PAST CONCERTS

”Home” (Spring 2023)

The Thetford Chamber singers is presented a very special concert in May of 2023. We presented a set of music that was nearly entirely written by local composers. As we rebuilt from the lost years of COVID, we decided that presenting a program for our amazing audiences that brings it all Home. Twenty-one pieces were performed authored by the following composers: Mary Graham, Erik Nielsen, Meg Chittenden, Kathy Wonson Eddy, Graham Lambert, Travis Ramsey, Maureen Burford, Dan Breslaw, Paul Carey, Jeremiah McLane, Kevin Quigley, Peter Amidon, Carol Wood, Molly Caffry, and Gywneth Walker. These incredibly moving works evoked a feeling of home - some mysterious, some will pull on your heart strings, some will make you laugh, and others will rouse and inspire.

The Composers for “Home”

Rise Up and Rebuild (December 2022)

This program was all about keeping things going. We began each half of the concert with a version of Rise Up Shepherd and Follow: Rutter’s classic and a more American, modern take by André J. Thomas. We presented Conrad Susa’s Carols and Lullabies, sung in Spanish, English, and Catalan along with other songs: some traditional repertoire sung in Welsh and Icelandic, pieces by Thomas Tallis, and by living composers including a premiere by our director Kevin Quigley.

Return - Songs of Healing and Hope (Spring 2022)

Singing has been a part of every culture since the dawn of human kind. For our culture, the past three years have been challenging for those of us who sing. COVID-19 has taken a toll on all group assemblies, but because respiration is as necessary for singing as inspiration is for the human heart, the past several years have included an enormous amount of silence in this regard. We have persevered. We’ve sung in small, masked groups. We’ve presented remote performances. We’ve collaborated and kept the torch burning in a thousand different ways. This week, the Thetford Chamber Singers returns to sing for audiences on Wednesday and Thursday. This concert will have our usual varied repertoire: lots of languages, musical styles, and composers from all over the world. Please join us for an uplifting concert of hope and healing and looking forward towards many more years of song in the Upper Valley. Thank you for your continued participation and support. We love you.

Winter Stars - Winter 2019

Director’s Note

The theme for our December 2019 program was Hope. It seems to me, that many of us are struggling now: personal struggles, community struggles, national problems, human difficulty, even planetary trouble. One symbol of hope to which we all have access are the lights that appear in the sky as our sun begins to set. In fact, the darker the night becomes, the more the stars are able to shine. Living in New York City for a decade, I forgot how little I looked up. In my first month here in Vermont in 2005, I stepped outside from a dark house after midnight - no street lights, no neighbor's, no passing cars. I was awe struck at the number of stars in the sky here. To be in the presence of such divine mystery changed me forever. In August of this year one of our longest standing singers, alto Nancy Papademas crossed over. She was one of the most passionate and sincere individuals I have ever had the pleasure of working with. She sang with TCS for decades. I invited her to explore with a multi-disciplinary experimental theater and dance group I'd built and I put her on stage with my FEARless shows. She was an asset to both. Before she died, I'd already decided to program her favorite piece sung with us partially as a gift to her, but also because it perfectly sets the theme for this concert. It's our opener and it reminds us that things aren't always easy, Nancy knew this. But she also knew that clinging to the light is what we must do if we are to live lives of peace, of progress, of possibility, and love. There is darkness in this program, yes, but there is also light; so, so much light.

Yours in song, – Kevin Quigley, Director, Thetford Chamber Singers 

Spring 2019 Concert Recap

The Thetford Chamber Singers is an amazing Upper Valley chorus that performs the widest set of repertoire imaginable.

Our Spring program in 2019, The Journey, was all about growth. Looking towards life as a challenge and adventure, we began with Henry Purcell’s “Come if You Dare!” With the fearlessness of a child engaged in energetic play, we dove into life ready for anything. Sweet Honey in the Rock’s setting of Gibran’s “On Children” reminded us as caretakers of these growers our job is not only to keep them safe, but to provide the room they need become who they are, not who we would wish them to be. Following those were three secular Amish songs, four pieces by contemporary, living composers (including James Taylor’s “That Lonesome Road”) that explore the introduction of doubt, fear, love, and what we might make of ourselves with their inclusion. We closed the first half with the timely inclusion of Maurice Ravel’s “Trois Chansons” and a Crosby, Stills, Nash sing along.

The second half continued the adventure, but began with a more cautions setting of Whitman by a young Ralph Vaughan Williams: “Toward the Unknown Region,” which climbed to a triumphant climax. Randall Stroope and Thomas Attwood turned our eyes towards living a life of service. Billie Holliday and John Parker brought us home with rousing sentiments of accomplishment and determination.