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• Harmonium Choral Society has announced the hiring of its first executive director, Jody Marcus. (2021-9-22)
• ALERT: Some nefarious party purporting to be Vocal Area Network is sending e-mail solicitions "requesting gift card donations to assist Veterans at hospice care." This is a known scam of the gift card variety. Please discard these e-mails and report the actual sender to the appropriate authorities if you can. One such place is the FTC's fraud reporting site at reportfraud.ftc.gov/. These e-mails are from neither Steve Friedman nor Vocal Area Network. (2021-9-19)
• West Side Rag has a nice article about New York City Encore Chorale, part of Encore Creativity for Older Adults. (2021-8-26)
• The Greenwich Village Chamber Singers have announced that long-time music director Mark Mangini has stepped down due to an extended illness. Alec Galambos, music director of Khorikos, will serve as interim conductor through spring 2022. (2021-8-26)
• The Choral Connection on YouTube offers Harold Rosenbaum's interviews with composers, conductors and performers. (2021-8-15)

Archive of old "News" items

Subscribe to VANupdate. Receive twice-monthly updates about new content on Vocal Area Network. Get the latest news items, upcoming vocal ensemble events, the most recent postings to the VAN Concert Calendar, new site features and updates to Choir Auditions, the Choir Directory and the Info Exchange. Sign up here.

• September 13, 2021: We've made another tweak to how we differentiate between current and past Sustaining Members. Current Sustaining Members will be those who have contributed within the past twelve months. Past Sustaining Members will be those whose most recent contribution occurrred more than a year ago. Hope that makes things clearer.
• August 26, 2021: The BVS Women's Choir is now the Brooklyn Treble Choir.
• August 5, 2021: New link for NYC Choral Freelancers, a Facebook group dedicated to all those who toil in the fine professional choral ensembles of NYC.
• July 12, 2021: We've done our periodic (but perhaps not frequent enough) cleanup of links and sites in our Links Collection. Please let us know if you find links that are dead or in need of updating.
• July 8, 2021: New link under "Tools" in the Links Collection for ScanScore, a utility to scan, play and edit sheet music.
• June 10, 2021: New Choir Directory listing and Choir Auditions ad for The St. Luke and St. Matthew Church Choir in Brooklyn.
• May 26, 2021: The Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus / JPPC is now The Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus.
• April 8, 2021: New Choir Directory listing and Choir Auditions ad (detailing their upcoming Summer Intensive) for the Westchester Children's Chorus, based in Larchmont.
• April 1, 2021: New link for Fides Cantat, a choral festival for chamber and youth choirs up to 40 singers in Wittenberg, Germany scheduled for June 2022.
• March 8, 2021: New Choir Directory listing and Choir Auditions ad for the Putnam Chorale Youth Chorus.

Archive of old "New on VAN" items

• Need some exquisite beaded jewelry to complement your concert attire or enhance your look on your next Zoom call? Or perhaps a distinctive gift for that special singer in your life? Or maybe you'd like to host a jewelry show to benefit your favorite non-profit organization? Try Carnelian Knoll, where you'll find necklaces, bracelets and earrings of vintage beads and silver handcrafted by Julie Siegmund.
• Looking for rehearsal space or performance venues? Try NYC Music Spaces, part of Fractured Atlas's SpaceFinder NYC database of available rehearsal and performance spaces for instrumental and vocal musicians. You'll find places to rent, from studios to large venues, for classical, jazz, rock--whatever you need to rehearse or perform in NYC.
• Looking for an outstanding vocal ensemble coach? Mark Johnson, possessor of an amazing ear and terrific interpretive insights in a variety of styles, is available to coach your group. Contact Mark via e-mail.
• Liz Fleischer's Sight-Singing Program is offered each season at the Kaufman Center (129 West 67th Street). Classes include ear-training, rhythm and pitch reading, music theory, basic notation and terminology, with emphasis on learning to hold a part with confidence. For more info, visit www.kaufman-center.org/lucyadults_mus_sight.htm, e-mail fleischerliz@aol.com or adultdivision@kaufman-center.org or call (212) 501-3362. The sight-singing program is just one of the classes offered by the Kaufman Center's Lucy Moses School.

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