Durango Choral Society

A nonprofit organization

Singing elevates our lives and fills our paths with joy and higher purpose. Help us live our mission of accessibility to the choral arts through world-class performances, low ticket prices, and scholarships. Your partnership enhances our communities. In concert with you, we keep the arts alive.

Testimonials

"Music, a magic beyond all we do here." -- J. K. Rowling

Our singers and our audience members range in age from 6 to 96, a very rare and special cross- generational demographic! We are proud of this fact and point to our family's impressive age range as a testimonial to wide impact in and of itself. In fact, we recently sang at the memorial service of a recently departed 101 year old dedicated patron (Mae Forleo) whose family told us that she said attending our concerts was a true joy and that our music greatly enhanced the quality of her later life. Look at all of the people that you are helping us to reach. Thank you!
Music making and singing in particular are very emotional at heart. There are so many positive anecdotes on both sides of stand that it is difficult to choose just one. Singers and audience members are deeply touched by live performance. It is not uncommon to see and hear audience members exclaiming in glee or amazement or weeping joyful or cathartic tears, having been touched on a level that only music can reach. Though the choristers cannot display these feelings and emotions as openly as the audience, we can assure you that the magic of the moments impact us deeply and raise our artistry to an even higher level. They flow through us, and as they do, we get to observe the immediate impact that our art is having on our patrons through a most beautiful, transactional, living relationship between artist and audience.

Mission

The mission of the Durango Choral Society is to enhance the musical and cultural development of our community through the promotion of choral activities and concerts for the enjoyment of the public. Emphasis is placed on providing educational opportunities for both singers and audience members.

Background Statement

The Durango Choral Society (DCS) is currently in its 53rd season. DCS has grown from a small group of adult singers who met for enjoyment in 1970, to an organization that has four performing choirs: the 100-voice adult mixed choir; the 16 treble voices of the Durango Women's Choir (DWC); the 48 young voices of the Durango Children's Chorale(DCC); and the 22 voices Durango Youth Chorus (DYC), serving middle school aged singers. We are proud that we now have a choir for singers of every age! DCS primarily serves La Plata County, although some of our singers and audience members come from the neighboring counties of Archuleta, Montezuma and San Juan, as well as from Northern New Mexico. The repertoire is drawn from many languages and cultures, and both the singers and the audience represent a cross section of our community. We are very committed to the opportunities the DCS provides for the youth of La Plata County. We are also committed to offering our community exemplary and diverse concerts of the highest quality. Our collaborative efforts expand each year and include works with the San Juan Symphony, Fort Lewis College Choirs, The Telluride Renaissance Singers, the Music in the Mountains Orchestra, the Santa Fe Women's Choir, and numerous instrumentalists from the Four Corners area. In addition to a delivering a world-class presentation of challenging major works in five magnificent Durango performance venues, we go on tour and our community partnerships travel with us. Though travel and collaboration we gain new understandings of various cultural and choral traditions as well as increase our visibility. Over time we have expanded our performance venues and accepted invitations to represent Colorado twice at Carnegie Hall, across Central Europe, and in Syros, Greece at the International Festival of the Aegean. The has DCS traveled to the Varna International Choral festival as performing guests in Croatia, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Salzburg. Most recently, the DCS participated in a choral festival in Oahu, Hawaii (April, 2017) the DCC performed at Carnegie Hall (May 2017) and the DCS has again been invited to perform at Carnegie Hall (June 2018) with our own Linda Mack Berven conducting. We feel that we are living up to the Colorado Creative Industries statewide objective of ensuring that "Colorado will be recognized as a premier creative hub-a home for world-class creative businesses, productions and experiences." We are proud to be dedicated Durango artists as well as ambassadors of Colorado on the international stage. We hope to proudly forefront your organization as an important, visible partner, both locally and on the stages of the world.

Organization Data

Summary

Organization name

Durango Choral Society

other names

DCS

Year Established

1984

Tax id (EIN)

74-2290319

Category

Arts, Culture & Humanities

Organization Size

Small Organization

Address

910 E 3rd Ave
Duango, CO 81301

Headquarters

910 E 3rd Ave
Durango, CO 81301

Mailing

PO 1043
Durango, CO 81302

Service areas

La Plata County, CO, US

Phone

970-799-4826

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