Spring 2025 Updates
New Artistic Director Leadership
We are excited to welcome Cara Valenti as the new Artistic Director for the Common Woman Chorus. Cara previously served as Assistant Artistic Director since 2016 and as Acting Artistic Director during the Fall 2024 semester. Hayli Altman, who joined the chorus in 2023 and helped conduct in both Spring and Fall 2024 concerts, is now the Assistant Artistic Director for the Common Woman Chorus.
We are incredibly excited to sing under the artistic leadership of these two skilled and experienced individuals. As one member of the chorus’s hiring committee wrote, “Both Cara and Hayli have strong backgrounds as educators, and I think this shines through in the way they speak about and demonstrate their abilities to work with a group of people who have a wide range of strengths, learning styles, and perspectives.”
Cara Valenti is the fourth Artistic Director in the history of the Common Woman Chorus. Her predecessors include founding director Eleanor Sableski, Cindy Bizzell, and Kristen Stinnett. We hope you will all join us in congratulating Cara and Hayli on their new roles! You can support them at their first full concert performance as AD and AAD at our spring concert on June 7th.
Written by Katie Zellonis Otto; Edited by CWC Board of Directors
Spring Concert: Kaleidoscope
We hope you can join us on Saturday, June 7th, for our Spring concert, “Kaleidoscope,” featuring a wide array of song styles that share a “color” theme, from “The Song of Purple Summer,” to “Orange Colored Sky,” to “True Colors,” and more! As usual, we will have performances at 3:00pm & 7:00pm at Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship [ERUUF] in Durham. Tickets will be available in May. We hope to see you there!
Written by Janie Mac Neela; Edited by Katie Zellonis Otto and Bird Williams
Common Woman Cabaret Fundraiser
On Sunday, March 9th, CWC presented our annual Common Woman Cabaret Fundraiser at Durham’s Motorco Music Hall. The Cabaret is an opportunity to showcase our singers performing solos, duets, or group acts of their choosing in an “after-dark” setting. Accompanied by Kate Lewis on piano and Patrick McGrew on percussion, our guests were entertained by a variety of performances, from “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen,” to the tongue-in-cheek “You’d Be Surprised” and “I Wanna Be Evil”, “Barrett’s Privateers” (a sea shanty), a hilarious rendition of “Shy,” and many other tunes that allowed our singers to shine and delighted our guests. We were also thrilled to welcome Transposition, a trans and nonbinary ensemble, for their debut performance of “Somebody Told Me” by The Killers.
Our emcee for the evening was Stormie Daie, Durham’s drag queen icon, who pumped up each act and encouraged guests to donate to support the chorus. We closed this special performance with the full chorus performing “Pink Pony Club” by Grammy winner Chappell Roan. We raised a total of $5,894 for our chorus after expenses through ticket sales and donations. Many thanks to Motorco, Stormie, our generous supporters, and all who joined us at the Common Woman Cabaret!
Written by Janie Mac Neela; Edited by Katie Zellonis Otto and Bird Williams
Spring Semester Socials
Spring has sprung, and we’ve been making the most of it with a blooming lineup of fun singer socials! Earlier this semester, we gathered for a “Crafternoon” to design customized donation boxes for our Common Woman Cabaret Fundraiser. Singers painted, collaged, and sculpted cardboard boxes into miniature masterpieces that were proudly displayed along the Motorco stage during the performance!
Singers also gathered for a “Make the Rainbow” Tie-Dye party, where we tie-dyed shirts, shorts, socks, and everything in between! Finally, we are looking forward to our “True Colors” party at the end of the month, where we will celebrate our authentic selves and show off our true colors. Sharing community outside of our weekly rehearsals is such an important part of the Common Woman Chorus experience, and we are so thankful to all of the singers who have hosted gatherings and to those who have participated!
Written and edited by Katie Zellonis Otto
Equity & Belonging Workshop for Singers
CWC's Equity and Belonging Committee announces a return to transformational learning for chorus members! Next month, we will offer a Zoom workshop addressing the topic of socio/economic status from GALA's "A New Harmony Workbook: Equity, Access, and Belonging." We are thrilled that Sam Bullington of GALA will facilitate this workshop. Over the past few years, with Sam's facilitation, CWC has explored the topics of intergenerational dynamics, neurodiversity, race/ethnicity, and gender identity/sexual orientation. Socio/economic status seems like a timely topic since so many individuals and organizations are experiencing anxiety as political and economic chaos swirls around us.
Sam Bullington is a public speaker and workshop facilitator, college professor and spiritual counselor, and founder and director of Phoenix, Colorado’s Trans Community Choir! Sam is nonbinary trans with a Ph.D. in global gender and sexuality studies. Sam was a founding member of GALA’s New Harmony Task Force. GALA Choruses encompasses 12,000 singers from more than 190 choruses throughout North America. The New Harmony Workbook and Task Force allow choruses to explore issues of equity, access, and belonging because LGBTQIA+ choruses offer more than just a place to sing: they are also communities of belonging.
Written by Julia Storm; Edited by Katie Zellonis Otto