Launching a concert tour of the Midwest, the Village Harmony Singers will join together with the All God’s Children Teen Ensemble for a performance of “Music From Around the World” at 4 p.m. Saturday in the Oak Auditorium of the Citadel Dance Center, 91 Hinkley St., in the heart of the Benton Harbor Arts District.
The Village Harmony Singers are a group of teens, ages 12 to 19, who perform “vital and honest music from among the world’s most powerful harmony singing traditions.” This concert will be the first in a series of performances that this group will be presenting throughout the Midwest, including concerts in Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Chicago. The concert tour follows a week of intensive training-in-residence for the Village Harmony Singers at Ronora Lodge in Watervliet, led by three choir directors: Mollie Stone, who is the associate director of the world-renowned Chicago Children’s Choir and an expert on South African choral music and American gospel music; Natalie Nowytski, a first-generation Ukrainian singer, conductor, consultant and vocal coach who teaches the music of Eastern Europe; and Will Thomas Rowan, a singer, composer, conductor and multi-instrumentalist who specializes in the music of Corsica and Occitania (southern France).
The All God’s Children Teen Ensemble is a multiracial, multiethnic group who perform songs of brotherhood and sisterhood, peace, love and respect for all people. The choir’s repertoire includes songs from Africa, Mexico, Israel and the United States. Drawn from a variety of communities in Southwest Michigan, the Teen Ensemble has performed for Lake Michigan College’s Martin Luther King Day celebration; the United Way kickoff event; the opening of the Krasl Art Fair; the Artsbridge Festival; the St. Joseph Brown Bag Series; with the Chicago Children’s Choir in Chicago and Southwest Michigan; and with renowned musicians Peter Yarrow, Tom Chapin, Josh White Jr., Angela Brown and Pamela Chappell. The Teen Ensemble, along with the younger members of the All God’s Children Choir, recently released its first CD, “All God’s Children.” The ensemble is led by a multi-ethnic team of choir directors, including Sandy and Larry Feldman, Hursel Cole, Corey Hampton, Stephanie Ng and Kortney Moore.
For more information, call (269) 469-0539.