Give Back: Sisters' Voices shares how it’s helping during holidays

‘The singers learn many songs, and they have multiple opportunities to practice their growing vocal skills using these songs’

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What’s unique about Sisters’ Voices?

Sisters’ Voices is a community of young singers who meet in four ensembles by age, K-8th grade. There is no audition.

Sisters’ Voices’ repertoire is different from many children’s chorus’s in that we focus on world folk music, and in that we approach many of the songs without arrangement. The singers learn many songs, and they have multiple opportunities to practice their growing vocal skills using these songs. As singers gain experience, they learn songs in parts — first canons, then increasingly complex pieces with more vocal parts.

How is your organization involved in the community?

Prior to COVID-19, we sang for many community events, including Chatham Habitat for Humanity celebrations, Carrboro Music Festival, Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music & Dance, Pittsboro Street Fair, Day of the Books/El Día de los Libros, and others. We hope to return to performing in person, and to engaging in the community’s celebrations, as we reemerge in person after the COVID-19 crisis.

How has the pandemic changed your program and your organization?

Sisters’ Voices has always hoped to reach many young singers. “Expansion” meant including more singers. Today, our vision includes smaller ensembles of singers where participants can make close friends and have a great deal of individualized attention. “Expansion” now means we develop our program more deeply, meeting more frequently, deliberately including mindfulness exercises, a clearer progression of musical skills for individuals, and ways of using our voices that are not singing — writing, including the singers in the development of the repertoire and how it’s presented, and discussion sessions for the middle school singers that allow them to hear from each other and express their own ideas on topics that are important to them today.

How can people support Sisters’ Voices?

www.sistersvoices.org

Sisters’ Voices is supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Sisters’ Voices is also supported by generous grants from Strowd Roses, the Youth Pro Musica Fund of Triangle Community Foundation, and many individual donors.

We are deeply grateful for your interest and support of our work.