mike horanski | Vienna Choral Society

The Sounds, And Musical Riches, Of The Season

December 14, 2017

We are blessed with a wealth of music to pick at any time. But during the holidays we have an embarrassment of riches from many traditions. Some, like The Dream Isaiah Saw, are reflective of deeply held spirituality. Others like I Wish You Christmas reflect the warmth and community human beings have always built in face of season or circumstance. And on Tuesday it was particularly striking to hear the choir sing Hanerot Halalu as our rehearsal coincided with the first night of Hanukkah and the first real cold snap of the season. Throughout the evening, the room came alive with sound. Sometimes in unison, sometimes in overtone, always beautiful.

And that was just us.

This weekend the room is going to positively ring with amazing, joyful music when we will be joined by talented voices from the Oakton Singers — directed by Tiffany Powell, and an orchestra of some of the best youth musicians in the state. Our director, Mike Horanski is especially excited to welcome Andrew Hitz, who used to play with the Boston Brass, and is “one of the best tuba players on the planet.”

Do you have tickets?

We sing Sounds of the Season: Rutter’s Gloria! on December 16, 2017 at 4:30 pm in the beautiful sanctuary of Annandale United Methodist Church (6935 Columbia Pike, Annandale, VA 22003).

Tickets are $25/adults, $20/seniors(65+) and students (15-18). Youth aged 14 and younger always attend for free when accompanied by a ticket holding patron. And we absolutely encourage kids to attend.

Tickets are available online until 11:30 pm on Friday, December 15, 2017.
After that they will be available at the door. The box office opens at 3:30 pm.

Do join us! We’d love to sing for you!

The Universe, In Surround Sound

October 10, 2017

We sing SURROUND SOUND, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2017 – 7:30 PM at Vienna Baptist Church (541 Marshall Rd SW, Vienna VA 22180).

Tickets are available now through your friends in the choir, or online.

And what a repertoire we have in store for you!

The name of our concert may suggest the modern movie soundtrack, but no – we’re saving that for later in the season. Rather, this concert is about the music that surrounds us. Every day. You don’t have to be Julie Andrews on a mountain top, but the world around us is alive with music and art.

How do you find it amid the din of the Metro or the clatter of the cafeteria? Where and when do you look up at the sky and hear the sounds the universe holds in its ancient rhythms?

It helps to have a harmony of voices to hear the immensity of a vast eternal sky, or the clarity of an unclouded day. It definitely helps to have the right voices to hear the loud silences of deserts or capture our fragility against Mother Nature’s great unknown. Which is why we are delighted to sing this concert alongside our guests from James Madison High School – the Madison Chorus directed by Claire Rowan, and the Madison Chamber Orchestra directed by Erin Eberly.

In fact, thanks to your generosity in the 2017-18 Friends of VCS campaign, every concert this season will feature guests – youth and emerging musicians. It is in keeping with our place in this community as a teaching choir, where the next generation of music lovers and music professionals will find their place and polish their craft.

Help us to give them a stage, and let us surround you with great music, evocative of a world much bigger than the concert stage.

Do join us!

TICKETS ARE ON SALE NOW
Get them through friends in the choir or online.
$25 for adults, $20 for seniors (60+) and students (15 – 18).
Youth 14 and younger attend for FREE when accompanied by a paying ticket holder.
Online sales end 11:30 pm, Friday, October 20, 2017.
Tickets will be available at the door starting 6:45pm

Requiem – “But Joy Comes In The Morning Light”

March 2, 2017

Dan Forrest’s choral masterwork Requiem For The Living, which inspired our next concert with its magnificent music and uplifting message is truly unique, and departs in many ways from the traditional requiem.

In the composer’s own words, it starts simply and builds on long, floating melodic lines, ultimately moving towards an exhilarating closing section that portrays light, peace, and rest.

One of the loveliest lines of the concert—“But joy comes in the morning light”— isn’t in the requiem. Instead, as our artistic director Mike Horanski explains, you will hear music about life’s total journey. Of all its hopes and dreams and adventures. Because music helps us express emotions in ways that words and individuals may not be able to, building community when we help each other celebrate life’s joys and giving comfort to one another. [Read more…]

Requiem, A Concert For A Cause – A Soft Place To Land

February 15, 2017

This concert is about carving out a soft place to land. Whether it’s the part-time second job, a friend’s couch, or a moment of music on our iPhones, it’s what we need to keep going. Often, that’s what keeps us from falling harder and getting back up.

In the DC Metro area, and especially in Fairfax County, where VCS started, we are blessed with resources that allow us many places of “rest.” And because of that, most of us get back up.

Can you imagine having to face the daily fight without the things that allow us to cope?

Two years ago, through his work with Sydney Guillaume — whose Musique we sang in October 2016 — Mike got to know about BLUME Haiti. The US-based nonprofit uses music as a tool to create an opportunity to transform the life trajectory of children in Haiti, awakening potential and developing leadership skills. But in a place that has the temerity to continue existing despite immense odds, the kids lacked basics. As Mike puts it, “The music stands meant taping sheet music to the back of the kid in front of you.”

Haiti has a rich cultural history and heritage that gets completely overshadowed. And just as the country was getting back up on its feet after the 2010 earthquake, Hurricane Matthew plowed through. We can think of no better partnership in this season’s concert for a cause than to partner with BLUME Haiti.

Please join us!

We sing REQUIEM FOR THE LIVING at 7:30 pm, Saturday, March 11, 2017 at Vienna Baptist Church (541 Marshall Road SW, Vienna, VA 22180).

Adults $25
Seniors/Students $20
Youth (14 and younger) FREE when accompanying a ticket payer

Tickets are now available online and through the choir.

Sounds Of The Season: The Instilled Hopefulness Of Music

November 16, 2016

VCS is a pretty mixed lot. High school freshmen and octogenarians, homebodies and world travelers, newcomers and long timers who remember life before Tysons Corner, tea drinkers and coffee mainliners. We come from all walks and persuasions of life. And we rehearse on Tuesday nights. Which means we rehearsed on election night.

Presciently, our AD, Mike Horanski – who has, from Day 1, envisioned joyous community through music – took a few minutes before warm-up to talk to us. “Think of how you feel when you sing, and when you hear music. There is joy. But there is also an instilled hopefulness and beauty in singing, and unless you experience it, you don’t know it. I can’t help thinking how different things would be if we could all have more of that.”

I thought of his words as I sat in a concert last last weekend. It began with a piece I sang years ago with VCS, and another choir. As the singers’ voices rang out in an old church with high ceilings and great acoustics, there was joy at beloved notes never forgotten. There was peace between canons. There was rest when all the voices and chords finally resolved.

Music doesn’t just express what we can’t put in words. It brings us together like few other things can, and leaves us lighter.

Next month, we sing SOUNDS OF THE SEASON, 4:30 pm, Saturday, December 17, 2016 at Vienna Baptist Church. We will sing the sacred and the secular, beloved favorites and new classics, and of an old story and a season where life and community are fragile – only if we allow it.

We hope you will join us. And find your own moments of joy, peace, and rest.

Tickets are now available online and via choir members.

Adults – general admission – $25
Seniors(65+)/Students(15 – 18) – $20
Youth (14 and younger) – FREE, if accompanied by a ticket holder

See you in a few weeks,

Sohini Baliga
Executive Director, VCS

Our First Top Ten List With Mike Horanski

October 19, 2016

We’re less than a week to our first concert with Mike Horanski – The Call Of Music. The excitement is ratcheting up, and we all file in to rehearsals for our the first show week with Mike!

Of course things worthy of a now traditional VCS Top Ten list happened. Or rather, were said. Because if there is one thing we now look forward to, it’s the Mike-isms, often movie-related.

Here is a top ten: [Read more…]

And The Season Begins!

September 7, 2016

I trust your summer was good? Ours was incredibly eventful! In the last month especially, we’ve done what usually takes a leisurely few months, years even: Getting to know our new artistic director, Mike Horanski and accompanist, Melvin Goodwyn, and helping them get to know (some 90 of) us. Most important, we rolled up our collective sleeves to support Mike as he hit the ground running to plan the season.

Planning the VCS season is something that usually happens between March and June over a multitude of coffees, email conversations, and random texts. It takes talking and dreaming and time and perspective. But for Mike, and for us, there was no doubt that the 2016-17 season would be about joyous community through music.

It’s safe to say that we are all ready for an antidote to the unsettling and polarizing times in which we find ourselves. Every last one of us can benefit from more places where we put aside differences to share more experiences that bring us closer. Everyone today could use more joy in their community.

At VCS, we know for a fact that few things accomplish that goal like an inspiring, shared music experience. We see that every Tuesday when our singers leave rehearsals energized to tackle the week. We hear it after every concert when you tell us that you were inspired by what you heard, and are reassured that there is a community that shares your experience.

Which is why we begin this season with The Call Of Music and end with It’s A Grand Night For Singing. In December, it will be our pleasure to sing Sounds Of The Season. And our spring concert, which has developed into a moment of quiet but rich music, will feature challenging, classical, and contemplative repertoire in a Requiem For The Living.

It is going to be a wonderful, inclusive, uniting, joyous, uniquely VCS experience once again. Please join us!

The best way to be part of the VCS experience is to become a Friend of VCS. We run this annual fundraising campaign each September to raise funds from individuals who love the arts and wish to support us. As a sign of our appreciation for your support, every Friend, at any level of donation, receives:

Early notice of special events and pre-concert talks.
Discounts at participating retailers. This year we are delighted to tell you that in addition to Caffe Amouri and Donatos Pizza, Cocoa Vienna has joined us as a participating retailer!
NEW! We’re also very excited to tell you that this year, we are introducing a special benefit. Become a Friend of VCS, and we’ll give you a Companion Certificate – one free ticket to bring a friend or companion to see and experience any one VCS concert.

Friends who give over $100 are treated to a complimentary season ticket and reserved seating.

Additionally, all Friends are thanked on our website and in our concert programs.

Becoming a Friend of VCS is very easy. Talk to friends in the choir, give online, or send us a check made out to Vienna Choral Society with “Friends of VCS” in the memo line. Our address is PO Box 310, Vienna, VA 22183.

No matter the level at which you become a Friend or join us on show night –THANK YOU. We very much hope to see you this season. You are who we sing for, and who we can’t do without.

Here’s to another season of music, joy, and community!

Announcing Our New Artistic Director – Mike Horanski

August 3, 2016

Mike Horanski

On behalf of the Board of Directors, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Vienna Choral Society’s new artistic director – Mike Horanski.

When we announced our search for a new artistic director in the spring, the response was overwhelming and swift. Impressive as Mike’s resume and depth of experience looked on paper, he was even better at the full choir audition. He brought thoughtfulness and agility to the room. He established rapport quickly, showing us he could adapt on a dime. Plus he made us laugh. Always a bonus! Unsurprisingly, Mike was the Board’s unanimous choice.

Over the years, VCS has carved out a distinctive niche of creative programming. We’re the excellent non-audition choir that welcomes singers of all levels and attracts audiences of all ages. We cherish our local roots but now attract region-wide performance partnerships that range from local elementary school choirs to major organizations like the National Weather Service and the American Red Cross. And we go well beyond our unique concerts such as Text and Sound to plan and pull off a hugely successful, creatively staged classic like Carmina Burana. Every VCS concert tells a story, marries art with real life in Concerts for a Cause and – hopefully – leaves you as refreshed and inspired as we feel when the show’s over.

Mike gets all of that. In fact, the first thing Jennifer Rodgers, our beloved former artistic director said about Mike’s arrival was, “VCS is in good hands.”

We cannot wait to see what VCS’ next chapter will be with Mike, starting next month. And we cannot wait to sing again for you under his artistic leadership.

Stay tuned for details on our 2016-17 season!

Sincerely,

Sohini Baliga
Executive Director,
VCS

The Sounds, And Musical Riches, Of The Season

The Universe, In Surround Sound

Requiem – “But Joy Comes In The Morning Light”

Requiem, A Concert For A Cause – A Soft Place To Land

Sounds Of The Season: The Instilled Hopefulness Of Music

Our First Top Ten List With Mike Horanski

And The Season Begins!

Announcing Our New Artistic Director – Mike Horanski

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