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Season 43 — 2018 - 2019 Dr. Christopher Petit, Director

GVOC’s 43rd season celebrates connections! We will showcase a yearlong collaboration with the Eastman Community Music School’s Children’s Choir and Youth Chamber Singers. Together, we celebrate the music of Mothers, Families, and Children.

We begin this celebration on November 30th with our holiday concert. The concert will include the joy of John Rutter’s Magnificat, inspirational texts by mother authors and wonderful children’s voices added to our own in lullabies and a Renaissance work by Michael Praetorius.

For GVOC’s annual fundraising concert, we welcome all to relive the days when families and friends would gather to watch, and even sing along with, classic movies. This program will feature music from classic and modern Disney films that hold special places in our hearts, such as Dumbo, Mary Poppins, Pinocchio, Fantasia, and the Lion King. A special part of the program will be dedicated to the true history of the Trapp Family Singers, whose story inspired the The Sound of Music. We hope that this experience will encourage you to sing more often with your own family.

Finally, in May we reflect on the innocence and honesty of children. John Rutter’s “Mass of the Children” is a classic work that beautifully combines youthful voices with an adult choir and orchestra. Orchestra and adult choir provide poetry while young voices interweave with fun tunes and ancient folk songs.

We hope you’ll join us this coming year!

Season 43 — 2018 - 2019: Songs of Mothers

Songs of Mothers

“My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord!” Mary proclaims her joy for her cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy with words that have become one of the greatest songs of mothers: the Magni cat.

This season, GVOC collaborates with the Eastman Community Music School’s youth choirs to celebrate music of Mothers, Families, and Children. November’s concert features John Rutter’s setting of the Magni cat, along with music by Tavener, Pärt, and Praetorius that connects us to the joys and sorrows of motherhood.

Nov. 30, 2018, 7:30 p.m. at Pinnacle Lutheran Church

Season 43 — 2018 - 2019: Songs of Families

Songs of Families

For GVOC’s annual fundraising concert, we encourage nostalgia for the days when fam- ilies and friends would gather to watch and sing along with classic movies. The program features music Disney  lms that hold special places in our hearts, such as Mary Poppins and the Lion King. GVOC and Eastman’s youth will also pay tribute not just to The Sound of Music, but also to the true histo- ry of the Trapp Family Singers. They were a family that sang together, and we hope to inspire everyone to sing frequently with our own families. A portion of funds raised from this concert will support Eastman’s Pathways, a program that provides inner-city children with free music lessons and classes.

March 9, 2019, 6 p.m. at Clover Center for Arts & Spirituality

Season 43 — 2018 - 2019: Songs of Children

Songs of Children

Hear our children’s voices! Their innocence and humor have always inspired humani- ty, but we live in a new era where it is com- monplace for our youth to experience mass shootings, entrapment in war zones, and the threat of enslavement. Rutter’s Mass of the Children lets us pray with them, while works by Ešenvalds, Nyman, and Hawes help us to see delight in the world through a child’s eyes. Cecilia McDowall’s Everyday Wonders represents GVOC’s hope for us to be inspired by the incredible resilience and optimism of children. This work pays tribute to the “Girl from Aleppo” who, despite cerebral palsy and wheelchair dependence, escaped war-torn Syria. Please join us as we journey through her adversity to her optimism when our mu- sicians conclude the work singing the joyous “Song of Life Itself.”

May 18, 2019, 7 p.m. at Hochstein Performance Hall

Past Seasons