On May 16, Cantare’s Chorale and Aurora Youth Choir will perform a concert to honor the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The season finale performance, showcasing the Oakland nonprofit’s adult and youth choirs, celebrates unity, freedom, and equality. It also acknowledges current concerns about conflict, repression, and marginalization.
“I want to unleash the music, what the composers and authors gave us. This allows the performers and the audience to ask themselves, ‘What can I do now?’” said David Morales, the founder and artistic director of Cantare.
Morales said the pieces for the program all relate to the history of the United States. They do not imply “all is good with America.”
“The music encourages us to build a compassionate community across the barriers that separate us,” Morales said.
The program includes the Revolutionary anthem “Chester” by William Billings; the 1957 extended “Song of Democracy” by Howard Hanson, inspired by Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; “We Shall Be Free” by Garth Brooks; the Suffragette anthem “Keep Marching” from the 2024 Broadway musical Suffs; “Where Is the Love?” by the Black Eyed Peas; two spirituals, arrangements of “America the Beautiful” and the late 1800s hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” known as the Black national anthem; and a medley of anthems from different branches of the U.S. Armed Services.
The one-and-a-half-hour, pay-what-you-will concert will close Cantare’s concert season. Many members of Cantare’s regular audiences are related by blood or friendship to the performers.
“The audience tends to feel more like family than strangers,” Morales said.
Cantare serves urban and suburban communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The organization holds free weekly in-school music education classes and after-school choirs in Oakland for approximately 2,500 youths. Members of the 60-person adult choir, the Chorale, and the 32-person Aurora Youth Choir — composed of 9th through 12th graders — represent eight decades of singers. They gather at the organization’s headquarters for weekly rehearsals.
Cantare’s theme for the 2025–2026 season is “Anchored in Justice — Reaching in Love.”
“That echoes what we hope to accomplish with this concert,” Morales said.
As the choirs practice, Morales invites performers to explore their understanding of the meanings of the words in the pieces.
“We welcome new and returning audience members to this concert. They will hear what our choir members learned through music. They’ll also have the opportunity to explore what the pieces mean to them,” said Morales.
For more information, visit Cantare’s website.