The Santa Fe Desert Chorale, a 24-member professional chamber ensemble, regularly performs music from North, South, and Central America during its summer and winter festivals. To mark the 250th, the chorale is leaning into the music of North America to honor the U.S.’s anniversary with a series of commissions that lean into folk traditions and contemporary musical storytelling during this year’s summer festival, which runs from July 19-August 2.

The Chorale has a “commissioning club” that allows its supporters to be democratically involved in the selection of composers to commission for new works. For the 250th-themed programming, the club selected composer Shavon Lloyd, and the ensemble also commissioned composers Shawn Kirchner and Moira Smiley. “Both of those latter two speak in a way that invokes the crossover American style,” said Joshua Habermann, the Chorale’s artistic director. “We want to showcase the best of what our country’s putting out there right now, whether that’s folk music or indie rock or traditional classical music,” he added, continuing: “We’re really interested in programming that builds bridges, whether that’s across religious boundaries or across cultural boundaries. Santa Fe has always been a crossroads of cultures.”

“We think American choral music is extraordinary,” Habermann said. “I do a lot of international travel and appreciate what’s happening in the rest of the world, but we want to plant a flag and say, ‘hey, what’s happening here in the United States is great and it’s amazing.’ We wanted people to come away from this enjoying the depth and breadth of American choral music.”