A women’s choir is something that should be celebrated, and Jessica Napoles, the U Women’s Chorus director, is setting out to do just that. Tonight, the Libby Gardner Concert Hall will play host to the annual Women’s Chorus Festival at 7:30 p.m.
“The festival is really an exciting opportunity for people who are choral music lovers and people who just enjoy a fun concert,” Napoles said.
The Women’s Chorus Festival values the power of women uniting together. The festival shows the community the importance of celebrating women’s choruses and allowing them their selective performances.
“When I first came to the university, I saw a need to celebrate women’s choruses and for us to have an opportunity to feature women’s singing,” Napoles said.
After starting at the U, she began a quest to create an event all women in the community could participate in and enjoy. Napoles actualized her goal by reaching out to local choirs and explaining her desire to create an event that celebrated the voices of women. Soon, Napoles had willing participants and her cause has now evolved into an annual festival. This year marks the festival’s fifth-consecutive performance.
“The festival has definitely grown in popularity over the years,” Napoles said. “In the first year we started off with four choirs. Last year we had eight choirs and this year we have 10. This year we actually had to turn a couple choirs down.”
The festival is truly accessible to all types of singers. Speaking about the U’s own Women’s Chorus, Napoles said, “The women’s choir at the university is non-audition, so we have a lot of non-majors in our choirs here.”
Singers performing at the festival come from local community choirs, high school and college choirs.
“The diversity of the choirs really adds more to the performance,” Napoles said.
This year’s participants (followed by conductors) in the festival are Kearns High School (David Martin), Maple Mountain High School (Cory Mendenhall), Salem Hills High School (Justin Bills), Wasatch High School (Stephen Reynolds,), Murray High School (Alan Scott), Box Elder High School (Claudia Bigler), Salt Lake Choral Artists Women (Jane Fjeldsted), Utah Valley University (Cherilyn Worthen), and Utah State University (Michael Huff).
Each choir will sing two pieces that they have handpicked.
“There is no real theme with the music that is performed, the [choirs] will perform what best showcases their own group,” Napoles said.
The U Women’s Chorus will perform “Sylvie” by Leadbelly and “Sous le Dome Epais” (duet from the opera “Lakme”) by Leo Delibes.
All and all, a combined total of more than 400 singers will grace the stage tonight, which will create a wonderful display in the final number when the choirs will join together on stage as they sing “Holy is the Lord” by Jeffrey Ames.
Napoles has certainly accomplished what she set out to do five years ago. Tonight’s event is sure to be a success with only better festivals to continue in the future.