Concerts
Singing More Superpowers: American Composers Explore Humanity's Highest Qualities
Spring 2025
Sunday, April 27th, 4:00 pm
Grace United Methodist Church
300 E. Gartner Road, Naperville
This new program is a sequel to our Spring 2023 Concert, Singing Our Superpowers. Themes including hope, courage, and love will be explored by contemporary American composers including Moses Hogan, Christopher Tin, Andrea Ramsey, Mac Huff, and Philip Spencer. The very significant and beautiful Considering Matthew Shepard: A Choral Suite by Craig Hella Johnson will be the featured work on this concert. A talented local high school french horn player will accompany NaperVoice on one choral work and present a solo. Tristan Ramos, a recent graduate of Elmhurst University, is our Conducting Intern for this concert.
NaperVoice, a fully auditioned choir composed of 35 professional and volunteer singers from more than twenty Chicago-area communities, is conducted by Philip Spencer, Founding Conductor/Artistic Director, and accompanied by Collaborative Percussionist Shelley May Hutchison, and Collaborative Pianist/Organist Dr. Zachary Zwahlen.
Proceeds will benefit this concert's designated local service organization, 360 Youth Services, a Naperville nonprofit providing life-changing services to youth through substance use prevention education, counseling, and housing.
Learn about our past concerts:
Gather in Gratitude 3:
Everything Sings!
Fall 2024
This sold out concert, our third in our annual offering of Gather In Gratitude concerts just before the Thanksgiving holiday, included a variety of new repertoire for this performance from classical, folk, jazz, and musical theater genres. Selections not only reflected our thanks for the land, the heavens, the waters, and all living things through great poetry and music, but also how aspects of the universe serve as metaphor and guide for the events of our daily life as well. Composers represented included Johannes Brahms, Aaron Copland, Ola Gjeilo, Elizabeth Alexander, Dan Forrest, Craig Hella Johnson, and Gwynneth Walker. Our Guest Ensemble for this concert was Voices In Plainfield (VIP), Plainfield's premiere community youth choir. A talented local high school cellist, Sophia Cruz, accompanied NaperVoice on two choral works and presented a cello solo.
Proceeds benefited this concert’s designated local charitable organization:
Wonderful World:
Great Music from Six Continents
Spring 2024
This new program was formed around the popular song What a Wonderful World, first recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1967. With choral music from six different continents sung in five different languages, the concert included selections from classical, folk, jazz, and gospel genres and spotlighted a new composition by one of our own NaperVoice singers, Martynas Matutis.
Most of the pieces also featured the use of world percussion instruments played by Shelley May Hutchison, our Collaborative Percussionist. Members of the Harmony and Soul Ensemble from Mays Music Centre of Excellence joined NaperVoice on two gospel selections.
NaperVoice, a fully auditioned choir composed of professional and volunteer singers from twenty Chicago-area communities, is conducted by Philip Spencer, Founding Conductor/Artistic Director, and accompanied by Collaborative Percussionist Shelley May Hutchison, and Collaborative Pianist/Organist Dr. Zachary Zwahlen.
Proceeds benefited the new Mays Music Centre of Excellence in Naperville, providing musical instruction and performance opportunities to underserved populations throughout the Chicago area.
Proceeds benefited this concert’s designated local charitable organization:
Gather in Gratitude 2:
From Bach to the Beatles and Beyond
Fall 2023
As at our Inaugural Concert last year, the theme of "gratitude" was once again explored on this weekend prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, with a variety of new musical repertoire for 2023 selected from four different centuries.
Three significant anniversaries were observed through music, including the 50th anniversary this year of the end of the Vietnam Conflict, and the 100th anniversary of the birth of American composer Ned Rorem. Musical genres including classical, world music, and pop were represented in vocal works by Bach, Ešenvalds, Rorem, Walker, Lennon/McCartney, and Spencer. NaperVoice also performed Prayer for Ukraine in Ukrainian, conducted by our College Student Conducting Intern Nazarii Mykhailenko and accompanied by the Chicago Ukrainian Bandura Ensemble.
The 35-voice auditioned choir, composed of professional and volunteer singers from twenty Chicago-area communities, was conducted by Philip Spencer, Founding Conductor/Artistic Director; and accompanied by Collaborative Percussionist Shelley May Hutchison, Collaborative Pianist/Organist Dr. Zachary Zwahlen, and High School Student Musician Intern pianist Alex Amato.
Proceeds benefited this concert’s designated local charitable organization:
Singing Our Superpowers
Spring 2023
This program explored themes of love, faith, wonder, imagination, and hope through vocal works from five centuries.
The concert included compositions by Purcell, Dowland, Massenet, Stroope, Carly Simon, and Dolly Parton. Missa Brevis: Songs of the Enslaved, by Founding Conductor/Artistic Director Philip Spencer, also had its Naperville premiere.
The 35-voice auditioned choir, composed of professional and volunteer singers from twenty Chicago-area communities, was accompanied by Collaborative Percussionist, Shelley May Hutchison, Collaborative Pianist, Valerie Lorimer, and featured College Student Conducting Intern, Jean Garcera, and High School Student Instrumental Intern clarinetist, Cameron Hejny.
Proceeds benefited the local charitable nonprofit Kids Above All, building better lives for kids through therapeutic programs, housing support, and education.
Proceeds benefited this concert’s designated local charitable organization:
Gather in Gratitude
Fall 2022
This nearly sold-out inaugural performance included a variety of choral music selected with the theme of “gratitude”: for home, for love, for the gift of song, for moments in time.
The thirty-five auditioned members of NaperVoice sang music from genres including classical, gospel, musical theater, and vocal jazz, by Brahms, Whitacre, Rutter, Runestad, Powell, and other significant composers. A professional percussionist, an award-winning pianist, and a gifted high school violinist accompanied the choir, with kids in the audience invited to learn and play a typical Cuban rhythm on small instruments for one selection. Our talented College/University Student Conductor Intern, Nazarii Mykhailenko, also conducted the choir on one work.
Proceeds benefited this concert’s designated local charitable organization:
