Orcas a Cappella is a performing choir of non-professional community singers from Lopez, Orcas, and Shaw who are dedicated to providing an atmosphere of spiritual enrichment and unity through a cappella singing.
The group will be returning to Orcas Center to present Encores! on Sunday, June 7 at 3 p.m. and at the Lopez Center for Community and the Arts on Saturday, June 6, at 7 p.m.
Encores! is the journey of Orcas a Cappella through the last seven years, recalling some of their most memorable music sung along the way. The singers have spent the last few months recording the music for a CD that will be available to the public in the early fall. Included will be music from their home concerts, as well as that which was sung on tour – sacred music, Renaissance to contemporary; secular music based on the work of the many great poets; early American folk and spiritual tunes; along with what has become their signature song “Deep Peace.”
Taught and directed by Dennis Bonner, DMA, the group was founded in 2002 as an a cappella singing class through Skagit Valley College. A year later they left the college and embarked on their own as the Orcas a Cappella Singers, and in 2006, became a non-profit as Orcas a Cappella.
A mixed choir of 32 voices, they prepare music throughout the year to perform in local venues, festivals and international tours. They also participate in other projects in the community including musical theatre, educational workshops, musical exchanges, and special community events and performances. In the summer of 2003, the group made their first singing tour to Spain, and in Barcelona participated in the XV Europa Cantat, a festival of choirs from around the world. With over 100 choirs participating, the singers auditioned for and were accepted as one of the featured singing groups to perform at the Cantat.
In April 2005, they were host to a 67-voice Swedish choir, whom they met at the Cantat and invited to Orcas. Over a five-day period, they toured and performed together throughout the San Juan Islands in Songshare 2005, a musical exchange.
The group took their second tour abroad in the summer of 2006 to perform concerts in the Czech Republic, and, once again, participated in the XVI Europa Cantat. Bonner attended the Composer/Director atelier with Slovene composer Damijan Mocnik, who, with his family, arrived the last week of October for a week-long residency to work not only with Orcas a Cappella, but Islands Sinfonia.
In keeping with their mission, SongShare 2010 is now in the planning stage. World renowned choral conductor and organist Richard Marlow of Trinity College, Cambridge, England, will arrive in March to conduct a weeklong residency based upon the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, who attended Trinity College from 1892-95.
Tickets for the upcoming performances are $10 and available at www.orcascenter.org and 376-2281 or www.lopezcenter.com and 468-2203.
