The Power of Choral Music
hat is the true power of choral music? Is it a perfect concert of sublime music that lifts your spirits? Is it that fulfilling moment when months of hard work are validated with an enthusiastic standing ovation? Maybe it’s the ability of music to speak to all, regardless of ethnicity, language or culture. Perhaps it is that special composition which helps us through our grief or life’s toughest moments. From childhood to our final breath, music is there for us. For singers, singing is as essential as breathing itself.
A recent Chorus America study shows more than 32.5 million adults sing in choirs, which increased by 10 million in only six years. When you add in students, that number swells to 42.6 million singers. That is nearly one in ten Americans. Studies show that basketball is the most played sport in the US with 26.3 million participants. In contrast, choral music is on a “fast break” hitting nothing but net. There are more than 41,000 K-12 school choirs in our country with such notable alumni as Presidents Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush, Snoop Dogg, Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, and even comedians like Tina Fey and Jim Belushi and sports legends Walter Payton and Sugar Ray Leonard.
Maybe they all know what experts have learned about the benefits of singing. Singing increases self-esteem and confidence, helps reduce anger, depression and anxiety, reduces stress, increases mental awareness and stimulates creativity. Physically, singing increases blood flow, improves sleep, boosts your immune system, releases chemicals like endorphins, dopamine and oxytocin, which effect our moods and happiness. But most of all it is fun and rewarding.
Key Chorale wants to do everything we can to keep our community singing. We are focused on making education and community involvement the hallmark of everything we do, using choral music as a tool to impact people directly, in addition to providing the beautiful and polished choral concerts you expect.
If you are reading this, you understand the importance of the arts and how music can touch lives in innumerable ways. I hope you’ll join Key Chorale in our mission to keep our community singing all season long and beyond. Otherwise, we’re just preaching to the choir!
Joseph Caulkins
Extracted from the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County’s Newsletter