The EcoVoice Project

2026 - 2027 Season

Remember. Renew. Reconnect.

The EcoVoice Project’s 2026–27 Season invites the shared experience of music as a living practice of ecological attention, communal care, and creative response. Through professional performances, world premieres, community singing, and interdisciplinary collaboration, the season moves across the turning year, from migrating birds and winter darkness to Earth Day remembrance and summer renewal.

Birds in Plight

Fall | Sunday, October 11, 4:00PM

Skowronski Music Hall | Loyola University

New Earth Ensemble | Free admission

Free registration:

https://luc.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=2360

Opening the season, Birds in Plight brings together five new EcoVoice premieres with Christopher Tin’s The Lost Birds, creating a powerful musical meditation on disappearance, migration, beauty, and ecological loss. Performed by New Earth Ensemble, the program asks what a changing sky might sound like and how choral music can help us grieve, remember, and protect the more-than-human world.

Also featured will be five meaningful selections from our call for scores:

  • Erin Busch: To the Bluebird

  • Mark Jericho Pacia: Sarimanok

  • Kelvyn Koning: Everyone Sang

  • David Lipten: L’oiseau

  • Jonathan Mitchell: The Bird’s Lullaby

During the concert, we will welcome Dr. Benjamin Van Doren (University of Illinois) to help guide us along the surprising urban pathways of migratory birds. Valued partners The Chicago Bird Alliance and The Chicago Ornithological Society will provide additional interpretive materials.

Christopher Tin

Benjamin Van Doren

Winter Solstice Celebration

Winter | Saturday, December 19th

6:30PM gathering 7:00PM Performance

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church | Evanston, IL

The EcoVoice Project Community Choir and New Earth Ensemble guests

The Winter Solstice Celebration gathers community members in song at the darkest point of the year, creating space for reflection, warmth, and shared resilience. In collaboration with Evanston Public Library, Climate Action Evanston, and St. Luke’s, this participatory event connects seasonal ritual, environmental action, and the simple human power of singing together.

Earth Day Premiere: What the Earth Remembers

by Shawn Okpebholo

Saturday, April 24th, 7:30PM

The Obama Forum, Hyde Park (Chicago, IL)

New Earth Ensemble

Ticketed event. Return here for box office link later this year.

For Earth Day, The EcoVoice Project presents the world premiere of What the Earth Remembers, a major new work by Shawn Okpebholo with libretto by Marcus Amaker. Performed by New Earth Ensemble with guest high school choirs, this premiere brings professional artists and young singers together in a profound act of musical witness, asking what the Earth carries, what we inherit, and what we are called to change

Shawn Okpebholo

Marcus Amaker

Summer Solstice Celebration

Summer | Monday, June 21st | 6:30PM gathering /7:00PM Performance

Chicago Location TBD

The EcoVoice Project Community Choir and New Earth Ensemble guests

The season closes with a Summer Solstice Celebration, marking the longest day of the year with song, community, and renewed attention to the living world around us. This outdoor gathering brings The EcoVoice Community Choir and New Earth Ensemble musicians together in a joyful public celebration of connection, gratitude, and ecological hope.