 Welcome to In the Studio at Davis Media Access. My name is Audom lab a Renault and I'm your host today for this segment. Be sure to catch replays of this show and other In the Studio episodes on DCTV channel 15 on the Comcast system in Davis, 10 a.m. weekdays and also on menu 99 on AT&T's U-verse system. And really be sure to check out our complete archive at DCTV.Davismedia.org. We have in the studio stretching back quite a ways and they're a great encapsulation of what makes Davis Davis and what's going on here. Today I'm really pleased to have with me my guest David Loofborough from Sac Sings and that is the Sacramento Choral Festival and it's coming up April 23rd and 24th. Welcome David. Thank you. So glad to have you here today. Yeah. The event is produced by the Sac Valley Choral Coalition and includes four performances. David is directing each of the shows and he's also sings in one of the groups and he's going to tell us a little bit about that later but let's start from the top. Tell us about Sac Sings. Sac Sings is a festival of 20 choirs in over four performances that has become kind of the destination. We pull choirs from five counties all the way from Amador, from Nevada County and certainly four groups this time from Davis area. So we're very excited to offer this as a showcase to kind of give people a sampler, you know kind of like going to the wine place with a sampler. This is a choral sampler. All kinds of music and it's a lot of fun. A little bit of Grass Valley, a little bit of Davis, a little bit of, well there's a lot of genres I want to get into later but you've brought us a short video. So let's go ahead and watch that so people can see what we're talking about and then we'll get into some of the specifics if you cue the video please. Looks like a lot of fun, David. Yes it is. The voices. Two years ago before the first show launched, now where you're coming up on year three of Sac Sings, what have you learned, what's changed in that time? We went into it with a lot of enthusiasm and certainly well-warranted because so much talent is going on around the valley and we wanted to showcase that talent. We kind of bit deeply into the apple the first year and we had, oh my gosh I can't even tell you, 20 groups and 16 performances. The second year we scaled back some to really focus a little bit more and then we did some talk. We wanted to be a good experience for the singers especially so we revamped things. One thing we learned was that we needed to have it earlier in the year before the spring season so that people really could showcase their upcoming concerts so the audience members get a little taste and then they can see, oh I want to go see that concert and that concert. Like an appetizer. An appetizer exactly. Then we wanted to move the festival closer. We were at the Harris Center and we've moved it now to Sacramento City College Performing Arts Center, beautiful facility right in the middle of the Sacramento Valley. Nice. Now, I was reading through the website earlier today and in there it describes choral music as some of the best undiscovered music there is. Why do you think it's not known as well as you would hope it would be? That was really the motivation for starting this was all these great choirs of the Vocal Arts Ensemble right here in Davis, marvelous group, nobody knew about them. So we wanted to get that exposure out and it's still a challenge. We advertise, there's a lot of competition for music but that's what we're growing toward is to really showcase and let people cross-pollinate. People that would come to hear, let's say, Barbershop don't know how wonderful modern art music is and classical music people are finding out about Americana and fun music that many of the other groups. That was one of the things that really surprised me. So I am a huge fan of Vocal Arts Ensemble and I just want to mention the other Yolo County groups that are participating, which is the Davis Chamber Choir, the Davis Choral and from Woodland, the Woodland Chamber Singers. So we have four groups from Yolo County. The website also described a wide, they're performing a wide range of music, classical, jazz, Barbershop, Americana, okay, I didn't know that choral groups touched on all that. Yes, they do. And you sing with, tell me again. I sing with the Grass Valley Malevoice Choir. We sing what's called Americana. So we sing show tunes, we sing traditional American music. This time we're doing an all spiritual thing that's shaker music and African American spirituals and so forth. But normally we sing also British songs because our heritage is a Cornish Carole Choir. So the miners came and made this choir 150 years ago. Singing down in the mines. Rita Hosking, who's a world famous folk singer here in Davis, sings out of that heritage as well. And so she's told a lot of great stories about that. I'm going to read a quote to you. It's a little known fact, but there are dozens of independent choruses in the Sacramento Valley. A few are widely known, drawing thousands to their concerts each year, but what of the rest? Nearly 900 singers, 900 singers. That's right. So tell us a little bit about, because there's four different shows within this event. How does that work? Yeah. So the 20 choirs are divided up into groups of five. So Saturday afternoon, Sunday evening, Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening. Four shows, they're each independent. And each one has a variety, you know, a different music. So there might be a classical and a barbershop and Americana and a jazz and an ensemble singer kind of thing in each concert. So you mixed it up. So we've mixed it up quite a bit. And so each one's a separate entrance and separate tickets. So yeah, we're actually, our executive director is offering a prize to those that come to all four concerts. So he's calling it the executive club or something like that. I'm going to have you talk about how one gets tickets and how that works with four different shows. I'll just tell our viewers that tickets are available at saxings.org and you can get more information there. That's right. But how is that going to work? Yeah. Well, we offer our tickets through a ticket agency called Event Bright and you'll find the link on the website and the tickets menu. And so you can go there and order the tickets, one concert, two concerts, three. There's no discount for, you know, coming to multiple ones. So really a bargain price anyway. Right. So each show is a separate ticket. Yeah. So each one's separate. Okay. So what would you like to highlight? What's really exciting you going into your third year of producing and directing these shows? I am so excited. We added last year a, where all the singers sing at the end, not all 900, a building would fall over. But all of those from that concert show up 200, 250 singers gather on the same stage. We sing Let There Be Peace on Earth, you heard a piece of it from last year. It was a commission piece that we did, had commissioned just for us. And we have the exclusive rights for it. So nobody else does that version. And then we all sing the audience sings together as well at the end. So it brings people into that experience in a wonderful, wonderful way. So that to me is the highlight each time. It just gives me chill bumps. I start crying. One of those goosebumps moments. You know, I asked you a question earlier and you said that's an interesting point. Choral music hasn't seen the big elevation or the big bump that acapella got, for example. With acapello a few years ago, we had movies like Pitch Perfect. There's been TV shows that really elevated it. What do you think is going on with choral music? Do you think there's an opportunity like that in the wings? Well, you know, it's a spectrum. And acapella music, for instance, I'm actually developing a seminar on this topic. Acapella music started way back in Gregorian Chance. You think about it. That was, you know, in the milieu of religious worship and so forth, 200,000 years ago. And it has evolved through barbershop, through jazz singing, through a variety of choral milios. So, you know, the thing we're hearing, you know, the college groups and, you know, Harvard and so forth, and Wiffle Puffs and whatever they're called. Pentatonix. Pentatonix are big. So we hear a little of that in our concerts and that's a part of what we want to lift up. And we hope it'll draw people kind of like the Harry Potter of music is that they'll come for one thing and understand that, find that there's just a wonderful variety of music that you can enjoy. So, good. Well, take a minute here and tell me a little bit about the group you sing with. Okay. So I sing with Grass Valley Mailboys Choir and that is, let's say, the group was founded 150 years ago during the Gold Rush when the Cornish men came over to work in the Deep Gold Mines. And that group was in existence for, well, actually there were several groups. They ultimately became one group, became kind of famous. They sang on the radio and NPR did a recording in the Deep Mines clear up through the 1960s, early 60s. So the Gold Mines closed and the choir faded away, but it got revived in the 90s. And so we're about to celebrate our 20th year. We're going to Cornwall next year as a, to be a part of a festival there. Well, that's pretty exciting. I can just imagine those voices down in the mines and that kind of gives me goosebumps. Yeah. It is a sound. All right. It's a unique sound. We're almost out of time, believe it or not. So anything else you would like to tell people about the upcoming Saksings event, April 23rd and 24th? Yep. April 23rd, 24th. Get on the website, Saksings.org, and you'll find everything you need. All the groups are listed there and how to get the tickets. And we really hope that you'll get out and see what music has to offer. I mean, it's not rock music. It's not going to be rock and roll. No. There are a couple groups like the Sacramento Gay Men's Choir that do a pretty rocker show. So it's a lot of fun and you will not be sorry. Sounds like a lot of fun. David Loofborough, thanks for being our guest today here on In the Studio. Appreciate it. Thank you. Once again, I'm Autumn. I've been hosting you on In the Studio here today and be sure to turn and tune into the whole archive, DCTV.DavisMedia.org. Thanks for watching.