Northwest Chorale's mission to support that organization's work of feeding the hungry in our community.

Anciently, the Promised Land was a place on this earth that God promised as a heritage to his people. They worked hard and traveled far to reach those lands. But those promised lands were symbolic of a land far more special and incredible - a place where we can live with God forever! We invite you to come and listen to our music about the Promised Land and our life-long journey to be prepared for it.

Since the Billboard Hot 100 began,
girl groups and sister acts topped the charts.
Powerhouse pop legends created the
intoxicating soundtrack to love, life, and social change.

Town Hall
June 18, 4 PM

The vibrant voices of the Seattle Men's Chorus join the Seattle Symphony
for this special Pride weekend concert event with conductor Lee Mills at the podium. Plus, the sensational NYC-based drag performance artist Thorgy Thor
(RuPaul's Drag Race, Dragnificent) leads the celebration as our fabulous host. Pride outfits encouraged!

Benaroya Hall
June 24, 8PM
June 25, 2PM
June 25, 8PM

Our popular tribute to Independence Day returns to Issaquah’s historic Pickering Barn, with sing alongs, historical commentary, and all-American music to add sparkle to your July 4th festivities!

Spend an evening with wonderful music and singing!

Featuring:
The Northwest Sound Men's Chorus & Northwest Mix and quartets!

Where:
Kirkland Performing Arts Center
350 Kirkland Ave, Kirkland, WA 98033
https://www.kpcenter.org/

Tickets: $20 - $40
https://northwestsound.org/tickets-no-shows/

We hope to see you there!

After 2 years of virtual concerts, Wellspring Ensemble is extremely excited to perform in our first in person concert! Music sang to the poetry of Langston Hughs!

Concerts to be held in Seattle and Tacoma.

Our 6th season returns us to the summertime, where we will be exploring early music from Mexico and Latin America, featuring works from Capillas, Fernandes, Franco, Lienas, Padilla, and more.

Mozart composed the torso of his Requiem in the year of his death, but left it unfinished. His student Franz Xaver Süßmayr completed the work. For over two hundred years, their music has helped people all over the world to reflect and to mourn. This event commemorates the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Washington DC, and rural Pennsylvania, in a tradition begun in 2002 called the “Rolling Requiem.” (Last year’s 20th-anniversary commemoration was postponed due to covid.) On this date, choirs around the world share in presentations of Mozart’s Requiem to unite everyone in remembrance of that tragic occasion.

MENOTTI Amelia al ballo Overture
BARBER Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14
BEYER World Out of Balance [world premiere]

This concert — and our season — opens with the work of two composers very much in dialogue with one another: Gian Carlo Menotti and Samuel Barber, who began a lifelong personal and creative partnership when they were teens at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Menotti’s Amelia al ballo and Barber’s Violin Concerto were written within three years of each other, in part when the two men were primarily based in Switzerland, living as common-law spouses.

Huntley Beyer’s epic new oratorio, World Out of Balance, was composed during the lockdown period of the pandemic in collaboration with the work’s sponsors, Doug and Dana Durasoff. The text sources range widely, but the piece is structured as a dialogue between movements such as “Racism Asks” and “Love Answers.” This piece is both powerful and honest, but also optimistic and life-affirming.

Inspired by the discovery of the Higgs Boson, Heaven and Earth is a musical meditation on Psalm 103 (“Bless the Lord, O my soul”) by six Orthodox composers, including a double-choir motet by the late Richard Toensing. Sung in English with the traditional Orthodox refrains. Members of 45th Parallel will join Cappella Romana for Tavener’s Ikon of Light.

With recording release!

Heaven and Earth: A Song of Creation
Tikey Zes (1927–) • Richard Toensing (1940–2014) • Kurt Sander (1969–) • Alexander Khalil (1969–) • John Michael Boyer (1978–) • Matthew Arndt (1976–)

Ikon of Light for chorus and string trio, sung in Greek
Sir John Tavener (1944–2013)

John Michael Boyer, associate music director

We look to the past to understand the present. While plagues, political and religious unrest, devastation, and loss are part of today’s world, they are echoes of our past. This concert featuring English Renaissance composers Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Robert White, John Sheppard, and Franco-Flemish composer Nicolas Gombert explores the gamut of human expression during times of uncertainty and hopelessness: a musical reflection of the world today and an offering of hope for tomorrow.

My heart be brave is the first of our New American Composers concerts, featuring composer Marques L.A. Garrett. Marques focuses on traditional music of the African diaspora, as well as contemporary choral music by Black composers.

For his Seattle Pro Musica commissioned work, Marques has chosen a text by the Black American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, with its evocative text asking to ”teach this tongue the singer’s soulful art.”

Visit the event website for more information →

In THE VALLEYS, The Esoterics is excited to present a world-premiere commission by Forrest Farhad Pierce: The atlas of the way. Originally from the Columbia Plateau of Washington state, Pierce is now Professor of Composition at the University of Kansas, a member of the faculty of the Cortona Sessions for New Music, a wayfarer of both mountains and valleys, and a teacher of Sufism in the Inayati tradition. Pierce writes music of meditative stillness and ecstatic virtuosity that is rooted in a deep connection to the natural world.

In his Atlas, Pierce has created a concert-length a cappella choral work based on the epic Sufi poem, The conference of the birds [Mantiq ut-Tair], by Farid ud-Din Attar (1145-1221). As both poet and composer, Pierce has distilled nearly five thousand couplets of this ancient poem into a nine-movement work, with eight interludes (called sohbets). Pierce's piece describes the journey of a gathering of curious birds who are led by their teacher - the hoopoe - to learn of their own origin. Through this vast landscape, the birds traverse seven evocatively-named valleys - of farawayfaring, lovestruckness, kenning, enoughing, onement, wonderstruckness, and noughtness - each representing a Sufi maqam, or spiritual station of progress. Between each musical valley, Pierce's interstitial sohbets capture quiet, intimate conversations between student and teacher in which they reflect on this spiritual journey.

Join Ensign Symphony & Chorus along with guest artist David Archuletta as we celebrate Hope in the Pacific Northwest. We will showcase the proud musical heritage of the Pacific Northwest with selections from Northwestern composers as well as songs from American Pop Singer, David Archuleta.

Please join us at the opening concert of our 30th-anniversary Year of Celebration for a performance of audience and choir member favorites from the last 30 years, and a musical tribute to the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

Some highlights include Jonathan Doves “Ring Out, Wild Bells”; Ravels “Trois Chansons”; two selections from Irving Fines “The Choral New Yorker”; one of Szymanowskis “Six Kurpian Songs”; other selections by Saint-Saëns, J.A.C. Redford, and Jester Hairston; and “Eat Your Vegetables Set II” by Opus 7’s Composer-in-Residence John Muehleisen for choir, trumpet, and percussion.

In honor of Queen Elizabeth II, well perform selections from “A Garland for the Queen”, a collection of works by British composers written for Elizabeths 1953 coronation, including Michael Tippetts “Dance, Clarion Air”, Ralph Vaughan Williams “Silence and Music”, and Gerald Finzis “White Flowering Days”. William Harriss “Bring Us, O Lord God”, which was sung at the Service of Remembrance on Sept. 9th of this year, will also be on the program.

Get your tickets now and come share in our musical celebration. We look forward to seeing you!

Seattle Ladies Choir Returns to Broadway Performance Hall for Season 19 Concerts
Get excited to hear choral versions of songs by Queen, Maggie Rogers, Bon Jovi, and more!

Concerts are Friday, October 21, at 7:30pm, and Saturday, October 22, at 2pm & 7:30pm, at the Broadway Performance Hall.. Tickets available at http://seattleladieschoir.strangertickets.com/ Doors open 30 minutes prior to concert time.

Join Sine Nomine, with Director Anne Lyman, as we celebrate the historic reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and II. The Virgin Queen (Elizabeth I) was fond of her chief Chapel Royal composer, William Byrd - despite his Catholic leanings. Our program highlights the wide range of his polyphonic prowess, from the intimate Mass for Four Voices to the festive Haec dies. English composers Robert Parsons and Robert White set Psalm 15, Domine, quis habitabit, both in a florid, quintessentially English style that, alongside John Bennet’s All Creatures Now, celebrate the faith and devotion that Queen Elizabeth I’s musicians had for their “Fair Oriana.” In addition, several of our program’s pieces, including commissions by Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams, were featured at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and, most recently, her memorial service.

PROGRAM
I.
William Byrd - O Lord, make Thy servant Elizabeth
Byrd - Mass for 4 Voices: Kyrie, Gloria
Byrd - Ne irascaris Domine

II.
Anonymous - Rejoice in the Lord always
Robert Parsons - Domine quis habitabit
John Bennet - All creatures now

III.
Ralph Vaughan Williams - O taste and see
Robert White - Domine quis habitabit

IV.
Benjamin Britten - Concord
Byrd - Mass for 4 Voices: Agnus Dei
Byrd - Haec dies

NOTE: This concert is in-person only; it will not be live-streamed nor video-recorded.
Masks are strongly recommended, but not required.

The Seattle Sings Choral Festival is live once again!

Puget Sound choirs are excitedly gearing up in preparation for the return of the Seattle Sings Choral Festival, live on Saturday, October 29. Eighteen choirs of all kinds and from across the region will present a dazzling variety of styles; from Bach to barbershop, Finnish to jazz, Broadway to classical, symphonic size to chamber music intimacy, there is something to please every taste. As festival co-chair Scott Kovacs says, “I can’t imagine a time when we need choral singing more than right now, and to be returning to the Seattle Sings Choral Festival feels like good medicine for us all!”

The festival is thrilled to collaborate with Northwest composer and University of Washington choral professor Giselle Wyers. In what has become a festival tradition, the Greater Seattle Choral Consortium commissions a work especially for the festival. Dr. Wyers’ Join in Gathering, first introduced at the Festival Online Showcase in October 2021, is her contribution as Composer-in-Residence. In keeping with this tradition, audiences and choirs will join in singing a portion of this lovely piece. For more information and a complete listing of participating choirs, please visit us on the web at www.seattlesings.org (look for the “Festival” tab at the top), or you can email us at festival@seattlesings.org.

The festival runs Saturday, October 29, 10:00 AM to 9:10 PM at Seattle First Baptist Church, 1111 Harvard Ave, Seattle 98122. Admission is free; come and go as you please. All audience and choir members are requested to remain masked while attending the festival.

A Review of Rock & Roll’s Greatest Rain Songs

Songs by: Eric Clapton, The Beatles, America, James Taylor,
Carole King, Three Dog Night, Manhattan Transfer and many more!

Thursday, Oct 27 at 7:30pm
Friday, Oct 28 at 7:30pm
Saturday, Oct 29 at 7:30pm
Sunday, Oct 30 at 2:30pm

A native to Bainbridge Island, Washington, award-winning composer Sarah Rimkus' Mater Dei links two distinct sound worlds in this program of American choral music: The neo-Romantic style of Samuel Barber and the ethereal sound world of Eric Whitacre. This program features Barber's most famous choral composition, Agnus Dei, alongside Whitacre's Lux Aurumque, Go, Lovely Rose, and Saint-Chappelle.

RainShadow Chorale is excited to announce its fall 2022 concerts – Songs of Shakespeare - under the leadership of our new Artistic Director, Laurie de Leonne. She brings to RainShadow a wealth of experience and knowledge, and we are delighted to be challenged by her as she adds her own flair to RainShadow’s tradition of excellence.

Laurie has selected music from a wide variety of composers and genres, but it is all set to texts by Shakespeare. From early music to country (a la Dolly Parton), there is something for every musical taste in her program.

This program is sponsored in part by the Port Townsend Arts Commission.

Join us for a concert that explores the human spiritual experience and belief systems from around the world. We will sing ancient prayers, hymns to the sun, find peace in the natural world, and renewal in flame and flight. Come enjoy our collaboration with a string quartet, percussion, and an up-and-coming young soprano on works by Vivaldi, Ola Gjeilo, Lili Boulanger, and more! (masks and proof of COVID vax req'd at all live events)

Ralph Vaughan Williams was unquestionably one of the leading composers of choral music in the twentieth century. While his large-scale works are mainstream repertoire, much of his music for unaccompanied chamber choir remains neglected outside England. He arranged dozens of folksongs for chorus, including the famed Loch Lomond, and wrote for coronations and other the Anglican and Catholic rites. He also set great English literature in a musical language far removed from his folksong- and Renaissance-inspired works. We will present examples taken from throughout his compositional life, with several works you’ve probably never heard in concert before. In addition, we will present the Mass in G minor, one of history’s greatest settings of this historic text, sung by one voice per part. It is a true celebration of this master composer’s sesquicentennial.

A choral celebration The Community Chorus
of Port Townsend
& East Jefferson County.
Director: Sarah Moran
Pianist: Liz Hopkins
with special guests
Wild Rose Chorale

Songs for the People is the second of our New American Composers concerts, featuring composer Melissa Dunphy. Born to refugee parents and raised in Australia, Dunphy immigrated to the United States in 2003 and has since become an award-winning and acclaimed composer specializing in vocal, political, and theatrical music.

SCHUBERT Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”)
MOZART Requiem in D minor

The story of Mozart’s Requiem is well known: the composer, desperate for funds, was compelled to accept the commission from a mysterious Austrian nobleman who hoped to pass the piece off as his own. Alas, Mozart would not live to complete the work himself, a task that fell to his student Franz Xaver Süßmayr. (Ironically, Mozart’s widow hoped to pass off the completed Requiem as authentic Mozart.)

Many completions of Mozart’s Requiem now vie for supremacy, but Süßmayr’s has the advantage of having been made in collaboration with the dying Mozart himself. However, it was another composer who took upon the spiritual mantle of Mozart’s music, and that composer was Franz Schubert, who, tragically, would also leave a great work incomplete, the now-beloved Symphony in B minor.

Inspired by the iconic All-Night Vigil (“Vespers”) by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Robert Kyr’s new setting in English of the All-Night Vigil will encourage you to meditate directly on the Vigil’s themes of light, renewal, and hope. Cappella Romana, in large-choir formation, will sing Kyr’s characteristic soaring lines and gorgeous harmonies, with counterpoint by Cappella Romana’s virtuoso soloists. More than just a concert, this world premiere performance of Kyr’s All-Night Vigil will create an immersive, ineffable experience unlike any other.

Originally scheduled in May 2020, Cappella Romana gives the world premiere this season!

Seattle Peace Chorus sings songs of peace, justice, and compassion by Kent Stevenson, Jacob Narverud, Chris Williamson, Joan Szymco, and others.

In memory of the Founder and Director of the Sound of the Northwest, Juan Huey-Ray, this program will feature some of his favorite Spirituals and Gospel songs. Included in the program will be Seattle poet, Mona Lake Jones, and choreographer and dancer, Vanya Bynum. Other former collaborators with the SONW choir will also be featured. Come celebrate the life of Maestro Huey-Ray and the spirited music he presented to the PNW for 32 years.

“Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied,” BWV 225, and “Fürchte dich nicht,” BWV 228—accompanied by wind and string instruments—form the pillars of this first concert in our season that will feature all six of J. S. Bach’s standard contributions to the motet genre. Music by Morales, Buxtehude, Caroline Shaw, and Vaughan Williams (for his 150th birth anniversary) complete the program.

STANCE is honored to be performing two pieces by our 16-person ensemble at UTOPIA Washington's Transgender Day of Remembrance service on Sunday, November 20th from 6-9 pm at Auburn Riverside Theater.

TDOR is an annual observance that honors the lives lost due to violent acts of transphobia. We welcome you to join us as we memorialize and honor our fallen siblings at the vigil and through music. UTOPIA is hosting a candlelight vigil featuring partners, friends, and community members.