Choir of the Salish Sea: Big Rock Garden Concert

This specially-curated and professionally edited multi-media film will transport you along the garden path. As you turn a flower-draped corner, Swell, a curved aluminum sculpture, floats ahead of you between two majestic fir trees. Adam and Eve pose shamelessly among blooming rhododendrons. Unity, a monolithic granite figure, presides over a dappled glade.  

Throughout your stroll, you unwind to recordings of powerful selections like “Glory” from the movie Selma, “The Prayer of the Children,” and Dirait-on,” a choir and audience favorite. Popular numbers include “Cool Water,” “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” and “Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie.”

Perhaps the most eagerly awaited song in the broadcast is a virtual choir of 60 voices called Whatcom Sings!, performing the Appalachian folk hymn “Bright Morning Stars.” Singers from throughout Whatcom County submitted videos of themselves singing from home.  Their voices were then layered with tracks by soloists Ibidunni Ojikutu, JP Falcon Grady, Andy Marshall and Thunderbirds Raised Her (aka The Jefferson Sisters) by local master filmmaker Mark Nichols. 

Fans of the Choir of the Salish Sea already know how special a CSS concert can be. Please invite friends, neighbors and music and art lovers everywhere to sign in at 7 pm on Saturday, June 13 for the livestream premiere of this community-building, multi-media event. After the first showing, the film will remain available on the web, to be watched and shared at your convenience.