Seventh Annual Treble Voice Turnout!
Bella Voce hosted our seventh annual choral event at Damonte Ranch High School on Wednesday, October 22nd, when we gathered together five treble voice (soprano and alto) choirs from five northern Nevada high schools for a choral festival. Our first gathering was in 2018 (with a year off in 2020) when we wanted to expand Bella Voce’s mission “to foster the appreciation, preservation, and performance of women’s choral music.” We identified educational outreach as a priority area and the Treble Voice Turnout event was born. Our participant numbers have grown from 150 singers from five high schools in 2018 to approximately 250 singers from five high schools this year, coming from Spanish Springs, Damonte Ranch, McQueen, Reed, and Hug High Schools. We gathered in the auditorium at Spanish Springs High School to share our music with one another in a noncompetitive, very supportive environment, including friends and families in the audience. We ended by singing and clapping together, in a combined choir circling the auditorium, the piece “Never One Thing,” words and music by May Erlewine and arranged by Corie Brown. This piece was inspired by a verse by Walt Whitman, I am large, I contain multitudes , and is about the personal revolution of accepting and caring for all parts of ourselves.
After time spent warming up and practicing our final piece, the “official” program opened up with brief talks from three people. The first speaker was Beth Gibbs, the new director of choral activities at the School of Music at UNR. She talked about the choruses at UNR and the possible music majors at UNR as well as the singing opportunities that are open to anyone, music major or not. The second speaker was Evelyn Meija-Ronquillo, one of the younger Bella Voce singers and recent board president, who talked about her joy singing with the community of Bella Voce. The third speaker was Nikki Murphy, a longer-time singer with Bella Voce who also talked about the joys of singing with the friends and community developed in a choral group and the fellowship one has when “breathing and vocalizing to exactly the same music as the people around you!”
A very good time was had by all.
Never One Thing
Words and music by May Erlewine
I’m the underbelly, I am the claw, never one thing, no, not one thing at all.
View photos from past events.
