Santa Fe Desert Chorale to Receive $25,000 Award from the National Endowment for the Arts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Santa Fe, NM, January 14, 2025 — Santa Fe Desert Chorale is pleased to announce it has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $25,000. This grant will support the Chorale’s 2025 Summer Festival.
“The Board of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale is delighted to receive this significant award from the NEA in support of our 2025 Summer Choral Festival, one of the largest festivals of its kind in the United States,” said Board President Catherine Gronquist.
The NEA will award 1,127 Grants for Arts Projects awards nationwide totaling more than $31.8 million as part of the recent announcement of fiscal year 2025 grants.
“The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country’s vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place, including the Desert Chorale’s Summer Choral Festival.”
“Under the outstanding artistic leadership of Joshua Habermann, the Desert Chorale has a focus on innovative and diverse programming including a series of new commissions, which has resulted in a substantial increase in our audience attendance and a growing national reputation,” said Gronquist. “We look forward to premieres during our 2025 Summer Festival by ascendent composers Shawn Okpebholo and Ernesto Herrera, which we are confident will delight and inspire our community.”
The Desert Chorale’s 2025 Summer Festival runs July 13–August 1, 2025. The Festival will include three mainstage choral programs and an afternoon solo vocal recital.
2025 Summer Festival Programs
Cantos y Cuentos: July 13-29
Songs and stories of today’s Latin America, including songs from Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela, and a world premiere fusing Cuban musical traditions with current choral techniques by Cuban-American composer Ernesto Herrera. We are also thrilled to collaborate with New Mexican guitarist Nacha Mendez for several folk tunes from the Land of Enchantment.
Mass for the Endangered: July 20-31
A program featuring two modern women composers whose pieces both explore the shared struggles and triumphs of the human family. Known as “a hymn for the voiceless and the discounted,” Sarah Snider’s Mass for the Endangered is an evocative meditation on the fragility of the natural world and a plea to defend it. After including a single movement of Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands in our acclaimed 2023 program The American Immigrant Experience, we are now thrilled to perform this work in its entirety, exploring themes of welcome and belonging.
Roots & Rivers: July 24-August 1
As one of the nation’s top professional chamber choirs, we are committed to advancing an art form that brings joy to over 54 million Americans by commissioning new choral works regularly. This year, we have commissioned Nigerian-American composer Shawn E. Okpebholo to write a large-scale work that reimagines American folk songs and spirituals. In his new piece American Choirbook: Six Songs of the Enslaved, Embattled and Emancipated, Okpebholo honors the pain and resilience of the past while celebrating our hopes for the future. This work will be paired alongside meaningful commissions from our recent past, including Northland by Kile Smith (2023), Caminante by Jocelyn Hagen (2022), and The Tipping Point by Reena Esmail (2021).
Artist Spotlight Recital: July 30
Our professional vocal artists can both blend seamlessly into an ensemble and step out to sing resonant solos. Three artists will come together for an afternoon of poetry and melody in this solo voice recital at St. Bede’s Episcopal Church. Programming details forthcoming.
For more information regarding the Desert Chorale’s Summer Festival and other upcoming concerts and events, visit desertchorale.org. For more information on other projects included in the NEA’s grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.
Media Contact: Joanna Armstrong, Marketing & Communications Manager; joanna@desertchorale.org.
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The Vision of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale: Singing for our common humanity.
Mission Statement: The mission of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale is to excite, engage, and inspire diverse audiences with the beauty and power of great choral music.
About the Santa Fe Desert Chorale
Founded in 1982 by Lawrence “Larry” Bandfield, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale is one of the longest-running professional music organizations in New Mexico, as well as one of the most distinguished American professional chamber choirs. “The Santa Fe Desert Chorale [is] a top-notch, 24-voice group… comprising the crème de la crème of professional choral singers from coast to coast” (Dallas Morning News). Performing in historical venues such as the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, the Desert Chorale has become a centerpiece of the cultural life of Santa Fe. Their annual Summer Festival is one of the nation’s largest choral events.
Artistic Director Joshua Habermann has led the Chorale since 2008 in repertoire spanning seven centuries, from early polyphony to contemporary works. Habermann’s versatile programming sets the ensemble apart as “a rara avis in the choral music world” (Santa Fe New Mexican).
The Chorale’s first commercial release, The Road Home, launched at No. 3 on the Billboard Classical Chart following a sold-out CD launch program in Santa Fe. The ensemble has traveled across the nation, performing in prominent conferences and cities such as Dallas, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
The Desert Chorale had the honor of performing at the American Choral Directors Association National Conference in Salt Lake City in 2015 and will return to give the closing performance at the ACDA National Conference in Dallas in 2025.
Dedicated to advancing the composers of our time, the Chorale has commissioned over 30 new works, and several additional pieces have been given their world or American premieres by the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. The organization’s Commissioning Club selects and funds a new commission annually.
While nationally recognized, the Chorale prides itself on its strong relationships within the community of Northern New Mexico. Since 2016, the Chorale has hosted an annual community singing workshop, Santa Fe Sings!, bringing together music-lovers of all backgrounds to express themselves through song under the direction of Joshua Habermann. Through its Insights & Sounds program, the Chorale also presents free mini-concerts for children to introduce them to the beauty and power of great choral music, symposiums that gather experts for engaging dialogues through the lens of choral music, education workshops and masterclasses for local high school students, and more.
