Our 87th Season: 2022-2023
In our 87th Season, "The Power of Music," NSCS demonstrated the power of music to help us express who we are; to bring our families and communities together; and to move our emotions.
On November 13, 2022, NSCS presented "To Sit and Dream," a program curated and conducted by Assistant Conductor TIerra Whetstone-Christian. The repertoire was comprised of music by black composers, including Rosephanye Powell, Adrian Dunn, Mark Miller, and Florence Price. We were joined by powerhouse soprano Felicia Patton.
On March 4-5, 2023, our special guests, the Folk/Indie group The Heartstrings Project brought their delightful sound and innovative songs to the North Shore. Their goal is to foster Peace, Resilience, and Well-Being within all communities. Repertoire included original songs and arrangements of traditional and contemporary folk songs including “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “Teach Your Children Well” and various collaborations between Heartstrings and NSCS. The weekend included a free community workshop on Saturday for all ages and stages, and the workshop participants were invited to sing with us in the Sunday concert's finale.
NSCS finished the season on June 4, 2023, with Handel's majestic oratorio for double choir, "Solomon," supported by full professional orchestra and featuring countertenor Daniel Taylor in the title role and Rosalind Lee as the Queen/Queen of Sheba. Composed 275 years ago, this dramatic work tells the story of wise King Solomon and features “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”! Marin Tack (soprano and Donald Chen Young Artist Award Winner), Sarah Ponder (mezzo), and Tyler Lee (tenor) sang the supporting roles.
On November 13, 2022, NSCS presented "To Sit and Dream," a program curated and conducted by Assistant Conductor TIerra Whetstone-Christian. The repertoire was comprised of music by black composers, including Rosephanye Powell, Adrian Dunn, Mark Miller, and Florence Price. We were joined by powerhouse soprano Felicia Patton.
On March 4-5, 2023, our special guests, the Folk/Indie group The Heartstrings Project brought their delightful sound and innovative songs to the North Shore. Their goal is to foster Peace, Resilience, and Well-Being within all communities. Repertoire included original songs and arrangements of traditional and contemporary folk songs including “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “Teach Your Children Well” and various collaborations between Heartstrings and NSCS. The weekend included a free community workshop on Saturday for all ages and stages, and the workshop participants were invited to sing with us in the Sunday concert's finale.
NSCS finished the season on June 4, 2023, with Handel's majestic oratorio for double choir, "Solomon," supported by full professional orchestra and featuring countertenor Daniel Taylor in the title role and Rosalind Lee as the Queen/Queen of Sheba. Composed 275 years ago, this dramatic work tells the story of wise King Solomon and features “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”! Marin Tack (soprano and Donald Chen Young Artist Award Winner), Sarah Ponder (mezzo), and Tyler Lee (tenor) sang the supporting roles.
Our 86th Season: 2021-2022
North Shore Choral Society was delighted to return to a full season of in-person concerts. We opened the season with "Free at Last," a profound and inspiring tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by living Chicago composer Lena McLin, one of the composers and works we had studied during our "virtual" rehearsals the previous year. This concert also featured a musical setting of "The Gettysburg Address," a world premiere by David Burger, commissioned for Julia Davids and the North Shore Choral Society. Our special guest, Dr. Thomas W. Jefferson, pianist and composer, performed his new arrangements of three familiar spirituals.
The return to live concerts could not have been more joyfully expressed than in our April 2022 concert with the Evanston Symphony Orchestra, when we performed Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, a choral and orchestral favorite with its iconic hymn to universal fellowship.
Our final concert of the season, titled "Lux," presented the music of John Rutter, including a new composition, "Ukrainian Prayer," a response to the tragedy unfolding in that country, and closing with Rutter's Requiem, a statement of our collective grief in the face of war and pandemic, and yet conveying a message of hope and comfort.
The return to live concerts could not have been more joyfully expressed than in our April 2022 concert with the Evanston Symphony Orchestra, when we performed Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, a choral and orchestral favorite with its iconic hymn to universal fellowship.
Our final concert of the season, titled "Lux," presented the music of John Rutter, including a new composition, "Ukrainian Prayer," a response to the tragedy unfolding in that country, and closing with Rutter's Requiem, a statement of our collective grief in the face of war and pandemic, and yet conveying a message of hope and comfort.
Our 85th Season: 2020 - 2021
North Shore Choral Society’s 85th season, suspended by the Covid-19 pandemic, became, under the leadership of Music Director Dr. Julia Davids, a time of substantive growth for us as individuals and as musicians. Weekly virtual rehearsals focused on vocal health, with extensive work on resonance, vowels, vibrato, and range development. Further, Dr. Davids invited an array of special guests for the enrichment of members’ musical knowledge. We also invited several prominent musicians to share their wisdom with us: Marques L.A. Garrett, Non-Idiomatic Black Choral Music; Thomas W. Jefferson, The History of the Spiritual; Felicia Patton, Unsung Sheroes of Gospel Music; Terrance J. Smith, Singing Gospel Music; Kateri Gormley, The Alexander Technique: A Tool for Embodied Living; Karen Brunssen, The Evolving Singing Voice; and Elias Wygodny, Mindfulness Workshop.
Our 84th Season: 2019-2020
The theme for NSCS' 84th season, "What Happens When," was cut short due to the Coronavirus pandemic. However, NSCS was delighted to be able to perform two of our three planned concerts, in addition to singing with the ESO in their "Evanston Symphony Christmas" celebration. In November, we enjoyed "ringing in" the holiday season with the Chicago Bronze and their director, Andrea Handley. The concert included Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols for SATB with harpist Ben Melsky, as well as Andrea Handley's new arrangement of three joyous carols. Our February 29 concert, “What Happens When She Sets the Beat?” featured a repertoire composed entirely by women. An exciting collaboration with Artemisia, Chicago’s most versatile women’s trio, along with a trio of accomplished female guest conductors, Anne Heider, Felicia Patton, and Tierra Whetstone, along with choral ambassadors from Golf Middle School, made the concert an inspiring intersection of talent, personal experience, and musical expression. The diversity of women in musical leadership was reflected as NSCS performed music with classical, gospel, folk, and contemporary influences.
Our 83rd Season: 2018-2019
The theme for NSCS’ 83rd season was “A Few of Our Favorite Things.” One of our favorite things is singing an oratorio with full orchestra and soloists – as well as teaming up with Music Director Julia Davids’ husband, baroque violinist Martin Davids. On November 18, we performed G. F. Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus at a beautiful and inspiring venue, the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston. Our second and third concerts featured another of our favorite things: collaborating with Chicago musicians. For our March concert we joined pianist and composer Thomas W. Jefferson as he shared numerous original works for piano, chorus, and band. We had the opportunity to perform in Evanston and at his home church, the magnificent Basilica of Our Lady of Sorrows. Finally, we were delighted to join the Evanston Symphony Orchestra in its celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday by singing two of our all-time favorite pieces, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, at Northwestern University’s Pick-Staiger Auditorium.
