About Us

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”  – Thomas Merton

Welcome to the Holland Chorale’s 2012-2013 season. This season promises to be delightful, compelling, and inspirational.

Our first concert explores “Children will Listen” with the excellent West Ottawa choirs under the direction of Pam Pierson. As a child, your first teachers were your family. You listened to the village around you. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, pastors, teachers, and the list goes on. There is a striking bit of text from a piece the Chorale will sing in “We Are” by Ysaye Barnwell: “We are our grandfather’s prayers, and we are our grandmother’s dreamings. We are the voice of our ancestors. We are the spirit of God.”

Our December concert is the annual festive Holiday concert with the Holland Symphony. Traditional holiday fare is planned including music from The Nutcracker, A Ceremony of Carols, an audience sing-a-long, and new arrangements of familiar tunes. This concert is the perfect kick off to your holidays.

Our February concert’s theme is “To Sing is to Fly.” I wanted to program Kirke Mechem’s Winging Wildly this year as it is a challenging piece, but also because of the powerful emotion behind the texts: “I know what the caged bird feels…” In addition to Mechem, there will be music from Samuel Barber, Johannes Brahms, Lennon and McCartney, and a fresh arrangement of How Can I Keep From Singing?

Finally, the Holland Chorale’s season ends with a blockbuster collaboration with the Holland Symphony Orchestra, and Hope College and Calvin College Choirs in two performances of Rachmaninoff “The Bells” and William Walton “Belshazzar’s Feast.”

We hope you’ll join us this concert season and that you will be both lost and found.

Meredith Bowen

Artistic Director