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VOICES 21C is an artists’ collective that is devoted to exercising the choral art in pursuit of human rights and justice, dedicated to a mission of global understanding through music.
We explore improvisational and interdisciplinary modes of music making and collaboration, through co-creating and utilizing an egalitarian consensus model. |
ABOUT USIn a time when American ideals are epitomized by nationalism and aggression, VOICES 21C aligns itself with the great American voices of compassion, love, and non-violence.
VOICES 21C is a Boston-based choral artists collective that seeks to combine high technical proficiency with creativity and compassion. The ensemble exercises choral art in pursuit of human rights with collaborators across borders and behind prison walls. VOICES 21C has served as the primary developer of the Empowering Song Approach to music education, using choral art, narrative, poetry, creative songwriting, and physical storytelling in educational workshops and performances to give voice to silenced stories, make space for dialogue, and strengthen communities. The ensemble creates personal meaning in performance by connecting its musical messages to social justice issues locally and abroad, centering the voices of the silenced, the forgotten, and the marginalized. VOICES 21C blends the choral art with imaginative and innovative practices, borrowing from kinesthetic art and theatre. VOICES 21C is a welcoming space for LGBTQIA+, committed to contemporary composers, and to improvisational, interdisciplinary modes of performance through a co- creating, egalitarian consensus model. Learn more about us here |
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VOICES 21C at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - Nov 3, 2022
VOICES 21C's performance was inspired by Titus Kaphar: The Jerome Project, which presents a series of extraordinary portraits painted by artist Titus Kaphar that interrogate the absence of incarcerated individuals from the social fabric of the United States. The event featured a performance and talkback with both Eric Anderson and Truth, two formerly incarcerated artists and collaborators. Titus Kaphar: Jerome I, 2014. Oil, tar, and gold leaf on panel. |
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Unity As Fragile As A Spark - June 2021Digital Collaboration with Lauren Fields and VOICES 21C
Poetry: "Smoking Car: After Frances Ellen Watkins Harper" by Lauren Fields Creative Facilitation, Audio Production, and Video Design: Michael Genese The eight minute work explores several interconnected themes, among which the idea of being simultaneously bound to something, while also being bound for something else. Body hierarchy, racism, and modern manifestations of slavery and segregation such as mass-incarceration and American policing, together paint an intersectional picture of “progress that isn’t really progress” that we must reconcile with as a nation. |
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The Choral Commons Podcast: Creative Responses composed, improvised, led, and sung by members of VOICES 21C
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"Extra Credit" | Farrah Karapetian, VOICES 21C
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VOICES 21C Virtual Collaboration - edited by Cheryl Engelhardt
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VOICES 21C IS ON |
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Exclusive content, rehearsal footage, guest list access, what's not to love? V21C has chosen Patreon to create a long term support network, funding our international appearances, operating costs, and reimbursement for our 100% volunteer roster. You will not want to miss this! Click here to visit our Patreon page.
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