Delta Community Choir commissions two original songs to mark 10-year anniversary

Ten years ago, two women had a dream about community and the ways they could give back to the one in which they lived.

Their dream gave blossom to the Delta Community Choir, an ensemble that gives free performances and over the past decade has raised $36,000 for community organizations.

To celebrate what they have achieved, they commissioned two new songs that lift up their mission in music. These two songs, created out of a collaboration between composer and choir co-founder Debora DeWitt and lyricist and poet Marianne Peel, will have their premiere performance at a May 7 concert.

“With You There is Music” will be 3 p.m. at Our Savior Lutheran Church, 7910 E. St. Joseph Highway in Delta Township.

The commissioning was made possible after the church where they rehearsed and performed, Calvary Lutheran Church, dissolved in 2021. The church gave monetary gifts from the sale of their building to 28 nonprofit organizations, including the Delta Community Choir.

Director and co-founder Ellen McKenzie said the choir decided to honor that gift by using a portion of it to commission two songs, “Blessed are You” and “With You There is Music.”

“Our mission statement is ‘building community through song’ and in order to celebrate that, we were thinking about what would be special for this group of singers who not only get together for the joy of choral singing and appreciating each other, but also to reach out in a way that honors what this choir has done in terms of sponsoring nonprofit organizations over the past 10 years,” McKenzie said.

The choir searched for artists who could capture its personality. As a co-founder, DeWitt understood the choir’s mission, making her a perfect fit. Peel is a retired East Lansing educator who now lives out of state. She was a mentor to student teachers and is a poet, flautist and vocalist.

“We asked if they would do two to three pieces and we are so blessed that they said yes,” McKenzie said. “They tried to come up with what not only honored Delta’s connection to reaching out to charitable organizations but also those very same charitable organizations who reached out to others.”

DeWitt credits McKenzie for getting the choir off the ground.

“That’s how it began,” DeWitt said. “It began with her vision of community. It’s the Delta Township choir, but it draws people from all over. It’s kind of unique in that you have an organization that every concert gives to a different organization, and they don’t charge money for their concerts.”

In addition to the new songs and other traditional favorites, the choir will perform “Ashokan Farewell,” which was performed at its first concert on May 13, 2013. They’ll invite past Delta Community Choir members to join them onstage for that number. Of the 28 original members, 11 are still singing with the choir.

“Blessed are you, who are pure of heart, turning silence into song”— Chorus to “Blessed Are You”

When Peel began working on lyrics, she said she focused on such things as the power of music and the choir's sense of community.

“The biggest difference in writing (lyrics instead of poetry) is that once I wrote something, then I needed to work very closely with the composer,” Peel said. “There are words that are hard to sing. They don’t open up the vowels. That was a huge consideration that I had to go back and make sure that the language was singable.”

She said she was in communication with DeWitt for months as they collaborated on the songs.

“We did this all remotely,” DeWitt said. “The three of us, the composer, the director and myself met on Zoom and talked about a lot of things and then it was largely between the composer and myself to work out the actual songs.”

DeWitt said it was important to her to compose something the choir would enjoy singing. She arranged the piece for choir with piano accompaniment, French horn solo, string quartet and marimba.

“I wanted it to be really fun for the choir to perform and to have an interesting sound,” DeWitt said. “My goal was to write pieces as special as the ensemble.”

Christopher Jones from Grand Rapids Community College will be a guest artist performing the marimba.

In “With You There is Music,” the lyrics describe the choir members as dream makers, illuminators, those who make magic with music rooted in connection and love.

“This piece is to honor that community spirit of singing, working together and making harmony together,” Peel said, “and that willingness to share your voice and your talent for a bigger cause, which is the charities that they are contributing to as well as just producing beautiful music.”

The May 7 concert will benefit the Lansing Matinee Musicale, a 125-year-old organization with a long history of supporting charitable work in Greater Lansing. McKenzie said it marks the first time they have chosen to sponsor an arts organization.

“They have put music in the hands of soldiers during World War I and have sent records to people on submarines in World War II," McKenzie said. "They sent people to provide music to people in the hospitals in the '30s and '40s. They provide scholarships and right now they’re helping the Lansing Public Schools by connecting music with literacy. It seems a match made in heaven to help them now.”

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Delta Community Choir commissions songs to celebrate 10-year milestone