City Choir + NSO: Friday Morning Sing - Jan. 17
Join us on Friday, January 17 at The REACH for pre-concert interactive events focusing on singing and wellness!
From 10-11 am on January 17, 2025, join conductor Erin Freeman, assistant conductor Kathleen Jagielski, and singers from the City Choir of Washington at the Kennedy Center’s The REACH ahead of the NSO “coffee concert.” You’ll learn some favorite opera choruses and American standards, engage in a singalong featuring music chosen by Maestra Freeman to illustrate how singers in a chorus can embody a character.
~ Plus, if you want to hear more of Carmen and Opera Choruses, Sound Health Friday participants will receive 15% tickets to the City Choir of Washington’s January performance of “Carmen at 150 - An Evening of Opera Choruses & Scenes” with the code: SoundHealth. Learn more HERE.
Singing is good for your health! Sound Health Fridays with the City Choir of Washington are a great way to start your day, warm up your voice, body, and soul, and get some unique—and hands-on—insight into the NSO’s concert program of the day led by City Choir’s artistic director Erin Freeman. These fun, free, and innovative pre-concert interactive events focus on singing and wellness.
All are welcome to attend these free events—please join us and sing along (or just sit back and listen)!
Please click HERE to learn more and register for the free morning sing.
The City Choir of Washington is a member-driven choral community that is as committed to the music it performs as to the city it serves. It presents moving and thoughtfully curated musical events throughout the Washington, DC metro area to uplift and inspire audiences and singers alike.
Now in its eighteenth season, City Choir is a diverse group of over 140 all-volunteer singers from throughout the Washington metro region. Singers range in age from 21 to 87; some are native Washingtonians, while others hail from throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Asia—all are bound together by a passion for choral music. The City Choir of Washington seeks to create a space where singers and patrons alike can focus on the shared experience of music over external divisions, and where joy can be found in collaborative artistic expression, small accomplishments, and large triumphs.
In summer 2022, the City Choir of Washington concluded fifteen seasons under the artistic leadership of GRAMMY-winning conductor Robert Shafer and welcomed Artistic Director Erin Freeman.
Recent performances include rarely heard gems such as Bach’s Magnificat in E-flat and Elgar’s The Music Makers; intimate a cappella performances of pieces ranging from John Bennet to Anton Bruckner to Huang Ruo; and grand works including Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solonnelle. Artistic Director Erin Freeman is equally at home conducting chorus and orchestra, and City Choir’s 2024-25 season features the Washington National Opera Orchestra in two concerts.
The City Choir of Washington’s engagement ensemble, the City Singers, brings lighter programs of holiday music, spirituals, pop tunes, and American classics to audiences who cannot otherwise attend concerts. Other community engagement programs include the continuation of City Choir’s collaboration with the National Symphony Orchestra’s Sound Health Initiative and singing the national anthem at Washington Nationals baseball games.
Erin Freeman serves in multiple capacities throughout Washington, DC and Virginia, and maintains a national and international presence through guest conducting engagements. Erin is Artistic Director of the City Choir of Washington and Wintergreen Music, Resident Conductor of the Richmond Ballet, and Director of Choral Studies at the Corcoran School of Art and Design. She led the Richmond Symphony Chorus for 15 years and was also Associate Conductor from 2007-2014. Guest conducting includes the New York City Ballet, the Washington Ballet, Buffalo Philharmonic, Neglia Ballet, Orchestra Symphonique Bel’Arte, South Carolina Philharmonic, Savannah Philharmonic, and the Detroit, Toledo, Portland, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Williamsburg Symphony Orchestras. She has conducted at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Boston Symphony Hall, and La Madeleine in Paris, and was recently named nominee (2021) and finalist (2019) for Performance Today’s Classical Woman of the Year. Freeman holds degrees from Northwestern University, Boston University, and Peabody Conservatory. In 2023-24 Erin is leading ensembles at Wolf Trap, London’s Cadogan Hall, and Vienna’s Musikverein, in addition to several locations in the Nation’s capital. She will be back at the Kennedy Center June 19-21 , leading the 10,000 Dreams Festival with the Washington Ballet, Singapore Ballet, National Ballet of China, Goh Ballet and more, all with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.
Katie Jagielski is director of The City Singers, City Choir's engagement ensemble and Assistant Conductor of the City Choir of Washington. She earned her Bachelor’s of Music Education from Shenandoah University and her Master’s of Music in Vocal Pedagogy from The Catholic University of America. Since 2005, Katie has worked in the area actively as a singer and teacher and has directed choruses and vocal ensembles for Anne Arundel County Public Schools, Barbara Ingram School for the Arts, and Charles County Public Schools, and is currently in her eighth year as the Choral Director at Trailside Middle School with Loudoun County Public Schools. Katie has served as the music director for many theatrical productions in Charles and Loudoun County Public Schools, and has helped to create music for many churches in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area.
Heather Adelsberger, Guest Pianist, maintains an active career as a keyboard artist and conductor in the Washington, D.C. area. She holds an undergraduate degree in Piano Performance from the Catholic University of America and a Master of Music in Collaborative Piano from the University of Maryland. Heather currently serves as Director of Music Ministries at Grace Episcopal Church in Silver Spring, MD where she oversees a vibrant, intergenerational music program and concert series. Heather is the Artistic Director of the Georgetown Chorale.
