If you’re an enthusiastic shower singer or car vocalist, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale has just the event for you. Its biggest-ever, two-part Big Sing event on Saturday, April 25, gives you the chance to sing out (whether your name is Louise or not) in the company of like-minded warblers, led by Grammy-nominated folk and roots musician Moira Smiley.

In addition to singing and song writing, Smiley plays banjo, accordion, piano, and body percussion; her music has been influenced by various folk styles and shape-note singing, as well as classical music and jazz.

The two-hour afternoon session starts with Smiley leading vocal warmups that feel like games, then segues to folk songs with harmonies everyone will learn, aided by a string quartet of well-known New Mexico musicians.

No advance preparation is required, and all ages and skill levels are welcome. Minors must bring a parent or guardian with them.

Smiley and the string quartet — violinists David Felberg and Laura Tait Chang, violist Kimberly Fredenburgh (fresh from her triumph as a soloist in the Santa Fe Symphony’s recent performance of Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote), and cellist Amy Huzjak — return at 7 p.m. to perform songs from The Rhizome Project.

It’s Smiley’s most recent album, released in September 2024 along with an accompanying book. In the notes for the CD, she wrote: “I feel very lucky to have grown up with a sense of songs as shared treasures, like stones, shells, leaves and other tiny things gathered on a walk to share later with others.

“Several of the songs in The Rhizome Project were the first songs to allow me the confidence to sing alone, while others outlined elemental ethics that my little voice could grow into. … [It] celebrates all the powerful ways we are connected, though, like the rhizomes, those connections may be hidden or forgotten.”

Rhizomes and roots are both found underground, but only rhizomes can create the shoots and roots that become a new plant. To hear “My Son David” from Smiley’s album, go to sfnm.co /smiley. — Mark Tiarks