Lyrics: Ooo, Oh, Ahh
Program Notes | STANCE is very pleased to be premiering a new piece by one of our very own singers, Katie Vitale. The composer writes: “I was standing in the middle of a dress rehearsal for a choir concert, I looked at the concert hall around me. This hall had a unique feature; a catwalk-like balcony that fully encircled the hall. As I stood on the stage and took in the sight and design of this room, an idea of a piece of music equally designed to take advantage of that space began to form. The larger piece, Spaaaace! was born in that moment. Fifteen long years later, inspiration has finally become reality. Orbit is the first completed movement from that original idea. The title Spaaaace! is a double entendre. Musically, I wanted to explore changing the spatial aspect of choral performance. I wanted to take the three-dimensional surround-sound experience, and apply it to a live, acoustic performance. Thematically, I have chosen outer space to model the exploration I have undertaken in this project. My theme for Orbit is to capture those first few moments after entering orbit around our planet, and that deeply magical moment looking out the window the first time and seeing Earth from the wider perspective. Seeing it from the outside, instead of the surface. Tonight, you will literally hear the choir orbit around you with their song. It will be frightfully chaotic, beautifully harmonic, and it may just surprise you in the end. Please enjoy our premiere of Orbit.”
Thank you for joining us at our Spring 2024 concert, True Colors.
A note from our Artistic Director
Welcome, distinguished guests, to STANCE’s 2024 Pride concert, True Colors! It has been quite the journey getting to this point; so far in 2024, we have performed at Benaroya Hall as featured guests of our community partner and sponsor Rainbow City Performing Arts, Vashon Center for the Arts as part of the inaugural Kay White Invitational Choral Festival, and the Museum of Flight as part of their “Sally’s Day” celebration of Sally Ride and space exploration. We’ve also put on a Talent Show, an auction, and a clothing swap, and performed at our wonderful sponsor TRACTION’s “Vibes!” concert. All of which to say, we have been quite busy spreading Trans joy all over the greater Seattle area.
This particular concert is intended not only as a celebration of Pride, but a celebration of diversity – diversity of styles, of backgrounds, of race, of gender, of thought, and so on. As such, this program features a wide array of music from composers of many different eras, geographical origins, languages, and choral traditions. We hope you’ll enjoy this intentionally eclectic selection of music showcasing how wonderfully varied and rich the art of choral music is.
Much love (and happy Pride!),
Kaelee Alicia Bolme
Artistic Director and Conductor
Lyrics: Leonora Speyer
Program Notes | Known for her soaring compositional style, Elaine Hagenberg has become one of the most popular choral composers writing today. She has won awards for her compositions and her work is performed all over the world by choirs of all levels. She also works as clinician, conductor, and accompanist. Measure Me, Sky! was commissioned by the 2022 Choirs of America Festival, and is a perfect example of what she does so well in her writing. As the publisher aptly describes it, “Ascending vocal lines stretch across a driving accompaniment as if reaching out to grasp the expanse depicted in the lyrics. Building through key changes and motives, it arrives at its final brilliant chord, reflecting "Loveliness, wings for my flight"!” Leonora Speyer was born in 1872 in Washington, D.C., the daughter of a Prussian officer who fought for the Union during the Civil War. Also noted as a violinist, she began writing in 1915 and discovered a love of expressing herself via poetry. She went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1927 for her poetry collection Fiddler’s Farewell. The poem Measure Me, Sky! is brief and simple but powerful in its immediacy and earnestness, and with Hagenberg’s gorgeous writing, truly soars.
Lyrics | Measure me, sky! Tell me I reach by a song Nearer the stars; I have been little so long. Horizon, reach out! Catch at my hands, stretch me taut, Rim of the world: Widen my eyes by a thought. Sky, be my depth, Wind, be my width and my height, World, my heart’s span; Loveliness, wings for my flight.
Lyrics: William Butler Yeats
Program Notes | Mari Esabel Valverde is an award-winning composer in steady demand in the United States and internationally. She has also built a reputation as a singer, educator, adjudicator, and translator, and has worked as a high school classical voice instructor and as a specialist in transgender voice training. A native of North Texas, she holds degrees from St. Olaf College, the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, France, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. This piece is a setting of the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet W.B. Yeats’s 1899 poem, “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”. The speaker of the poem is Aedh, one of Yeats’s “principles of the mind”, an archetypal construct who represents the lovelorn hero. This poem has been referenced in quite a wide variety of media, including the 2002 Christian Bale film Equilibrium. Interestingly, while secular in nature, this setting was initially miscategorized as “sacred” by the publisher, presumably because the word “Heaven” was in the title. (See the article “An Atheist Composer on Choral Music” on New Music USA for more details.) The composer writes, “When I look back on the text, I find myself. I find a sacrificial love that is beautiful, but also painful – a love that is certain but longs to break from its hopelessness and finally connect with bliss. I composed The Cloths of Heaven during a month of study in Paris, surrounded by the history and beauty of France. No matter the surrounding, this poem draws me fiercely inward.”
Lyrics | Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths Enwrought with golden and silver light The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Lyrics: Name(s)
Program Notes | Florence Price was a Black American composer from the early 20th century, notable not only as the first Black woman to have her work performed by a major orchestra, but also as one of the earliest composers to use the sounds of blues and spirituals in a western classical context inspired by the Romantic composers of the era. After her death in 1953, her music was "lost" (in that the white classical music world essentially lost interest and chose not to preserve it) until a large amount of her manuscripts were found in 2009 in an abandoned house in Illinois which she used to use as a summer home. While little information is available about the original writing of Resignation, the text, reflecting Price's deeply held spiritual beliefs, contains direct references to the Bible, specifically the story of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus (referred to as the "Master" – with a capital M) taught his followers the Lord's Prayer. She uses these cultural references – which would have been widely understood at the time of writing – to compose what would have, at the time, been a new sound for a western art song, taking the harmonic and thematic stylings of a slavery-era spiritual and reframing them in a broader context for a wider audience.
Lyrics | My life is a pathway of sorrow; I’ve struggled and toiled in the sun with hope that the dawn of tomorrow would break on a work that is done. My Master has pointed the way, he taught me in prayer to say: “Lord, give us this day and our daily bread.” I hunger, yet I shall be fed. My feet, they are wounded and dragging; My body is tortured with pain; My heart, it is shattered and flagging, What matter, if, Heaven I gain. Of happiness once I have tasted; ‘Twas only an instant it paused tho’ brief was the hour that I wasted For ever the woe that it caused I’m tired and want to go home. My mother and sister are there; They’re waiting for me to come Where mansions are bright and fair.
Arrangement: Mac Huff
Program Notes | In the 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine set out to tell the (fictionalized) story of the French painter Georges Seurat, having been inspired by his painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Painted over the course of two years, A Sunday Afternoon is approximately 6.5 feet by 10 feet in size, and is one of the most famous examples of pointillism – a technique in which tiny dots on a canvas are painted to create a larger image. The song “Sunday” comes at the end of the first act, after all of the primary subjects of the piece have been introduced and are finally being put in their places in the painting. This selection takes a slightly more literal interpretation of the concert title “True Colors”. In it, the water is described as “blue purple yellow red” and “triangular”, the grass as “green purple yellow red” and “elliptical”, the park a “green orange violet mass” – references to the techniques employed in the painting, and the artistic tenets espoused by Georges throughout the musical: Order, Design, Tension, Composition, Balance, Light, Harmony. One of Sondheim’s most enduring musical numbers from one of his most complicated and interesting shows, Sunday is a testament to his legacy as one of the premiere artists in the history of musical theatre.
Lyrics | Sunday, by the blue purple yellow red water on the green purple yellow red grass Let us pass through our perfect park pausing on a Sunday By the cool blue triangular water on the soft green elliptical grass as we pass through arrangements of shadow toward the verticals of trees Forever . . . By the blue purple yellow red water on the green orange violet mass of the grass In our perfect park made of flecks of light and dark and parasols People strolling through the trees of a small suburban park on an island in the river on and ordinary Sunday Sunday . . . Sunday
Arrangement: Ethan Sperry
Program Notes | A.R. Rahman is an Indian composer best known for the music he writes for films. In the western world, he is probably most recognizable for his work on Danny Boyle’s films Slumdog Millionaire (for which he won two Oscars) and 127 Hours, as well as the music he wrote for the cult Lord of the Rings stage musical (which will be receiving a new production in Chicago next month, with an international tour to follow). The piece Zikr: An Islamic Chant comes from a 2004 Hindi-language film called Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero, a 5-hour war epic about a controversial Indian Independence leader during World War II. Arranger Ethan Sperry writes of the piece, “While the text of ZIKR is religious, the piece is not intended for a worship ceremony. It is based upon the music of the whirling dervishes, Sufi Muslim musicians who perform this style of music from Egypt across the Silk Road to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Thailand, and Malaysia. In this style, the musicians pick a chant and elaborate upon it while dancers spin in a circle. As the tempo of the music increases, the dancers spin faster and faster hoping to achieve a trance-like state in which they can commune with the divine. This arrangement begins with the chant melody sung monophonically, with other sections of the choir chanting “Hu Allah” (God is One). The chant develops into simple polyphony and eventually to several melodies superimposed on top of each other.”
Lyrics | English Translation from Urdu Light of Muhammad, may peace be upon him. There is no other truth except Allah. Allah is one. O, those of you who are thirsting, come, the Oneness of Allah calls you! There is no action superior to Zikr. is the saying of the prophet of Allah! Zikr is Peace, Zikr is Victory, Zikr is Healing, Zikr is the Cure. Allah is the only Eternal and Immortal-all else perishes and is returned to Him. Light of Muhammad, may peace be upon him. There is no other truth except Allah. In every flower, in every soul, in every creation is the Light of Allah. May Allah's Zikr stay in every single heart and every single moment. Zikr is better than hatred. Zikr is better than ignorance. Zikr is better than desires. Zikr is better than back-biting. Light of Muhammad, may peace be upon him. There is no other truth except Allah. O you the Amazing, O you the Eternal, O you the Beginning, O you the End. O you the Forebearing, O you the Gracious, O you the Greatest, O you the Merciful. O you the Benificent, O you the Great. O you who teaches us to read. Light of Muhammad, may peace be upon him. There is no other truth except Allah.
Soloist(s)
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Emmalyn King
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We will be back after a 15 minute intermission.
Program Notes | Astor Piazzolla was an Argentine bandoneon player and composer, born in 1921 to Italian parents who had immigrated to Argentina in the late 19th century. Piazzolla is known for revolutionizing the composition of tango, fusing Argentine tango with classical harmony and counterpoint and featuring it on the concert stage. This piece, for cello and piano, was featured in the STANCE Talent Show in May and its inclusion (outside of simply as another Very Cool Piece we would like to share with you!) is intended as encouragement to check out fundraising events like the Talent Show in the future, where you can find even more varied and wonderful art, not exclusively of a choral nature (including exclusive performances by our directors)!
Cello
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Rosemary De Luca
Piano
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Kaelee Alicia Bolme
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Music & Lyrics: Camille Saint-Saëns
Program Notes | Camille Saint-Saëns was a French composer on the cusp of the Romantic and “post-Romantic” eras. Though perhaps not the most well-known of names today, a fair amount of his music, such as Le Carnaval des animaux (Carnival of the Animals) is still quite recognizable to modern ears. One of the more conventionally “classical” composers of the era, notable students of his include Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Ravel. This piece, performed by a small subset of STANCE known as “Brain-Brain go Bye-Bye” for our space-themed Museum of Flight performance, organized by STANCE baritone Mitchie Vega. Mitchie writes of this piece, “During the same decades when scientists Williamina Fleming, Caroline Herschel and Annie Jump Cannon were stargazing through telescopes and contemplating the distant worlds, Saint-Saëns was at his organ composing some of the post-romantic era’s beloved sacred and secular works, most famously ‘The Swan’ from Carnival of the Animals and ‘Danse Macabre’. Up until his lifetime, during which we gained more knowledge about how sound waves behave in a vacuum, it was widely believed that the stars, planets and other celestial bodies emitted long, angelic ringing and droning noises called ‘the music of the spheres’. Calme des Nuits is Saint-Saëns’ a capella orchestration of the music of the spheres, and if you are very quiet on a starry night, you just might hear it.”
Lyrics | English translation from French Stillness of the night, cool of the evening, Vast shimmering of the spheres, Great silence of black vaults Deep thinkers delight in you. The bright sun, merriment, And noise amuse the more frivolous; Only the poet is possessed By the love of quiet things.
Performers in Brain-Brain Go Bye-Bye
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Liv MaKennan-Bray
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Yoshi Das
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Rosemary De Luca
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Jade Dikelsky
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Kaelee Alicia Bolme
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Mitchie Peter Vega
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Katie Vitale
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Music & Lyrics: David Bowie
Arrangement: Chip Prince
Program Notes | Another piece from our Museum of Flight concert, the highly recognizable Bowie tune “Space Oddity” likely needs no introduction (nor explanation of how it relates to space). Inspired by the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey, this song was released in 1969, the year Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. It has been widely rereleased and covered, and remains one of the biggest and most enduring hits of Bowie’s long career. Here, it is arranged for TTBB voices by Broadway conductor and pianist, Chip Prince.
Lyrics | Ground Control to Major Tom Ground Control to Major Tom Take your protein pills and put your helmet on (Ten) Ground Control (Nine) To Major Tom (Eight, seven, six) Commencing countdown (Five) Engines on (Four, three, two) Check ignition (One) And may God's love (Lift-off) Be with you This is Ground Control to Major Tom You've really made the grade And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare This is Major Tom to Ground Control I'm stepping through the door And I'm floating in a most peculiar way And the stars look very different today For here am I sitting in a tin can Far above the world Planet Earth is blue And there's nothing I can do Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles I'm feeling very still And I think my spaceship knows which way to go Tell my wife I love her very much She knows Ground Control to Major Tom Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you he— Here am I floating 'round my tin can Far above the Moon Planet Earth is blue And there's nothing I can do
Soloists
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Ada Han
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Morgan Fiskevold
Performers
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fluffy
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Morgana Andersen
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Miranda Deacon
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Jade Dikelsky
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Star Dorminey
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Morgan Fiskevold
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theo geer
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Ada Han
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Taylor Hays
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Adaleigh Martin
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Riley Murphy
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Hannah Oshlag
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Devynn Parkinson-Eagan
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Fern Slater
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Sonya Vasquez
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Victor Westbrook
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Lyrics: Barbara Crooker (from Radiance)
Guest Conductor: Jade Dikelsky
Program Notes | Dale Trumbore is a Los Angeles-based composer and writer whose music has been widely acclaimed. Along with her choral music, she has also written instrumental music, art songs, a ballet, and a book. The composer writes: “Barbara Crooker's poem In the Middle describes the struggle to connect in the rush of ordinary life. In this setting, the piano serves as an unreliable time-keeper, ebbing and flowing as our perception of time does. Sometimes, it pushes us on, frantic; sometimes, the pace relaxes in a moment of peace. The word “time” itself occurs over and over within the piece, serving as a sort of refrain, a reminder to slow down. I first read this poem of Barbara's last summer, at the beach house where my family has gone since I was very young—an annual trip I'd missed, for one reason or another, for the last three years. There, the poem's metaphors were made real—a literal hammock in the backyard, a beach just across the street—and it seemed especially important to set this text. It is so easy to forget, in the context of everyday life, that time will ultimately catch up with all of us. There's no antidote, but in the meantime, we should “take off our watches” more often, finding ourselves “tangled up in love” with another or just with this life, and granting time permission, if not to stop, then to slow.”
Lyrics | In the middle of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's, struggling for balance, juggling time. The mantle clock that was my grandfather's has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still, the chimes don't ring. One day I look out the window, green summer, the next, the leaves have already fallen, and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown, our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn again how to love, between morning's quick coffee and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises, mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between; his tail, a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there, Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches, sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up in love, running out of time.
Lyrics: Billy Steinberg & Tom Kelly
Arrangement: Matthew Brown
Program Notes | Originally performed by Cyndi Lauper, “True Colors” was a number one hit when it was released in mid-1986. Garnering a Grammy award, the song has become something of an anthem in the queer community, its lyrics celebrating people embracing their true selves and worthiness of love, even evoking the image of the rainbow. Matthew Brown’s arrangement is a particularly lush setting of the ballad’s powerful and evocative music and imagery, and we hope that everyone who hears our music takes its message to heart.
Lyrics | You with the sad eyes Don't be discouraged, oh I realize It's hard to take courage In a world full of people You can lose sight of it all The darkness inside you Can make you feel so small Show me a smile then Don't be unhappy Can't remember when I last saw you laughing This world makes you crazy And you've taken all you can bear Just call me up 'Cause I will always be there And I see your true colors Shining through I see your true colors And that's why I love you So don't be afraid to let them show Your true colors True colors are beautiful I see your true colors Shining through (true colors) I see your true colors And that's why I love you So don't be afraid to let them show Your true colors True colors are beautiful (they're beautiful) Like a rainbow Oh oh oh oh oh like a rainbow Ooh can't remember when I last saw you laughing Ooh oh oh oh This world makes you crazy And you've taken all you can bear Just call me up 'Cause I will always be there And I see your true colors Shining through I see your true colors And that's why I love you So don't be afraid (don't be afraid) To let them show your true colors True colors are beautiful (you're beautiful, oh) Like a rainbow Oh oh oh oh oh like a rainbow Mmm mmm
Soloist(s)
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Hannah Oshlag
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Liv MaKennan-Bray
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Lyrics: Sydney Guillaume & Martine Joseph
Program Notes | Sydney Guillaume is a Haitian-American composer who currently resides in Portland, Oregon, where he works as a full-time composer, conductor, and clinician. His choral music, often written in Haitian Creole, is noted for its distinct, intricate rhythmic qualities and striking, memorable melodies. His music often celebrates the culture of his native country of Haiti, and the rousing, spirited piece "Kanaval" is no exception. Guillaume writes of Kanaval: "Like many other countries, Haiti has a carnival season that is intensely celebrated with three huge party days that end on Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). In 2011, the last president of Haiti who happened to be one of the country's top pop stars, decided to have two carnival seasons. I benefited from that in the summer of 2014 when I experienced the summer Carnaval Des Fleurs in Port-au-Prince. This was after 20 years since the last time I went to a carnival. It was one of my favorite moments in Haiti that summer. The decorations, the music, the joy of the people, the Rara bands, the costumes, the floats... they all inspired me to write a choral piece about one of the greatest treasures of the Haitian culture, its 'Kanaval'."
Lyrics | Haitian Creole Leve, leve, leve li jou… jodia se kanaval! An’n rasanble, an’n selebre… Souke tchatcha, danse Rara… Leve, leve, leve li jou… jodia se kanaval! Timoun yo degize, granmoun yo eksite, Madigra, chaloska ap defile, Ala yon bèl epòk, Moun anwo, moun anba fè yon sèl… Se kanaval! Kanaval la rive! Avanse… pa frape! Pa pouse! Sote, ponpe jan ou vle, Kale dada’w, danse jan’w vle… Se kanaval! Mezanmi pa gen manti nan sa, se fete n’ap fete, Mereng yo byen chofe, gade kijan’n kontan! Mezanmi pa gen manti nan sa, se fete n’ap fete, Tout moun ap banboche, gade kijan’n kontan! Timoun yo degize, granmoun yo eksite, Madigra, chaloska ap defile… Se kanaval! Mete de men anlè! (ou-we!) Mete drapo anlè! Mete mouchwa anlè! Kanaval la rive! Chak ane s’on randevou, Twa jou lanmou, twa jou lajwa. Chak ane s’on bèl plezi, Se yon bèl fèt nan Peyi d’Ayiti. Men nan men san prejije, Se konsa pou nou fete. Men nan men san prejije, Se konsa n’a va rive. (zimboyo!) Yon ti bese, tout moun f’on ti bese! Yon ti monte, tout moun f’on ti monte! Kanaval Ayiti… se la pou’w la! Ka-ka-ka-ka-Kanaval Ayiti… pa di betiz! Kanaval… ou paka pa la! Se la pou’w la!
Lyrics | English Translation Wake up, wake up, the day has come… today is Carnaval! Let us gather and celebrate… Shake that shaker, dance that Rara… Wake up, wake up, the day has come… today is Carnaval! The young ones are disguised, the grown ups are excited, Madigra* and Chaloska* are parading, What a beautiful season, People on top and people below are united… It’s Carnaval! Carnaval time is here! Move forward… no hiting! No pushing! Jump up and down as you want, Lossen up, dance however you want… it’s Carnaval! Yo, this is for real, this party is on, The songs are hot, look how happy we are! Yo, this is for real, this party is on, Everyone is ecstatic, look how happy we are! The young ones are disguised, the grownups are excited, Madigra and Chaloska are parading… it’s Carnaval! Put your hands in the air! (hooray!) Flags up in the air! Hanckershiefs in the air! Carnaval time is here! Every year it’s a rendez-vous, Three days of love, three days of joy. Every year it’s a blast, It’s a beautiful party in the country of Haiti. Hand in hand without prejudice, That is how we should celebrate. Hand in hand without discrimination, That is how we will make it. (zimboyo!) Get down, get down… everybody get down! Get up, get up… everybody get up! Carnaval of Haiti… Kinda have to be there! Ca-ca-ca-ca-Carnaval of Haiti… No bad words please! Kanaval… You can’t miss it! You gotta be there!
Soloist(s)
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Ada Han
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Thank you to our concert sponsors!
Thank you to our True Colors concert sponsors, Traction and Logical Alternative, for your support this concert cycle! By supporting trans joy, you've helped STANCE have a successful season. You're beautiful, like a rainbow!
Land & Labor Acknowledgement
We would like to acknowledge that we are gathered together on the land of the first peoples of Seattle: the Duwamish, Muckleshoot, and Stillaguamish tribes, past and present. We strive to honor with gratitude the land itself and the stewardship of these indigenous tribes.
We respectfully acknowledge the enslaved people, primarily of African descent, on whose exploited labor this country is built, with little to no recognition. Today, we are indebted to their labor and the labor of the many Black and brown people that continue to work in the shadows for our collective benefit.
Thank You
Thank you to Wing Mui, who acted as our stage manager for these performances.
Thank you to all of the singers and performers who put in extra time and rehearsals for Space Oddity, and Calme de Nuit.
Sopranos
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Mal Carter, Yoshi Das, Star Dorminey, Basil Freeling, Jules Hepp, Chris Ho, K Koenig, Liztopher Kumaki, Liv MaKennan-Bray, Logan O'Laughlin, Jenn Odell, Vedin Pavlovic, Maddie Smith, Molly Wilvich
Altos
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Toria Baldwin, Gracie Bucklew, Morgan Fiskevold, Taylor Hays, Allison Heisel, Emmalyn King, Adaleigh Martin, Galaxy Salo, Ariadne Weinberg
Tenors
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fluffy, Rosemary De Luca, Miranda Deacon, Jade Dikelsky, theo geer, Siri Ingersoll, Lili Karashchuk, Hajin Kim, Riley Murphy, Spiderweb Powers, Sonya Vasquez, Mitchie Peter Vega, Serenity Yingling
Bases
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Morgana Andersen, Alethea Bolton, Andy Chapel, Myra DeMeré, Ada Han, Tesseract King, Jaycie Mitchell, Wing Mui, Hannah Oshlag, Devynn Parkinson-Eagan, Jake Sapp, Fern Slater, Katie Vitale, Dani Weisz, Victor Westbrook, Haven Wilvich
Italics = Cantes
Bold = Section Leaders
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The Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble, better known as STANCE, was founded in 2022 as the first chorus that is led by and for gender diverse singers in Washington. Our mission is to provide a vocal community free of gendered expectations to explore and express ourselves through music. We have rapidly grown from a grassroots movement to our current 77 member capacity. And with your support, we hope to eventually expand to include a trans youth chorus.
STANCE Leadership
Executive Director
Haven Wilvich (she/her)
Haven first dreamed of a trans and nonbinary led community choir in 2016 when she got fustrated with how difficult it is being a feminine Bass singer in traditional choirs. When she's not focuse on community building, she does vaccine research, watches birds, and kayaks Washington's many beautiful bodies of water.
Artistic Director
Kaelee Alicia Bolme (she/her)
Kaelee is a Seattle-area music director, singer, pianist, composer, actor, and playwright. She is the founding Artistic Director and Conductor of STANCE, and is very proud of what STANCE has been able to accomplish in its first year of existence, both musically and in terms of the wonderful community that continues to grow in and around it. She sings tenor (and occasionally alto) with Seattle Pro Musica, serves as Director of Music at First Christian Church of Kent, and has been known to music direct for theatre on occasion, including productions of Little Women and Into the Woods with Rosebud CTC, and an upcoming production of Stephen Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle at Reboot Theatre in March 2024. She also works as a professional piano accompanist for middle and high school choirs, has taught workshops for the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and co-wrote the original musical Starshine. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Music Studies from the University of New Orleans, where she studied piano, conducting, voice, and composition.
Assistant Artistic Director / Accompanist
Mikey Prince (they/he)
Program
STANCE is a small grassroots organization largely funded by individual supporters like you. If you are able, we encourage you to make a one-time or monthly donation to support our ability to continue creating art that celebrates trans joy and community building through music.