2026-2027 SEASON
Experience the extraordinary possibilities of the human voice.
The 2026–2027 Orlando Sings season reveals just how expansive choral music can be. Voices dance, tell stories, illuminate familiar traditions, bring forgotten masterpieces back to life, and help create something entirely new.
From beloved masterworks to world premieres, from intimate professional performances to hundreds of voices raised together, this season explores the many ways singing can move us, connect us, and open us to something new.
2026-2027 SEASON OVERVIEW
The season begins with the irresistible rhythms of ¡Baila y Canta! and continues with two distinctive holiday traditions: the intimate Messiah by Candlelight and the beloved A Solaria Solstice. In February, Orlando Sings serves as a lead commissioner for one of four world-premiere performances of Jocelyn Hagen’s new multimedia oratorio Creation, where music, poetry, technology, and synchronized imagery become one. March brings the dramatic return of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s rarely heard masterpiece The Atonement, followed in May by a completely reimagined Orlando Sings Choral Festival—a full day of concerts, guest artists, interactive experiences, conversation, and opportunities to sing. The season closes in Steinmetz Hall with Love Endures, bringing voices across generations together around themes of love, family, and memory before culminating in Robert S. Cohen’s deeply moving Alzheimer’s Stories.
CONCERT DESCRIPTIONS
¡BAILA Y CANTA! | NOVEMBER 13, 2026 | 8:00 PM
Music that moves—in every sense of the word.
Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (445 South Magnolia Avenue, Orlando, FL 32801)
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHT
Martín Palmeri’s Misa a Buenos Aires (Misatango)
PERFORMERS
Apollo | Harmonia | Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus
Experience an evening where choral music moves! Harmonia and Apollo open the program with music inspired by dance traditions from cultures around the world, exploring the rhythm, movement, and energy that connect music and dance across cultures. Then the Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus and conductor Andrew Minear take us to Argentina for Martín Palmeri’s Misa a Buenos Aires (Misatango), a thrilling setting of the Latin Mass that brings together chorus, mezzo-soprano soloist, bandoneón, piano, and strings with the unmistakable passion and pulse of tango. Featuring special guests and a few surprises along the way, ¡Baila y Canta! is an evening of music, movement, color, and joy—from the first beat to the final celebration.
HANDEL’S MESSIAH BY CANDLELIGHT | DECEMBER 5, 2026 | 8:00 PM
Handel’s beloved masterpiece, illuminated by candlelight.
Broadway United Methodist Church
406 E Amelia St, Orlando, FL 32803
PERFORMERS
Solaria Singers & Players | Andrew Minear, conductor
Celebrate the holiday season with Messiah by Candlelight, an intimate concert experience that brings Handel’s beloved masterpiece into the warm glow of a candlelit setting. In the historic, 100-year-old Broadway United Methodist Church in Orlando’s Lake Eola Heights, eight professional voices from Orlando Sings’ Solaria Singers join a chamber ensemble for an approximately one-hour performance featuring the Christmas portion of Messiah and culminating in the triumphant “Hallelujah” Chorus.
With this small ensemble of professional singers and instrumentalists, Handel’s music takes on remarkable clarity and immediacy, bringing audiences closer to the text, the musicians, and the drama of the work. Whether continuing a treasured holiday tradition or experiencing Messiah for the first time, Messiah by Candlelight offers a beautiful and memorable way to celebrate the season.
A SOLARIA SOLSTICE | DECEMBER 21, 2026 | 7:30 PM
Light and wonder on the longest night of the year.
Orlando Museum of Art
2416 N Mills Ave, Orlando, FL 32803
PERFORMERS
Solaria Singers | Andrew Minear, conductor
Celebrate the beauty, stillness, and hope of the winter season with A Solaria Solstice, Orlando Sings’ beloved annual holiday concert featuring the professional voices of the Solaria Singers. Inspired by the winter solstice—the longest night of the year—this immersive experience explores themes of light, reflection, and renewal through choral music, poetry, and stillness.
Blending contemporary and traditional music with poetry and moments of quiet reflection, A Solaria Solstice honors traditions of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa while exploring the ways we seek light, meaning, and connection during the darkest days of the year. Set in the intimate auditorium of the Orlando Museum of Art, this audience favorite invites you to slow down amid the rush of the holidays and experience an evening of beauty, warmth, wonder, and joy.
CREATION BY JOCELYN HAGEN | FEBRUARY 14, 2027 | 5:00 PM
See the music. Hear the universe come to life.
WORLD PREMIERE • ORLANDO SINGS LEAD COMMISSIONER
Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (445 South Magnolia Avenue, Orlando, FL 32801)
PERFORMERS
Harmonia | Solaria Players | Sandra Shafer, conductor
Jocelyn Hagen’s Creation is a new multimedia oratorio that reimagines the story of existence through a feminine lens. As a lead commissioner of the work, Orlando Sings presents one of its four world-premiere performances, featuring Harmonia and the Solaria Players under the direction of Sandra Shafer.
This is not a traditional choral concert. Choir, instrumental ensemble, poetry, and video projections unfold together, with imagery created to move in precise synchronization with the music through newly developed technology. Rather than serving as a backdrop, the visual world becomes part of the score itself—stars, flowers, light, movement, and human life evolving alongside the sound.
Drawing on the words of eight women poets, Creation journeys from the birth of the universe and the emergence of life to motherhood, community, loss, love, and our place within the cosmos. The result is an immersive experience in which music and image invite audiences to encounter creation from a new perspective.
THE ATONEMENT BY SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR | MARCH 5, 2027 | 7:30 PM
A lost masterpiece. A timeless story of passion, sacrifice, and hope.
First United Methodist Church Orlando
142 E Jackson St, Orlando, FL 32801
PERFORMERS
Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus | Orchestra | Andrew Minear, conductor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s The Atonement is a powerful, rarely heard oratorio for six soloists, chorus, and orchestra that brings the Passion of Christ to life with the sweep, drama, and emotional intensity of the great Romantic choral tradition. Premiered at Hereford Cathedral in 1903 with the composer conducting, the work follows the story from Gethsemane through the trial before Pontius Pilate and the Crucifixion, weaving Gospel narratives with Alice Parsons’ original poetic text.
Nearly lost to the concert stage for more than a century, The Atonement returns as a major work from one of Britain’s most important late-Romantic composers. Orlando Sings presents the work with the Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus, six soloists, and orchestra in a dramatically staged performance that brings audiences inside its story of betrayal, suffering, sacrifice, faith, and ultimately hope. Whether encountered as a profound expression of Christian faith or as a compelling work of musical drama, The Atonement offers a rare opportunity to experience an extraordinary work of the choral-orchestral repertoire brought vividly to life.
ORLANDO SINGS CHORAL FESTIVAL | MAY 1, 2027 | EVENTS THROUGHOUT THE DAY
A celebration of the art—and joy—of singing.
Come for the concerts. Stay for the festival.
Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater and DeVos Family Room at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (445 South Magnolia Avenue, Orlando, FL 32801)
PERFORMERS
Solaria Singers | Apollo | Harmonia | Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus | Orlando Sings Youth Choral Artists | Guest Choirs, Artists, and Speakers
The Orlando Sings Choral Festival returns in an all-new format, transforming the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts into a full-day celebration of singing, music, and community. For the first time, concerts, special performances, interactive experiences, conversation, and opportunities to make music yourself will unfold throughout the day across the Pugh Theater and DeVos Family Room. Hear the Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus, Harmonia, Apollo, Solaria Singers, and Orlando Sings Youth Choral Artists alongside invited guest choirs and artists—and discover unexpected ways to experience the power of voices coming together.
The day culminates with Mary Lou Williams’ Mary Lou’s Mass, an exhilarating fusion of jazz, gospel, and sacred tradition performed by Solaria Singers with jazz ensemble and dancers. Spend the day discovering just how many ways there are to listen, sing, learn, and connect.
LOVE ENDURES: ALZHEIMER’S STORIES BY ROBERT S. COHEN | JUNE 4, 2027 | 8:00 PM
Stories of love, memory, and the bonds that shape our lives.
Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (445 South Magnolia Avenue, Orlando, FL 32801)
PERFORMERS
Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus | Apollo | Harmonia | Orlando Sings Senior Singers (Mayflower Singers)
Orlando Sings closes its 2026–2027 season with Love Endures, an evening of music about the people we love, the memories we carry, and the relationships that shape us. Apollo, Harmonia, and the Orlando Sings Senior Singers open the evening with songs of love, family, and memory, bringing together voices across generations for a deeply personal reflection on human connection.
The second half features the Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus in Robert S. Cohen’s Alzheimer’s Stories, a moving work for soloists, chorus, and orchestra that gives voice to individuals and families affected by Alzheimer’s disease. With a libretto by Herschel Garfein drawn from their real-life stories, the work explores memory and loss with remarkable honesty and compassion while ultimately offering a profound sense of hope.
A SOLARIA SUMMER SOLSTICE | JUNE 21, 2027 | 7:00 PM
Music for the longest light of the year.
Voices, poetry, and the music of the living earth.
Location TBA
PERFORMERS
Solaria Singers and special guest artist-composer Malcolm Dalglish on hammered dulcimer | Andrew Minear, conductor
Celebrate the summer solstice with the professional voices of the Solaria Singers in an evening inspired by the beauty, abundance, and wonder of the natural world. At the heart of the program is Malcolm Dalglish’s Hymnody of Earth, a luminous collection of songs setting the poetry of Wendell Berry for choir, hammered dulcimer, and percussion, performed with Malcolm Dalglish himself at the hammered dulcimer. Rooted in images of land, work, stillness, community, and the rhythms of the living world, Berry’s poetry and Dalglish’s music invite us to listen more closely to the earth and to one another.
The concert also marks the culmination of the Orlando Sings Youth Choral Artists Summer Intensive, as young musicians join Solaria in performance after a week of intensive music-making alongside professional artists. During the week, the singers will also work collaboratively with Dalglish to create a brand-new piece, giving them the rare opportunity not only to perform beside professional musicians, but to take part in the creation of new music.
A Solaria Summer Solstice offers a natural counterpart to our beloved winter tradition: an evening shaped by poetry, singing, creativity, and reflection on our place within the living world. As the music comes to a close, linger with us and enjoy the evening light and sunset of the longest day of the year.
COMMUNITY PERFORMANCES
Future collaborations to be announced!