If you love massed voices, you’ll want to go to “Bridges of Song,” a collaborative concert this Saturday with the Tacoma Symphony Chorus. Joining forces with the Tacoma Youth Chorus Chorale (hence the ‘bridges’ bit) the Chorus (directed by Geoffrey Boers) will sing an eclectic program that ranges from Schubert to Ives, with four-hand piano thrown in.

It’s a collaboration that makes sense: Younger choirs, like the 22-year-old Tacoma Youth Chorus, benefit enormously from hearing and singing with more experienced musicians, while older singers pick up on the enthusiasm and freshness of their younger peers.

The two groups will sing works both by themselves and together: The TYC’s offerings include the Gloria from Schubert’s Mass in F and Ola Gjeilo’s “Ubi Caritas”; the TSO Chorus will sing works including William Averitt’s “Dreamkeeper,” Charles Ives’ “Circus Band” and dance-based works by Brahms, Copland and Sullivan; and both choirs will join for three segments that include music by Vaughan Williams and Mack Willberg.

The concert is at 7:30 p.m. May 18. $15. Urban Grace Church, 902 S. Market St., Tacoma. 253-272-7264, tacomasymphony.org, tacomayouthchorus.org

Boers also has a fun summer lined up. Read more »

Join the Illumni Mens Chorale this weekend in Seattle and Tacoma as they explore just what American music is, in concerts at Christ Episcopal in Seattle and Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma

The program sweeps from Spanish Renaissance music written by Aztecs in Mexico City to 18th-century hymn writer William Billings, from “Deep River” to “Shenandoah” and from Rogers and Hammerstein to Morten Lauridsen, there’s something here for everyone, sung by the deep, resonant voices of the Seattle-based Illumni. Read more »

Want to get some Valentine’s Day credit in advance? Then take your honey to hear some passionate choral music this weekend, sung on Sunday by visiting Seattle choir Pro Musica in Parkland’s Trinity Lutheran and on Tuesday by the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra Chorus at Slavonian Hall, Old Town.

First, Pro Musica: Conducted by the choir’s director Karen Thomas, the 40-year-old choir will sing love songs by Samuel Barber, madrigals by Morten Lauridsen, and the premiere of Thomas’ own setting of “Wild Nights,” a more-than-suggestive poem by Emily Dickinson. Expect lush contemporary and neo-Romantic harmonies in the church’s resonant acoustics.

The TSO Chorus concert is in the cozy Slavonian Hall in Old Town, and it’s part of the monthly free Classical Tuesdays in Old Town series. Read more »

Welcome to the Twelve Tacoma Artist Gifts of Christmas! Inspired by both the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song and fellow features writer Sue Kidd, who’s offering you her own “Twelve Tacoma Foodie Gifts of Christmas” on her TNT Diner blog, I’ve come up with 12 alternative gifts for Christmas: no partridges in pear trees, but something a lot more uniquely local. (See older posts for the other days.)

So here’s Day 7:

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Seven concert tickets, six sumi paintings, five gothic rings…Four pottery bowls, three CDs, two baby …

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It’s always sheer joy to hear The Esoterics. Puget Sound has plenty of choirs, but none other that sing terrifically difficult music that has only just been written (okay, maybe some from last century too) in a dozen different languages and a cappella to boot. Not only that but they sing exquisitely – hear those sopranos and die happy. Most impressively, they also commission their own works, and this Saturday sees a Tacoma performance of three of those as world premieres, alongside other poetic compositions.

The concert’s called Mystikos, and the works therein encapsulate the human experience of the …

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Goodness knows we don’t need any more official “days” (“Walk Your Dog Day,” “Brush Your Teeth Day”) but this one is actually well-deserved. This Friday has been officially proclaimed Northwest Sinfonietta Day in the state of Washington by Governor Christine Gregoire, and it’s largely because of the supreme effort this local orchestra has made in creating a musical bond with a chamber orchestra in Tacoma’s sister city of Cienfuegos, Cuba. (You can read the main story here.)

For the last two years Sinfonietta director Neil Birnbaum has been working hard alongside congressman Norm Dicks, senator Maria Cantwell and …

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Tacoma’s early music scene is slowly but surely gaining traction, and some of it is thanks to vocal groups like Canonici. This weekend the a cappella vocal quartet collaborates with the Illumni Men’s Chorale and the University of Puget Sound’s Dorian Singers, as well as organist Mark Brombaugh, to present a multimedia concert of sacred 16^th century music in the evocative acoustics of Christ Episcopal Church, Tacoma.

The Tacoma Early Music Project: Savonarola and the North Wind centers on Girolamo Savonarola, the gaunt Italian priest famously burned at the stake in 1498 for making controversial prophecies against …

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As Tacoma Symphony Orchestra Chorus director Geoffrey Boers pointed out before his choir’s concert last Saturday night, venues can create wonderful music. For the TSO Chorus, singing its annual “solo” concert, the soaring arches, carved wood and enormous ceilings of First Presbyterian Church Tacoma offered up a giant playground to explore some of the most beautiful choral music ever written. And while the choir failed to utilize the space in the first half of the program, the second half was one of the most inventive and musical uses of space I’ve ever seen in this town.

The first half …

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