Fourth Treble Voice Turnout!!
Bella Voce hosted our fourth annual women’s choral event on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, when we
gathered together five treble voice (women’s) choirs from Spanish Springs, Damonte Ranch, McQueen,
Reed, and North Valleys High Schools for a choral festival. This event began in 2018 as an effort to
expand Bella Voce’s mission “to foster the appreciation, preservation, and performance of women’s
choral music,” in which we identified educational outreach as a priority area. Our participant numbers
grew from 150 singers and five high schools in the first year to approximately 250 women singers this
year, with a break in 2020 because of the pandemic.
So, the event was greatly enjoyed by everyone, as we gathered at the North Valleys High School auditorium. And once again, the high school choirs shared their music with one another in a noncompetitive, supportive, and very enthusiastic environment. Our time was somewhat shortened by a snow storm and late buses, so we didn’t have quite as many songs or speeches as last year, but the energy and joy from singing together was palpable. To open the event, Kathryn Parker, a faculty member from the UNR School of Music, Voice, and Musical Theater spoke about the opportunities for continued singing after high school, including the many degree programs at UNR. In addition to singing with one of the four vocal ensembles at UNR or in a musical theater production, there are degree programs in performance and music education.
After each group performed their music, ending with “O Holy Night” by members of Bella Voce, we completed the event by singing together in a combined choir circling the auditorium. We sang the piece “Crowded Table,” words and music by Natalie Hemby, Lori McKenna and Brandi Carlile and arranged by Andrea Ramsey. The words are below, celebrating the joy of friends for support, sowing the seeds when we’re young, and simply being together at a crowded table.
“Crowded Table”
(from the Andrea Ramsey Choral Series)
You can hold my hand when you need to let go.
I can be a mountain when you’re feeling valley low.
I can be a streetlight showing you the way home.
If you can hold my hand when you need to let go.
I want a house with a crowded table,
And a place by the fire for everyone.
Let us take on the world while we’re young and able,
And bring us back together when the day is done.
If we want a garden, we’re gonna have to sow the seed,
Plant a little happiness, let the roots run deep.
If it’s love that we give, then it’s love that we reap.
If we want a garden, we’re gonna have to sow the seeds.
I want a house with a crowded table,
And a place by the fire for everyone.
Let us take on the world while we’re young and able,
And bring us back together when the day is done.
The door is always open, your picture’s on my wall.
Everyone’s a little broken. and everyone belongs.
I want a house with a crowded table,
And a place by the fire for everyone.
Let us take on the world while we’re young and able.
And bring us back together when the day is done,
And bring us back together when the day is done.
We keep an archive of past performances.
