The Canadian Chamber Choir is returning to Windsor this month for the first time since 2016.
Normally two separate events, the Windsor Choral Festival & Canadian Chamber Choir will interlink for the first time.
The events will feature open rehearsals and workshops with music educators.
An Associate Conductor with CCC, Dr. Joel Tranquilla also originally founded the Windsor Choral Festival in 2011.
Singer for Canadian Chamber Choir and Associate Artistic Director for Windsor Choral Festival Danielle Sirek says the Choral Festival is an admission-by-donation event.
She says the event will help emerging composers.
"Every year expert clinicians are brought in to work with individual choirs on their repertoire and also culminates in a joint concert performance of all choirs at the Capitol Theatre including supporting composers, emerging composers and particular Canadian composers, that's a really important part of what we do."
Sirek says this is the first in-person festival since the start of the pandemic.
She says the last Choral Festival was on March 7 2020.
"We have 9 different choirs that are going to be participating this year from children up to the not-so-young. The Choral Festival is intergenerational in that way where younger singers and older singers get to perform together and share their joy of music together."
She says music and artistic expression can bring people together.
"If there is one thing that COVID has taught us is that connection with others and that emotional connection and that in-person connection are so important to who we are and that music and artistic expression can help us to see the world in a different way."
The Juno-nominated Canadian Chamber Choir has 22 singers in total, spanning all across the country.
The Canadian Chamber Choir will perform on January 13 at the University of Windsor SoCA campus for the "SoCA Fridays Concert" from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. and is free of charge.
The Windsor Choral Festival takes place at the Capitol Theatre on January 14, starting at 7:30 p.m. and will also feature performances from the Canadian Chamber Choir and is an admission-by-donation event.
With files from AM800's Rob Hindi