MINNEAPOLIMEDIA NEWS FEATURE | From Neighborhood Voices to 200 Singers and 12 Harps, VocalEssence Opens a Season Built Around Singing Together

As VocalEssence begins its 58th season, the Minnesota choral institution is stretching the idea of who gets to make music together, bringing teenagers, older adults, community singers, Black storytelling traditions, new Minnesota compositions and monumental choral works into one unusually expansive season.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (October 3, 2026).

Three weeks before more than 200 singers, a full symphony orchestra and 12 harps fill the Cathedral of Saint Paul for the official opening of VocalEssence's 58th season, another part of the organization will be singing Saturday afternoon in a considerably more intimate setting.

At Trinity Lutheran Church of Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Southside Singers will join VocalEssence's Sabathani Vintage Voices for Freedom and Unity for All, a free community concert beginning at 2 p.m. Admission carries no ticket price. Organizers are accepting a freewill offering and encouraging those attending to bring nonperishable food for a food shelf.

The difference in scale between the two performances could hardly be greater. Saturday's concert places community singers inside an intimate neighborhood church. On October 30, hundreds of singers will join a full orchestra, organ and 12 harps inside the Cathedral of Saint Paul for Hector Berlioz's monumental Te Deum, a work whose size and musical architecture make use of the cathedral's expansive acoustics.

Those two performances, despite their differences, provide a useful entry point into VocalEssence's 2026–2027 season and the increasingly broad definition of choral participation reflected in its programming.

Founded in 1969 and still led artistically by founder Philip Brunelle, VocalEssence has organized its 58th season around a familiar phrase, "Together We Sing." Across the season, that idea extends beyond the VocalEssence Chorus and Ensemble Singers to teenagers, older adults, neighborhood singers and schoolchildren. The programming moves between European masterworks, contemporary commissions, African and African American storytelling traditions, hip-hop and music created in Minnesota, while community programs continue outside the organization's major concert productions.

The breadth raises a practical question that runs through much of the season: Who gets to participate in choral music? VocalEssence's programming suggests an answer that extends well beyond professionally trained singers performing for seated audiences.

Saturday's Freedom and Unity for All concert offers one example. Sabathani Vintage Voices is part of VocalEssence's broader Vintage Voices program, which is now in its 11th year and establishes choirs in partnership with senior communities and community organizations. Previous singing experience is not required, and participants do more than learn established repertoire. Singers have contributed poetry, personal reflections and narration that become part of their performances.

The structure gives older adults an active role in creating the work presented to audiences rather than limiting their participation to attending arts programs. Vintage Voices will continue through November with community-centered performances in Plymouth, Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

VocalEssence Singers Of This Age, commonly known as SOTA, works at another point in the generational spectrum. The ensemble brings together teenagers from across the Twin Cities and gives them opportunities to perform challenging repertoire, work with established musicians and participate in musical experiences beyond their individual schools. Earlier this year, 37 SOTA singers traveled to Philadelphia for the ensemble's first tour outside the Midwest, including work at Temple University and participation in a performance involving Weather, a composition responding to the murder of George Floyd.

On October 12, SOTA will participate in the 2026 Urban Choir Festival at Landmark Center in Saint Paul. Approximately 100 students representing nearly 20 Twin Cities schools are expected to participate. The festival, established in 2019, will hold its first concert performance in Saint Paul this year, with composer B.E. Boykin serving as composer-in-residence and guest conductor. The program reaches across musical traditions, including music connected to South Africa and Somalia.

Taken together, SOTA and Vintage Voices demonstrate how VocalEssence has extended choral participation across generations. Teenagers are given opportunities to develop as serious musical participants while older adults continue creating and performing, sometimes contributing their own writing and personal reflections to the work. The programs differ in age, repertoire and setting, but both are built around the premise that participation in music does not belong to a particular stage of life.

The official concert season moves into dramatically different territory on October 30.

Lineage: French Choral Masterworks will bring more than 200 singers, a full symphony orchestra and 12 harps to the Cathedral of Saint Paul for Berlioz's Te Deum. The cathedral's architecture will become part of the performance as organ and orchestra respond to one another across the nave, using the building's scale and acoustics as part of the musical experience.

The first half of the program traces relationships among generations of French composers, including Charles-Marie Widor, Marcel Dupré, Maurice Duruflé, Francis Poulenc and Pierre Villette. The program's exploration of musical lineage also fits a season in which VocalEssence repeatedly places different generations of singers, composers and traditions in conversation with one another.

The scale of Lineage will make it one of the most visually and musically imposing events on the VocalEssence calendar, but the contrast with programs such as Vintage Voices is also instructive. VocalEssence operates simultaneously as a presenter of large choral repertoire and an organization that creates opportunities for community participation. The same season can therefore encompass a Berlioz production requiring hundreds of performers and a neighborhood concert featuring older adults who may have entered a choir without previous formal singing experience.

That relationship between established traditions and contemporary expression becomes especially prominent in February with WITNESS: The Poet Sings.

For decades, VocalEssence's WITNESS program has used music and education to explore African American history and culture. The 2027 installment will examine storytelling across generations and forms, connecting the West African tradition of the griot with African American poets, spoken-word artists, rappers and contemporary storytellers.

The February 28 concert at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis will feature Minneapolis hip-hop artist Nur-D alongside the VocalEssence Chorus, Singers Of This Age and Vintage Voices. Rather than presenting the griot, poet, spoken-word artist and rapper as unrelated forms, the program examines the ways language, rhythm, memory and performance have been used to carry stories within and between generations.

The work extends beyond the concert hall. VocalEssence's corresponding WITNESS school program will introduce students to historical West African griots alongside contemporary storytellers, while young people's concerts are scheduled at Orchestra Hall on February 26 with free admission for participating students. The Black Owned Business and Storytellers Showcase will also return as part of the broader WITNESS experience.

That educational component gives students historical context for what they encounter in performance and places the February concert within a larger examination of storytelling, memory and cultural continuity. WITNESS therefore functions as more than a Black History Month concert on the annual schedule. Its school programming connects the music presented onstage to the history and cultural traditions from which the program draws.

The 2026–2027 season also continues VocalEssence's longstanding investment in new music. Since its founding, the organization says its performance series has presented more than 350 commissions and world premieres.

Minnesota composer Shruthi Rajasekar will contribute to that history during the December Welcome Christmas concerts. VocalEssence commissioned Rajasekar to create a new setting of poetry by Christina Rossetti, with the work scheduled to receive its world premiere during performances December 11 and 12. The commission places a new work by a Minnesota composer within one of VocalEssence's established holiday traditions.

The organization returns to contemporary composition in May with Temptation to Tranquility at Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis. The program pairs Gabriel Fauré's Requiem with the Midwest premiere of SEVEN: A Cycle of Sins, a VocalEssence co-commission bringing together composer and lyricist teams working across opera, Broadway, jazz and experimental music.

That combination of established repertoire and new work has been part of VocalEssence's identity for decades. The organization continues to perform music that has survived across generations while commissioning composers whose work adds to the repertoire available to future singers and audiences.

The winter and spring calendar further demonstrates that range. VocalEssence will perform Bach's Christmas Oratorio in December, followed a week later by its annual Welcome Christmas concerts. On April 16, the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, one of the world's best-known choral institutions, is scheduled to perform at the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

Across the season, Berlioz, Bach and Fauré share an institutional calendar with contemporary commissions, hip-hop, spoken word, teenage singers, older adults and community choirs. The programming does not abandon the European choral tradition on which much of the concert repertoire is built. Instead, VocalEssence places that repertoire alongside new compositions and community programs that broaden the range of people and musical traditions represented within the organization.

That approach also provides context for VocalEssence's collaboration with singer, composer and vocal activist Melanie DeMore on How to Hold On: Songs of Comfort and Solace, a 14-track recording with the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers. The album was released in September 2025 rather than as part of the new season, but the project remains relevant to the organization's continuing interest in communal singing as a source of connection and participation.

The idea does not require treating music as an answer to the social and personal difficulties people carry with them. VocalEssence's programming frequently acknowledges those realities directly. What communal singing can provide is an opportunity for people to participate in something with others, whether that occurs inside a major concert hall, a senior community, a school, a neighborhood church or a rehearsal room.

The organization is also entering its 58th season amid changes in leadership beyond the stage. VocalEssence recently added six members to its Board of Directors, bringing experience in executive leadership, human resources, marketing, philanthropy and arts governance. Brunelle has described the appointments partly in terms of connecting VocalEssence with new voices and networks, while Executive Director Amy Jaine Wielunski has emphasized the range of professional experience the new members bring.

For an organization founded in 1969, the new season reflects both continuity and adaptation. VocalEssence retains the large-scale choral repertoire and commissioning tradition that have defined much of its history while continuing to develop programs that bring different generations and communities into the work. The significance of that approach is visible not through any single concert, but through the range of people participating across the season.

SOTA teenagers who traveled to Philadelphia earlier this year will now sing alongside students from nearly 20 Twin Cities schools at the Urban Choir Festival. Older adults participating in Vintage Voices can contribute not only their voices but their own writing to performances. WITNESS will connect schoolchildren with the history of West African griots and contemporary Black storytelling before bringing those traditions into Orchestra Hall with Nur-D and multiple VocalEssence ensembles. Rajasekar will add a newly commissioned Minnesota work to an organization that has presented hundreds of premieres, while Lineage will demonstrate that VocalEssence remains equally willing to undertake the logistical and artistic demands of monumental choral repertoire.

Together, those programs provide a more complete definition of what "Together We Sing" means as VocalEssence begins its 58th season. The phrase encompasses professional and community performers, young people and older adults, historical repertoire and newly created work. It also places some of the organization's most consequential activity outside the traditional boundaries of a major concert performance.

That is why Saturday's Freedom and Unity for All is more than a preliminary event before the official October 30 season opener. The Minneapolis Southside Singers and Sabathani Vintage Voices will gather at Trinity Lutheran Church of Minnehaha Falls for a free afternoon concert while, elsewhere in the organization, preparations continue for Berlioz, Bach, WITNESS, new commissions and the arrival of the Choir of King's College.

The settings and musical demands are very different, but both belong to the same VocalEssence season. After 58 years, the organization is still presenting major choral works to Minnesota audiences while expanding the opportunities for people to participate in the act of singing itself.

IF YOU GO

Freedom and Unity for All

When: Saturday, October 3, 2026, 2 p.m.

Where: Trinity Lutheran Church of Minnehaha Falls, 5212 41st Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55417

Featuring: Minneapolis Southside Singers and VocalEssence Sabathani Vintage Voices

Admission: Free. A freewill offering will be accepted.

Community support: Attendees are encouraged to bring nonperishable food for donation to a food shelf.

#MinneapoliMedia #ThisWeekendInTheTwinCities™

❤️ SUPPORT MINNEAPOLIMEDIA

STAY CONNECTED TO MINNEAPOLIMEDIA

Local stories matter. Subscribe free to MinneapoliMedia and receive independent news, community reporting and important updates from Minneapolis, the North Metro and communities across Minnesota.

SUBSCRIBE FREE: https://minneapolimedia.town.news/subscribe

MinneapoliMedia | Community. Culture. Civic Life