Community voices unite to perform with Richmond Symphony

Nearly 70 singers ranging from students to retirees, including a Grammy winner, will combine with 60 professional instrumentalists this weekend.

Richmond Symphony Orchestra has re-established its longtime collaboration with voice programs at Indiana University East and Earlham College.

Earlham’s Concert Choir, IUE’s Chorale, and local residents are forming the 66-member Richmond Symphony Chorus.

They can be heard at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 29, in Richmond High School’s Civic Hall.

The chorus will perform with two professional singers, soprano Jessica Rivera and baritone Thomas Dreeze, and RSO’s 60 instrumentalists.

Rivera, who won a Grammy for best opera recording, currently serves on Miami (Ohio) University’s vocal faculty.

Dreeze has been active with Cincinnati Opera since 2011 and is the current president of Cincinnati MacDowell Society, which is committed to “making a place in the world for artists because artists make the world a better place,” the release said.

Doug Johnson, director of Earlham’s choral studies and Jessica Raposo, IUE associate professor of music, are leading the voices in Fauré’s “Requiem in D minor, Op. 48.”

“You have so many people that do so many different things and come from different backgrounds and belief systems, but they love music, and they love to sing, and they love making good music,” Raposo said in a news release. “No matter what their background is or the stressors people are going through in life, they get to come and sing together to prepare for this concert. They can find that peace that comes with making music together, so in terms of voices uniting, that’s what that is for me.”

This is Andrés Lopera’s first choral-focused concert for RSO since becoming its music director in Fall 2023. He’ll offer a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.

“It really feels like so many artistic hallmarks of the Richmond community coming together as one big musical unit in a way that’s really exciting,” Johnson said.

RSO also performs Sergei Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony No. 1 and Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll,” which he composed as a birthday present for his wife after son Siegfried’s birth.