Choir Matrix Performances
2022-2023 Season
Saturday, November 19, 2022
St. Mary's Church, Willimantic
featuring performances by:
Choir Matrix
Voices of Concinnity
Consonare Youth Choir
Join us this fall 2022 for a special homecoming performance with our first concert with all of our choirs together once again since fall 2019. "Belonging" will feature songs to bring us together after so long apart -- celebrating the people, places, and space where we feel we belong.
Featuring the premiere of "It May Be" composed for Voices of Concinnity by Brian Jones, as well as works by Sarah Quartel, Nadia Boulanger, Jack Zaino, Caroline Shaw, Marques L.A. Garrett, Tracy Wong, Laura Mvula, Antonio Vivaldi, and more.
Admission is free - donations accepted**
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Date to be determined*
featuring performances by:
Choir Matrix
Consonare Youth Choir
Being composed is a tall task when we have lived with such strife over the past few years. We all have a story and many of these stories have traveled the world through songs, which we call "folk songs". This concert will feature folk songs from around the world, both old and new. It may even include a new composition from the "Being Composed" workshop (see below)
[admission information to come soon]
Choir Matrix will also participate in our third annual "We are the Stories" Festival. This year, "We are the Stories being composed" will feature a composition workshop for all participants on Sunday, March 5, 2023 from 3:00-5:00pm.
** We kindly request your patience as some aspects to our 2022-23 Season performances are finalized. With the pandemic still factoring into our offerings, we are working to ensure that each concert will be able to be offered live and in a format that is safe for all the singers and audience. Thank you for your patience.
COVID-19 PROTOCOLS:
At this time, we expect that masks will be worn by performers and audience for this concert. However, we will update these protocols here as needed and as situations change.
The Past Season
This winter, Choir Matrix will perform at the Breadbox Theater in Willimantic on Wednesday, March 16th at 7:00pm to raise funds for the Covenant Soup Kitchen.
In e.e. cummings poem of the same name, it reads, "In time of daffodils (who know The goal of living is to grow)" Daffodils symbolize revival and rebirth as they are of the first flowers to emerge through the winter ground, but they also represent resilience as a bulb can withstand freezing, harsh conditions and still emerge in beauty in the spring. This program will feature songs that exude hope, resilience, and new beginnings as we mark almost exactly two years since the pandemic changed our lives.
"We are the Stories" Virtual Choir Festival -- Sunday, March 20, 2020
We have decided to make the "We are the Stories" virtual festival we began in 2021 an annual event. This year, the topic is "We are the Stories in time of daffodils", which will focus on the ways we have managed to continue to grow and flourish during dark and challenging times. We are inviting composer Sarah Quartel to share with the singers about her compositional process and help spark conversations among the singers. We have opened the virtual festival to local choirs who are also singing works by Sarah Quartel this year, including the Choir School of Hartford. We are grateful for this opportunity to build community together through song, even if when we are not together in the same room.
Sarah Quartel, composer
TICKETS ARE LIMITED
Each person much register for a ticket in advance to attend this performance in the Stanley Works Center at the New Britain Museum of American Art. Admission to the museum is included with the concert admission ticket.
Our Choir Matrix Women’s Ensemble and Women of Concinnity collaborate to uncover a wealth of choral music that illuminates the voice that can emerge from within constraints. The performance will include music of women from 17th century Europe who could only compose within the convent, songs that give insight to the social constraints experienced by the poet or composer, and stories that illustrate triumph.
Featuring songs by Isabella Leonarda, Barbara Strozzi, Clara Schumann, Kathleen Allan, and more, including the live premiere of a composition by Melissa Dunphy.
Come experience art that can blossom even in moments where it seems impossible.
(please note: face masks must be worn at all times in the museum)
Virtual Performances
Choir Matrix Premiered a new composition by Melissa Dunphy
We are the Stories - 2020 Treble Choir Festival
We hosted a women's choir festival with Choir Matrix called: "We are the Stories: women's voices marking 100 years along the broader path to universal suffrage." We could not recognize the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment without acknowledging that not all women received the right to vote in 1920.
Singers from four choirs engaged in exploring history, panel discussion, facilitated discussion, and singing together. The public was invited to the virtual panel discussion on Facebook Live (still available on our page)
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Funded in part by the Alfred Nash Patterson Grant from Choral Arts New England. Sponsored by Consonare Choral Community, UConntabile (UConn Choirs), UConn Human Rights Institute Dodd Impact.
Includes virtual performances by
Choir Matrix and Women of Concinnity
A video was released each Tuesday leading up to the election.
You can access the videos by clicking below:
Past Performances
