Events
ANNUAL MEETING: June 28, 3:00 PM at the St Paul’s rehearsal space
Our Annual Meeting is scheduled for Sunday, June 28. We will have a potluck (sign up to bring food coming soon). We will meet and eat before rehearsal for the SSN Festival that evening at St. Paul’s Church in DeKalb. Please arrive by 3:00 so we can start the meeting by 3:30 and finish eating and cleaning up before rehearsal begins at 5:45.
For those of you who have never been to an Annual Meeting before, this is where we discuss the next year’s plan: concert dates, times, etc; we elect new board members (more in a moment), choose committees (each member needs to participate in at least one committee), and generally go over things to improve upon. We will have an agenda out soon.
Newsflash! We’ll be singing at the SSN 2026 Festival
Bread and Roses is honored — and EXCITED — to be participating in the Sister Singers Network Festival 2026 in our own Chicago, IL. Tickets are available to the general public and the concerts are beautiful and uplifting.
Sister Singers Network 2023, Cleveland, OH
Sister Singers Network
We are so grateful whenever we are able to participate in the Sister Singers Network festivals! These four-day-long events, are hosted every four years by women’s choruses from all over the United States. The schedule got thrown off a bit due to Covid, so the 2026 festival will be only 3 years since the last one, but the rotation should be back on track going forward.
The first day usually incorporates welcome festivities and a kick-off concert by a guest performer. Then, over the next several days, participants attend workshops and rehearsals.
Past workshop topics have included: Director/chorus management, music copyrights, proper singing technique, and even large group drumming circles. Each participating choir will perform their “set” during the chorus performance blocks the last two afternoons/evenings, and the mass choirs perform the final night. Any choir or individual woman who signs up to sing in a mass choir receives the scores ahead of time to learn notes, so they are ready to rehearse “as one” come festival time. The culminating evenings of performances by individual choirs and mass choirs are just breathtaking! We are women’s choirs, singing primarily to women’s choirs – which is such a supportive, encouraging environment. But, tickets are also available to the general public! The entire week is energizing, engaging, and reaffirming for each of us as individuals, and together as a choral unit.
Highlights from our participation in past Sister Singers Festivals
Cleveland, OH 2023
In June of 2023, our chorus was still a little shy of large gatherings of people form all over the United States, so we did not work to send our entire chorus to the festival in Cleveland. However, three of us were able to attend as representatives of our Bread & Roses! We had a blast attending workshops, listening to sister choruses and working with the extremely talented Ayo Awosika as the featured guest composer. It was amazing!
Grand Rapids, MI 2018
We had a great time at the 2018 Sister Singers Festival at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, MI. Key note speakers/performers were Moira Smiley and Ysaye Barnwell! We thoroughly enjoyed hearing all the other choruses perform as much as we enjoyed performing for them.
Champaign-Urbana 2014
Thanks to everyone who donated money and time to help make our participation in the 2014 Sister Singers Network Festival possible, and a most wonderful and memorable experience!!
Your voice is important!
You belong here.
Interested in singing with us? We'd love to have you! We are a diverse group of singers of all levels and will give you lots of support with part-learning tracks and rehearsals designed to make learning music easy and enjoyable. Rehearsals for our next June concert begin February 8th and are held regularly on Sunday evenings 5:45-8pm. After the third rehearsal of a semester (February 22, 2026) we ask that potential singers meet with our Director for a brief audition. Learn more details here, or reach out to us at brchorusinfo@gmail.com with any questions. Hope to see you soon!