“Choosing Harmony,” iSing Silicon Valley Concert Presents Two World-Premieres
iSing Silicon Valley, an elite and award-winning choir of 250 Bay Area girls ages 7-12 years old, announces its upcoming concert Choosing Harmony, premiering on YouTube on May 22 at 4:30 p.m. PT.
The free concert includes both a beautifully captured show of their latest iterations of both classics and contemporary works, songs that empower, uplift, and bring joy. In addition to the adventurous, delightful arrangements and the unparalleled vocal performances of the girls comprising iSing, the professionally produced videos for Choosing Harmony are high quality, with compelling choreographed performances, showcasing the 250 singers coming together through split screens and other multi-dynamic image techniques. Joining the iSing singers will be St. Lawrence String Quartet, Amaranth Quartet, and participants as from as far away as Italy and Iceland.
The concert program will include the striking video for iSing’s performance of Katerina Gimon’s “Fire.” A vocal and body percussive work, the song is energetic and primal with a video that recalls both Stomp and Lord of the Flies. iSing performs treble choir versions of “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” arranged by Roger Emerson, “When I Take My Sugar to Tea” arranged by Steve Zegree, and other popular standards. The performance includes joyous, opulent renditions of Baroque masterpieces “Regina Caeli” by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Vivaldi’s “Laudamus Te” from Gloria. Other works include: “Long Road” by Ēriks Ešenvalds, “Grow Little Tree” by Andrea Ramsey, and “The Song that Nature Sings” by Ruth Elaine Schram. Choosing Harmony will also mark the debut of the girls of iSing@RWC, iSing’s Neighborhood Chorus program based in Redwood City to join the main iSing choir to perform “Love Is” by Kathryn Ostenberg.
There will be two world-premiere performances. iSing’s commissioned works are often socially conscious as are this year’s two works “Harmony” and “Drift.” “Harmony,” iSing’s latest commission from musical artist PinkZebra is a jubilant and catchy pop song about singing and living together in harmony. The accompanying musical video is just as catchy, bright, and joyous as the song’s refrain.
iSing will debut its first multimedia commission, “Drift” with music by Daniel Wohl (renowned for his “electroacoustic musical sorcery” -NPR Music) and video by Máni M. Sigfússon (known for his genre-bending work with The Rolling Stones, Ólafur Arnalds, and Sigur Rós). “Drift” is multilayered exploration of breath and air: air as one of the four elements, unseen but surrounding all of us, essential for life, and breathing, the unconscious act we do over 22,000 times a day.
This past year, we faced the threats of air and breath in new, frightening ways from an airborne global pandemic to toxic air qualities as California suffered record-breaking wildfires. From the anxious breath-holding during a contentious political season to the “I can’t breathe” slogan used in the Black Lives Matter movement, which tragically captures the last words of several victims of police brutality against Black Americans, breath is no longer taken for granted.
The iSing choir and artistic team recorded safely from their homes, which means without the shared breaths, pauses, sighs, and inhales common to a choir’s communal performance. The avant garde video will incorporate elements of the natural world growing, flourishing, succumbing, showing the cyclical nature of breath. Using pioneering digital recording methods to create a rich soundscape, “Drift” asks viewers worldwide to share a collective sigh of relief, of hope, of change.
To prepare for the demands of rehearsing, recording, and performing via video, at the beginning of the season, iSing provided every singer with a high-quality microphone for rehearsal and recording. The singers spent more than 300 hours in Zoom classes, crafting 1,135 measures of music, submitting more than 800 tracks that were seamlessy brought together for this unique concert experience.
During its almost decade-long tenure (founded in 2013), iSing has received national and international acclaim, and commissioned ten world premieres, among them Never Shall I Forget (Adam Schoenberg, 2019), 365 and In Your Light (Daniel Elder 2019), and Here I Stand (Karen Linford, 2014). They have collaborated with renowned artists Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble, soprano Barbara Bonney, members of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Voces8, Cappella SF, and the Copenhagen and Norwegian Girls Choirs, and performed in France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Los Angeles, and Oregon, in addition to the larger San Francisco Bay area. iSing Sillicon Valley released their debut album Here I Stand on August 28, 2020.
The free “Choosing Harmony” concert will premiere on Saturday, May 22, at 4:30 pm PT/7:30 pm ET on YouTube.
About iSing
Award-winning girlchoir iSing Silicon Valley champions girls as artists through exceptional musical experiences. iSing brings together 250 1st–12th grade singers in two locations in Silicon Valley, offers them rigorous musical and vocal training, and guides them toward the highest level of artistry.
Celebrated for the gorgeous vocal blend and joyous singing of its choirs, iSing has quickly built a deeply-committed musical community in the Bay Area — and has also earned recognition on the national and international stages. Recent awards include the Grand Prize in the 8th International Robert Schumann Choral Competition (2018) and the Chorus America’s Dale Warland Singers Commission Award (2018). iSing has made 19 commissions to date, as a way to create opportunities for iSing singers to respond to the world around them through music, and in an effort to add to the repertoire for treble voices. iSing has also enjoyed collaborations with musical pioneer Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble, and the world-renowned vocal ensembles Voces8 and Cappella SF.
iSing girls become friends for life, bonded by artistic experiences that challenge and shape their understanding of the world. As iSing singers realize the power and potential of their voices, their shared vision for a bright future in which the voices of these young women will be heard and valued, manifests itself in every rehearsal, every performance, and on iSing’s debut album released in August 2020, Here I Stand.
