BRATTLEBORO — The Brattleboro Women's Chorus presents their 26th annual spring concerts entitled “Why Not Sing?” on Saturday June 4 and Sunday, June 5, at 4 p.m. outdoors at the Retreat Farm on Route 30. These will be the first in-person concerts the BWC has presented since 2019.
The concerts will feature songs the chorus has been working on this spring and includes some favorites from earlier sessions. Local musician Lisa McCormick will join the chorus on several songs, including “Tiny Lights” by Coco Love Alcorn and “Catch the Moon” by Lisa Loeb and Elizabeth Mitchell.
The chorus will also sing Velma Frye's “Take Heart” and Terry Garthwaite's “Shine On.” McCormick and the chorus will be joined by the ukulele orchestra on a premiere of Barbara McAfee's song (and the concert title), “Why Not Sing?”
The chorus will also premiere “Everyone Sang,” a work for string quartet and chorus by founder and director Becky Graber. Graber set the powerful words Siegfried Sassoon wrote at the end of World War I and will be creating a YouTube video with the Brattleboro Women's Chorus and local string players Kathy Andrew, Michelle Liechti, Greg Diehl, and Sabine Rhyne.
The piece begins, “Everyone suddenly burst out singing, and I was filled with such delight as prisoned birds must find in freedom, winging wildly across the white orchards and dark green fields, on, on, and out of sight.” Presentation and recording of “Everyone Sang” is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Tickets can be purchased online at brattleborowomenschorus.org.