Chorosynthesis and the American Choral Directors Association will discuss how organizations can remove barriers and change work culture dynamics to become more welcoming. We look forward to seeing you at the Chorus America National Conference in San Francisco!
National College Music Society Conference Presentation - Rochester, NY
Jeremiah and Wendy will be leading the workshop, Singing for Social Consciousness — Amendment: Righting Our Wrongs at the National College Music Society Conference on October 9. We hope to see you there!
Empowering Silenced Voices Database - Version 2!
The Empowering Silenced Voices Database has a new interface and new search capabilities! We invite you to check it out and let us know what you think. Also, please consider submitting your own suggestion of pieces! Thank you to our summer research assistants for their help with this update!
World Premiere of Amendment: Righting Our Wrongs by Melissa Dunphy
Chorosynthesis Singers will present the world premiere commission, Amendment: Righting Our Wrongs by Melissa Dunphy on December 18, 7:30 pm via Facebook live. It will be a part of a collaborative concert with the Santa Monica College Choirs of which we are choral scholars in residence.
https://www.facebook.com/events/726461541561723
Votes for Women Choral Consortium-Limited Spots Left!
We are very excited to announce that our VOTES FOR WOMEN CHORAL CONSORTIUM has enough choirs to move forward! Not only will this SATB choral suite by Melissa Dunphy celebrate women's suffrage through underrepresented voices (see photo), but it will bring to the forefront those who still fight for the right to vote today. #UniversalVotingRights #EmpoweringSilencedVoices #SATB
**Limited spots are left at www.chorosynthesis.org/votesforwomen
Call for Scores Winners
Please join us in congratulating the winners of our most recent call for scores!
These pieces were selected to be performed by Chorosynthesis Singers and the Santa Monica College Choirs as part of our Choral Scholars Residency. Due to COVID-19, the in-person concert at The Broad Stage at Santa Monica College was cancelled. However, through a virtual residency we were able to collaborate with the SMC Choirs to record three of these pieces as virtual choir projects. They will be premiered in our online concert with the SMC Choirs in Breaking the Silence: Beethoven and Beyond, an adapted version of our celebration of the sestercentennial of Ludwig von Beethoven’s birth (1770), which will be broadcast via Zoom and Facebook TONIGHT, June 14, 7:00 pm PDT/10:00 pm EDT.
Admission is FREE, but registration is required. Alternatively, you can also watch on Facebook Live through the SMC Choirs page. For more information about the winners and their pieces, please visit our website.
Beethoven and Beyond: Breaking the Silence
These past two weeks, Chorosynthesis Singers has been Choral Scholars in Residence at Santa Monica College (SMC). While we had hoped to be singing together in person, COVID-19 has forced us to be innovative. We have joined the SMC choirs via Zoom during their retreat as well as lending our voices to their virtual projects. We invite you to join us, along with the SMC Concert Chorale, SMC Chamber Choir for Breaking the Silence: Beethoven and Beyond, an adapted version of our celebration of the sestercentennial of Ludwig von Beethoven’s birth (1770).
This collaborative performance will explore how Beethoven--a monumental composer--broke the silence of his deafness to transform the field of music. The program will include some of the texts from choral-orchestral works of Beethoven, including the final movement of Symphony No. 9, as well as Jake Runestad’s A Silence Haunts Me, which portrays the vulnerable letter Beethoven wrote to his brother, disclosing the pain of his hearing loss. This concert will also explore the examples of other people who moved beyond their “disabilities”—sometimes even transforming their disabilities to bring significant change to society—including winners from our recent Call for Scores:
She in the Dark, Found Light by Brian Driscoll (world premiere), the text of which is by African-American poet Langston Hughes and written about Helen Keller
Border by Rich Campbell (world premiere)
Illuminate the Night by Sherry Blevins (2nd performance)
Admission is Free, but registration is required. Alternatively, you can also watch on Facebook Live through the SMC Choirs page.
Reaffirming Our Values during COVID-19--Join Us?
Given the impact that COVID-19 is having on our world, we hope to share from our heart to yours. Thank you for being a part of the greater choral community, working to navigate this uncharted territory we all find ourselves in.
It has been a very long, hard couple of weeks! We know a lot of you have been scrambling to ensure the safety of loved ones, dealing with canceled concerts, and creating remote teaching assignments. We at Chorosynthesis have been wrestling with what this means for us as an organization and the projects with which we are engaging.
As a part of this process, we want to reaffirm some of our values and then ask you to join us in:
Not letting COVID-19 hinder our plans for celebrating the centennial of women’s suffrage,
Recommitting to support the livelihood of our performing artists, and
Building community through new means as we learn the craft of music-making through online media.
Our Values Regarding Future Plans
We believe that in this moment history, it is the right thing for us to continue to plan to the best of our ability, how we will continue moving forward, despite COVID-19 and its impacts on our current rehearsals and performances, in the programming and expectation of future performances, including Fall 2020 and beyond.
We also believe that, with all of the economical impacts on people losing jobs, we should continue protecting the livelihood of artists, in this case by providing work for composers, such as Melissa Dunphy and Kala Pierson, during this “down” time where most of us are distancing ourselves socially.
We are firmly resolved in not allowing the current circumstances to get in the way of or dictate our celebration throughout 2020 of women’s suffrage in the United States and the importance of the right to vote as a form of the truest freedom.
We are committed to giving our singers inspiration, hope, and light at the end of the tunnel through bold and significant programming, including works like Amendment, Righting Our Wrongs by Melissa Dunphy and Kala Pierson.
Join Us in Celebrating Women’s Suffrage
For these reasons, we ask you to carefully consider joining our Commission Consortium; we currently have 8 choirs, but we need a minimum of 14 choirs by March 31 in order to guarantee paying our composers and finishing the work in time for all of us to premiere it around the country in the Fall. Please take some time to read the text and to consider all of the benefits we have laid out on our website and in our introductory video.
We invite you to join us in celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Women’s Suffrage. At the following link, you will find a libretto curated and partially written by Melissa Dunphy, Wendy Moy, Helena Pennington, Kala Pierson, Jeremiah Selvey, as well as details about the consortium. If you are interested but are unsure of the financial situation of your chorus, please contact us.
Our Values Regarding the Present
We are committed to creating community and connection. We view this as a time of “physical,” not “social” distancing. Our singers and audiences need us to stay connected.
We believe in learning how to adapt to these new methods from our collective wisdom.
We believe in supporting performing artists whose income is negatively impacted by a gig economy full of cancellations and indefinite postponements.
Join Us in Supporting Our Performing Artists
We were about to launch our advertising for our “Breaking the Silence: Beethoven and Beyond” performances that championed the stories of people with disabilities who transformed society, including Beethoven, whose 250th birthday we celebrate this year. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Santa Monica College Music Department, which was hosting us as resident Choral Scholars, has had to postpone this project.
As a result, we as an organization are losing income that we were planning on passing on to our singers, and we hope to honor their ongoing work and livelihood by raising funds to pay them anyway. During this time, our singers are losing out on gigs they depend on for their livelihood. When you donate to our Chorosynthesis Singers Relief Fund, 50% of your donation will go directly to our singers whose gigs have been canceled, and the other 50% to future performances by our ensemble. When we reach the $5,000 goal, we will be able to fully compensate all the artists negatively impacted by the canceling of our June residency and performances.
By way of your donation, you are supporting artists who support our mission to infuse our art with social consciousness. As we all take care of ourselves and our families, let us not forget the artists on the front line who are losing their livelihood.
Join Us in Crowd-Resourcing for Virtual Office and Rehearsals
We have been encouraged by the choral community coming together via virtual rehearsals, the sharing of livestream concerts, the crowdsourcing of resources, and the creation of relief funds for artists. In the next week, we will begin to post some resources on our website and social media for running a virtual office, online auditions, and virtual rehearsals in order to maintain forward momentum and to cultivate community in our choirs during this time of COVID-19 disruption. Please share your thoughts and resources with us via email and social media, and we will strive to help highlight your contributions for the greater common good.
Thank You for Joining Us
In times like these, we must provide leadership that relies on facts, inspires those who follow, and supports the ongoing work and importance that the performing arts have in bringing us together, lifting our spirits, and challenging us to soar to new heights. Thank you for your part in this process!
All the best,
Jeremiah & Wendy
California All-State Music Educators Conference Presentation
Wendy and Jeremiah have been invited to present at the California All-Sate Music Educators Conference in Fresno in February 2020! Their session is entitled Fostering Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Teaching and Performance through the Lens of Social Consciousness. If you are attending the conference, we hope you can stop by to be a part of the conversation surrounding this important topic.
How do we create meaningful, equitable, and inclusive rehearsal and concert experiences? How do we construct concert programs that give voice to those who have been historically underrepresented? In this presentation, we will discuss strategies on how to broaden empathy in both our audience and rehearsal spaces through programming and dialogue. Topics will include resources on repertoire that empower marginalized voices, ways to re-contextualize canonic repertoire to be relevant in contemporary society, and guidelines for addressing sensitive issues in the rehearsal and concert. Panelists will share their challenges and successes in creating a more socially conscious performing experience within their professional, community, and academic contexts towards finding common ground among the diversity in our ensembles and audiences.
https://casmec.org/
Call for Scores!
As a service to the community, Chorosynthesis Singers is currently seeking new, forward-looking, and distinctive choral compositions for use in a June 2020 concert performance. In addition, even if not selected for performance, all submissions will be considered for:
inclusion in future reading sessions,
other future performances by our ensemble,
listing on our website and in our Empowering Silenced Voices Database for potential future performing ensembles, and
highlighting via social media or conference presentations.
For more information and to submit a score, please visit: Call for Scores.
Empowering Silenced Voices CD is Now Streaming on Multiple Platforms
Have you listened to Chorosynthesis Singers’ inaugural album yet? We can now be found streaming on multiple platforms including the following below. If you find our music on another platform, please let us know and we will add it to the list!
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5LwtTzfWLlByZHR33agmjG?si=ZpeaOpvdQe29UbufSxBHRA
iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/empowering-silenced-voices/1481401655
Amazon Music: https://smile.amazon.com/Empowering-Silenced-Voices-Chorosynthesis-Singers/dp/B07XGMYYN2
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnqoMxzvjkPTLoAkHImuKpxx0vwHRiv-K
Liner Notes: http://chorosynthesis.org/esv2-program-notes
Inaugural Album Released on Centaur Records Label
We are thrilled to announce that our inaugural album, Empowering Silenced Voices, has been released on the international Centaur Records label! This double CD set includes 16 new works on themes of social consciousness. The first CD touches on topics, such as colonialism, displacement, war, and terrorism, including a set of four texts from American poet Walt Whitman. The second CD touches on human rights and other topics of human social consciousness--specifically women’s rights, advocacy for children, our connection with technology and the environment, and non-heteronormative love.
Stream: Spotify
Program notes: chorosynthesis.org/esv2-program-notes
Purchase: Amazon Smile
Chorosynthesis Singers in Residence at Connecticut College
Chorosynthesis Singers will be in residence at Connecticut College. The culminating event will be a collaborative concert featuring the East Coast premiere of Thomas Schuttenhlem’s Seven Living Words of the HIV Positive.
CHORUS AMERICA PRESENTATION On Fostering Social Consciousness through Choral Music
Jeremiah and Wendy will be heading to Philadelphia in June for the National Chorus America Conference. They will be giving a presentation with Stephen Sieck on “Fostering Social Consciousness through Choral Music: Programming, Equity, and Real Conversation.”
Choral Scholars Residency at Santa Monica College
Chorosynthesis Singers will be in residence at Santa Monica College in December. Please join us on Dec 8-9 at The Broad Stage for the World Premiere commissioned work, Seven Living Words of the HIV Positive by Thomas Schuttenhelm.
Indiana Choral Directors Association Conference Session
Wendy and Jeremiah will be heading to Indianapolis to present a conference session on "Incorporating Music of Social Consciousness Into Your Program." We look forward to seeing everyone in the Midwest! To register for the conference go to https://www.in-acda.org/conference
ESV Choral Repertoire Database Goes Live!
Are you looking for repertoire on themes of social consciousness for your next concert? Check out our crowd-sourced database at www.chorosynthesis.org/esvdatabase!
Re-Imagining Relevance through New Music and Social Conscience
Northwest American Choral Directors Association Conference
Portland, OR
March 8, 2018
Thank you to everyone who came to our session at the NW ACDA Conference, Re-Imagining Relevance Through New Music and Social Consciousness. If you didn't receive a handout, you can download it here.
Chorosynthesis visits Santa Monica College!
Semi-Finalist in The American Prize in Choral Performance
For the 2nd year in a row, Chorosynthesis Singers has been selected as a semi-finalist in the The American Prize in Choral Performance—professional division! Thank you to our stellar singers who helped us achieve this honor!
