Welcome
Village Harmony is the umbrella organization for a diverse range of choral, world music and harmony singing activities under the direction of Larry Gordon and Patty Cuyler.
Our ensembles include Northern Harmony, Boston Harmony, the Chicago World Music Chorus, and our many Village Harmony Summer Camp ensembles.
Expanding choral repertoire beyond the Euro-centric norm
We at Village Harmony are in the midst of preparing an online teaching resource library for choir directors looking to expand their virtual teaching repertoire outside the norm.
The first song resource modules will spring from the groundbreaking virtual courses Village Harmony held during the summer months with singers and choir directors from Corsica, South Africa, Republic of Georgia, Ukraine, Cuba and the Black gospel tradition.
Each song module will include complete digital rehearsal material—audio or video individual voice part recordings and performance tracks, scores /wordsheets/translations, pronunciation tracks, background resources. These will be combined with an hour-long live zoom lesson set up with the tradition bearer, who will introduce and teach the voice parts directly to your students, model authenticity and provide essential historical and personal background about the song.
A $200 fee will be charged for each digital+zoom lesson song module. The fee will go almost entirely to our tradition-bearer song leaders. Participating choir directors must be able to embed the digital teaching tracks online to ensure that they cannot be pirated.
As the fall progresses we will be adding leaders and songs from other countries, including from Iran, Bulgaria and Nigeria.
Contact Village Harmony co-director Patty Cuyler for information and a current song/genre list: pattycuyler@gmail.com
We keep singing!
Talk about turning lemons into lemonade. Our virtual week-long and weekend workshops so far this summer have proved to be remarkably successful. These have been immersions in a uniquely Village Harmony way—with a super new twist, as both tradition bearers and singers from around the world have been able join in.
We are doubly pleased to be able to announce two August weekend workshops to continue our summer programming. Please join us!
August 7-9: Repertoire Mashup Weekend, led by veteran VH leaders Nadia Tarnawsky, Lysander Jaffe and Sora Harris Vincent. Join us as we explore traditional Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Corsican folk songs, and protest songs from the UK and US. In addition to live teaching on Zoom, we’re offering a wealth of practice recordings and other resources to help you dive deeper and keep learning after the weekend is over. The weekend will culminate in a virtual concert featuring video/audio collaborations.
August 14-16: The Black Gospel Essentials, led by Chicago singer Lonnie Norwood. From “The Father of Gospel Music” Thomas Dorsey to Kirk Franklin, our examination of the gospel music canon will highlight the soul-stirring songs of Black composers, and the golden voices that elevated them. Our introductory course will include everyday practical exercises for vocal tone and phrasing, and groove and improvisatory exercises for all ability levels. We will also offer a critical analysis of the making of gospel music in America through a social justice lens.Tuition is $165, with a self-selected reduced price option of $125 for anyone who needs it.
Go Here to Sign Up
Read about our leaders
We would also like to share with you here that as an organization and as individuals we have developed and adopted a statement of resolve inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Village Harmony unequivocally believes that Black lives matter. We stand in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement and are engaging in systemic change to make this statement true in action as well as in words.
Music organizations like Village Harmony can be blinded by the notions that music is a universal language and that sharing music can do no harm. This is a fallacy. As a predominantly White organization, we acknowledge that we need to take steps to dismantle the inequality embedded both in our country and in our organization. We apologize for not taking action sooner.
We are working to address our shortcomings by:
– creating new opportunities for collaborations with Black ensembles and hiring culture bearers from Black communities
– developing better practices for crediting and compensating composers of music from the Black tradition;
– investigating our organizational history of borrowing and appropriating music from Black communities and exploring reparations;
– gathering educational materials to share with Village Harmony staff.
Our affiliated regional choruses:
• Boston Harmony, led by Larry Gordon, Patty Cuyler, Sinead O’Mahoney
Stay tuned for updates on our program for 2020-21.
Traditionally meets one weekend a month from September-April in Concord, MA, with performances in late April. A New England-wide community chorus (drawing singers from Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey) for once-a-month 2-day long rehearsals which take place from 2-8pm on Saturday, plus 10:30am-3pm on Sunday.
• Chicago World Music Chorus, led by Patty Cuyler, Mollie Stone
Stay tuned for updates on our program for 2020-21.
Traditionally meets one Sunday afternoon (1-4pm) each month from October through April. A non-auditioned world music community choir open to Chicago-area community members as well as students and staff of the University of Chicago. Meets on the University of Chicago campus in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. U of C students are free.
”We can never thank you enough for introducing our daughter and her now-best friends and fellow singers to world music and to one another. You’ve walked them through a window into a world they wouldn’t have otherwise known – not just musically, geographically, and culturally, but also in terms of a set of personal values and perspectives that have so enriched – and will continue to enrich – their lives.”