Sounds Good Choir is the Chicago area’s largest and fastest-growing choral organization for older adults (55+), with 8 choirs in the city and suburbs serving hundreds of singers, including two locations in DuPage County. Sounds Good offers daytime, non-auditioned choirs for older adults under the direction of professional artists.
All Sounds Good programs are led by accomplished professional choral conductors, who know how to make rehearsals both challenging and fun. Rehearsals begin with vocal warm-ups and breathing exercises tailored for the older-adult voice. Singers are welcome at all levels of experience to develop their musicianship and meet new friends.
Weekly rehearsals are 90 minutes long. For singers who cannot rehearse in person or want extra practice time, they have an online option every Friday on Zoom and live-stream two other rehearsals every week, with recordings uploaded to YouTube for singers to use when they like.
In addition, Sounds Good Choir has created what they call a continuum of choral care for older adults, to give people places to participate at a number of levels. For people with early-stage memory loss and their care partners who are living independently (outside of care facilities), their Good Memories Choir (Gold Coast) is a joyous weekly gathering of rehearsing and community. Their dementia-friendly choir in Evanston is our first location deliberately creating an inclusive choir for people with early-stage memory loss and their care partners, within the Sounds Good ensemble. Since mid-2020 they have offered online sing-alongs; supported in part by the Suburban Area Agencies on Aging, these are free of charge and available with online registration. One sing-along is for the general older adult population, and the other is specifically for people with memory loss and their care partners.
Now an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit, they began their work in the Chicago area as an affiliate of Washington, DC-based Encore Creativity, which came about as part of the groundbreaking “Creativity and Aging” study commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts in the early 2000s.
Check out the Sound Good Choir for more information on their events, various choirs, and how you can get involved.
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