Heartland Harmony
Heartland Harmony
ember is a community choir in Viroqua, Wisconsin directed by Anni Zylstra. We sing traditional polyphonic folk music, with a primary focus in regions such as the Celtic Isles, Georgia, the Balkans, and Ukraine. We are a mixed-voice, queer-friendly, a-capella choir that sings for joy and to uplift the eclectic historical musical traditions we study. We learn primarily through oral tradition style call-and-response aided by lyric sheets and occasional sheet music. To learn more, you can read our choir FAQ or read the 2023 article written about our group by member Margot Higgins. To be notified when future semesters open for registration, get on our mailing list at the form below.
Spring Semester
Thursdays, 7-8:45 PM
January 15 - April 16
Ember is back with a 12-week sprinter (spring/winter!) semester! We are once again offering a hybrid in-person and virtual edition of choir, beginning mid-January and ending mid-April, with two grace weeks built in for illness or weather events. If those off-weeks are not used, participants will enjoy two bonus sessions, making it a 14-week course.
Classes take place from 7:00 - 8:45 PM Thursdays in our gathering space at Nature Nooks Retreat, a 10-minute drive from Viroqua-town. Because our repertoire is learned cumulatively over time, we ask members to register for the full term with weekly attendance highly encouraged but ultimately the responsibility of attendees.
For new prospective members, be sure and read through our course FAQ which contains details about who this group is for, how the choir works - especially for virtual or hybrid members, course refund policy, info about our group culture, and more.
* While we are traditionally an all-inclusive group, we are currently prioritizing treble voices for sound blending purposes, and if you are a lower range voice looking to join our in-person choir for the first time, we will reach out about a brief audition prior to joining.
Registration & Dues
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12 Week Season: $180
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To register: Fill out the form below and send your dues on Venmo to @anniezylstra.
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Dues breakdown to $15 per 2-hour class. Your choir dues cover: All class time hours, access to home practice materials, individual part recordings and source recordings, any guest instructors and ethnomusicology collaborators, various web and payment platform fees, song licensing fees, space rentals, organizing time for special events, and time spent preparing the class and the continued education necessary to continue this work. For in-person members, there is an installment plan option folks are welcome to utilize as needed, just select it in the registration form.
FAQ
Q: What kind of music do you sing?
A: We primarily sing music from polyphonic folk traditions around Europe as well as contemporary and historic English folk music, including short songs and rounds. We strive for a diverse repertoire that is sharp, enriching, and fun to sing. We primarily sing foreign language songs within styles like Balkan style drone and melody songs, Corsican paghjellas, Lithuanian Sutartines, Eastern Orthodox liturgical music, Georgian polyphony, and more.
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Q: Who is this group for?
A: Ember is a choir for both novice and seasoned singers seeking a welcoming and inclusive community music experience. It's for folks interested in improving and honing their singing craft, gaining cultural understanding through the study of traditional repertoire, and who are committed to shared values of community building, humility in our study, and generosity with one another. Our choir is queer and trans inclusive, and does not utilize traditional gendered choral language. For blend purposes, bass-range (i.e. men) singers must be vetted / auditioned.
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Q: What if I have little to no singing experience?
A: Our choir is suitable for treble singers of all levels and skilled bass-range singers. The songs are taught by ear, and while we work with challenging material, there is abundant opportunity for vocal growth both in rehearsals and at home via the practice materials provided. That said, we strive to polish and hone songs into the best versions of themselves, and new singers should have a shared goal of growing and improving their singing practice during their time in the group.
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Q: Does the group perform?
A: We are not a performance focused group. That said, there are times we host special events and work on a set of repertoire to sing for our wider community in a community concert or other performance format. The larger choir has a small performance-oriented offshoot ensemble that is occasionally open for auditions.
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Q: Do you sing religious music?
A: Yes! We sometimes work with repertoire that is religious or considered sacred in its culture of origin, including songs in English. We approach sacred repertoire as we do our folkloric and non-English repertoire: as students and visitors within a tradition, exploring and honoring it with an appropriate degree separation from ourselves if it's not from our own tradition. Because of this, we sing repertoire in its original form and do not liberalize or alter the texts of our music, (i.e. language stemming from Christianity in a Shapenote song.)
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Q: What is the group's sickness policy?
A: As a group that meets during cold & flu season, we commit to doing what we can to keep our community safe and healthy. We recognize the ongoing risk many chronically ill and disabled members of our community face with covid-19 and other seasonal illnesses, and therefore ask any sick participants to stay home and join in with the live streamed online version of class for the week.
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Q: Is there be an online participation option?
A: Yes! To keep our choir safe and accessible, we will continue to have our remote participation option available, which means this course is open to anyone worldwide! Online participants are invited to join in the fun and learn with the course practice materials in the online portal and via the recorded live classes. Classes are filmed from a chair seated with the rest of the group, so participants feel like they are one the choir, singing in harmony with the rest from home.
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Q: What if I have a schedule conflict or can't make the live classes?
A: In-Person Participants: Our attendance policy varies per term, but one can usually expect 2-3 allowed absences in a given semester. Joining online or making up a rehearsal with virtual materials may or may not count toward attendances.
A: Online Participants: The exclusively online version of Ember is designed to be taken as a self-paced course if need be. All classes are recorded and uploaded to a shared Google Drive folder, and the bulk of the value of this course lies within the practice materials shared via the portal. Participants are welcome to partake in the recorded classes if and when they like, and access to the portal learning materials is permanent. Many of our virtual students solely make use of the more concise format provided by the portal materials for their learning purposes and skip the zoom classes altogether.
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Q: What is the class refund policy?
A: Refunds are available up until participants receive the links to our class materials - approximately one week before a term start date. Because course access is permanent and every course can be taken at home on a participant's own time, I do not offer refunds after a course has begun. Once you join, attendance is up to you, and we cannot be financially responsible for individual member attendance lapses, whatever the cause.
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