Key Chorale Presents Streaming Online Season Opener

October 16, 2020 – Sarasota

The streaming online season opener Together We Rise: Celebrating the Resilience of the Human Spirit brings us together to experience the healing and hope of music. Premiering October 30th, The Key Chorale Chamber Singers will present an inspirational program of favorites, uplifting spirituals and music that celebrates the resiliency of the human spirit.

“We have all been through a lot in 2020 from social unrest, to a divisive election, and a worldwide pandemic. But the human spirit has an amazing way of finding the good through our ability to overcome, even when times are as challenging as these. When many choirs across the country have gone silent, we have found, and will continue to find, ways to bring us together to experience the transformative power of music,” says Artistic Director, Joseph Caulkins.

The 25-voice Chamber Singers will give the Florida premiere of Sing Gently by Eric Whitacre. Whitacre composed this in March for his Virtual Choir 6 which brought together more than 15,000 singers from all over the world. He wrote the words and music for Sing Gently in response to the pandemic and the growing division and dissent. It was his hope that this might give some small measure of comfort for those who need it, and that it might suggest a way of living with one another that is compassionate, gentle, and kind.

This concert opens with Joseph Martin’s The Awakening. This piece describes an image of a world without music, a silent dream. A world where no choir sang to change the world, no pipers played, no dancers twirled, no alleluia, no hosanna, no song of love, no lullaby.

“It describes the dream we have been living these past months,” said Maestro Caulkins. “But music and hope can never be silenced. After describing this dream, the music suddenly changes with an outpouring of joy. You hear the text: The silence of the night has passed; a new day has begun. Let music never die in me! Forever let my spirit sing. Let all our voices join as one, to praise the Giver of the Song. Let music live!”

In addition to The Awakening, you’ll hear Sure on this Shining Night, Can We Sing the Darkness to Light, Let Music Fill the Air, Stand by Me, and many more. Soloists Jamal Sarikoki, Amy Connours and Zac Stockman will be featured, as well as two singalongs: If I Had a Hammer and This Little Light of Mine that viewers can singalong with the Chamber Singers from the safety of their own home. These songs were part of Key Chorale’s enormously popular Come Together Choir Online Choral Rehearsals.

The online streaming concert will be available from the premiere on October 30th until November 22nd.

Tickets to watch the 90-minute streaming video are $25 per household; patrons will receive a viewing link that can be activated any time during the streaming run. To purchase, go to keychorale.org.