California's Silicon Valley might not be the first place one would look for a high-quality girls' choir, but iSing of Palo Alto certainly fills the bill. The group has some 300 members in all, and they appear here in two different smaller groups, one older and one younger. Both have impressively smooth vocal blends, but what really strikes the listener to Here I Stand -- the choir's debut release -- is the freshness of the program, all the more noteworthy in that the group has no fixed conductor shaping it. (The conducting ...
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California's Silicon Valley might not be the first place one would look for a high-quality girls' choir, but iSing of Palo Alto certainly fills the bill. The group has some 300 members in all, and they appear here in two different smaller groups, one older and one younger. Both have impressively smooth vocal blends, but what really strikes the listener to Here I Stand -- the choir's debut release -- is the freshness of the program, all the more noteworthy in that the group has no fixed conductor shaping it. (The conducting duties here are shared by artistic directors Jennah Delp-Somers and Shane Troll.) All of the music is recently composed and is entirely accessible to listeners and young choristers. The choir's motto is "Girls Changing the World Through Song," and there are pieces here with social and historical themes such as Daniel Elder's 365, addressing gun violence, and Never Shall I Forget, a Holocaust memorial by Adam Schoenberg (no relation to either of the more famous Schoenbergs) to texts...
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