May 16th Choir Concert: "Stronger Than the Storm"

Please join us on Saturday, May 16, at 3pm or 7pm in the SMC Chapel. Purchasing tickets will be required this year, except for Saint Mary's students with an I.D. and clergy.

Stronger Than the Storm, featuring Glee, Chamber Singers, and Jazz Singers, brings to life a rich tapestry of music reflecting the enduring human capacity to recognize hardship, withstand it, and—within community—emerge renewed. Themes of perseverance and hope are woven throughout texts that honor ancestral strength, confront suffering and injustice, and affirm that “love, indivisible…strength indescribable…brings a peace beyond all human understanding.”

From the profound depth of excerpts from Mass of the Forgotten to the rhythmic vitality of the ancestral prayer Mojuba, the expansive Nepalese imagery of Tse Go La, and the rousing I Know Where I've Been from Hairspray, each work offers a distinct lens on grief, resilience, and redemption. These are set alongside a Renaissance love song by Sermisy, the heart-wrenching jazz classic Body and Soul, and more contemporary works by Billie Eilish, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Beatles, Rascal Flatts, Reba McEntire, U2, and Beyoncé.

Directed by Dr. Julie Ford, with Professors Meredith Hawkins and Paul Caccamo, the evening includes highlights from four senior capstone soloists (Kate Conti, Rose Du Pont, Kaylin Holliman, and Ashlyn Storie). A variety of instrumentalists—students, alumni, and guest artists—bring this music to life with percussion, harp, strings, flutes, guitars, organ, piano, and a chorus of rainsticks, creating a textured, luminous, and at times toe-tapping sound experience that is both intimate and powerful. The concert culminates in the closing piece, Stronger Than the Storm by Greg Murai, featuring all the choirs. We hope you leave with tears, laughter, hope, and a shared knowing: that together, rooted in love, we are stronger than any storm.

We are happy that we can once again charge tickets to offset costs of our choir concerts. For a number of years, this was on pause due to particular interpretations of canon law that are now resolved. This is good news for us because it will be a more predictable way to manage our planning, and will make more things possible.

Please purchase your tickets ahead of time at stmarys-ca.edu/choir-sp26 to reduce long lines at the door and to allow the concert to start on time.

We are hoping to livestream this concert, and will post the link to the livestream and/or recording on stmarys-ca.edu/choir-sp26. A $20 donation to the Music Program via stmarys-ca.edu/musicgives would be appreciated for watching the concert online.