Bringing Choral Music of Our Time Into Focus

Navarro, who has been singing with Ember for 12 years and serving on its board for most of them, has also come to find that King has a certain way of searching for the character of sound she wants: “She makes a lot of weird noises.”

The process – one of experimentation and openness, channeling personal experience and visceral emotion into a musical shape – also aptly describes the journey of Ember, now in its 30^th season. Drawing deeply on the well of life experience has been core to the Ember experience from the beginning. This intuitive approach is one of several constants in Ember’s history – a love for performing diverse musical styles, including a desire to push boundaries and find repertoire from interesting sources, and a culture that values education and intellectual curiosity. 

Other aspects have taken shape over time, like the organization’s expanding advocacy for living composers. The most obvious evolution is of course its name change – from the tradition-infused Schola Cantorum on Hudson to Ember Choral Arts in 2017, to better reflect the group’s versatility, vitality, and steadily increasing orientation toward emerging and ever-shifting ideas in their programming and artistry.

In this vein, King credits the group’s longevity to staying nimble – which on her watch shows up as constant tinkering and thoughtful consideration of every facet. The ensemble has been attuned to the arising needs and challenges of a rapidly changing world, and – while valuing its origins and the spark it has provided – remained flexible in framing their story so that it continues to resonate.

Speaking to Now

When you experience an Ember performance, there is something deeper happening beyond hearing a collection of works that share a thematic connection, Navarro relates. There is a narrative woven through each concert that is grounded in what their community is living through – and it doesn’t stop there. Says King, “Each entire season is themed to speak to issues of the present moment,” thoughtfully balanced and sequenced.

The topics that Ember has taken on range from environmental reckoning to confronting AI and our humanity; from navigating the COVID pandemic to grappling with deep political divisions. In its most recent season, uncertainty and heightened anxiety were the central themes, explains King. 

“In the fall, everybody was tense around the [U.S. presidential] election. We couldn’t talk to each other.” And so their October program was titled Sharp Edges. Then in May, the concept Shifting Grounds spoke to the feeling of disruptions from the transition in political administrations. “If you picture shifting grounds, somebody could fall through the cracks – but not if we're holding hands, not if we're in this together. How do we approach this?”

In the 2025-26 season, Ember will turn to the words of Abraham Lincoln and use the guiding theme of “Our Better Angels” to examine times of great upheaval in America which led to some of this country’s most shining endeavors.

King describes her focus as “social relevance” programming. “We try to bring through themes that we find to be very timely and pertinent through the voices of composers who are living them with us.” She distinguishes this from social justice programming, underlining that Ember does not advocate for specific positions or actions through its engagement with the music. The hope is for audience members to have an encounter so meaningful that it activates something deep within them beyond an intellectual awareness of the issues that the ensemble is singing about.

Arriving at this cohesive storyline has never been easy, King points out – but it’s worth it.

“There's a life and an expression to every one of Deborah's concerts which is absolutely thrilling,” says Michael Shapiro, a conductor and composer who has collaborated closely with Ember.

“I've heard a few of our singers say, ‘I live my life through this music,’” says King. “One year we had several significant deaths close to our ensemble – including the death of a parent, the death of a spouse – and we processed that together through music. And frankly, it’s part of how I process life, too.”

Ember’s commitment to staying in the moment wouldn’t be fully realized without exploring the work of present-day composers. Part of King’s signature touch is not only finding fresh compositions – including some pieces that can challenge traditional ears – but to place these works in context so that listeners can more readily tune into both the intrinsic musical elements and broader emotional core.

“We include an eclectic mix specifically for the purpose of making new sounds absorbable and relevant to today's audiences,” says King. “We seek to bring new music forward – not just to be ‘cutting edge,’ but for the sake of reaching into hearts and souls, of perhaps having meaningful resonance in people’s lives.”

Ember's 2022 premiere of composer Michael Shapiro's VOICES of the Holocaust is emblematic of the ensemble's unique contribution to the choral field - bringing a new work to life by developing a close relationship with a composer, and seeing that composition live on after the first performance.

From Adventurous Programming to Composer Advocacy

As these dynamic programming choices struck a chord in Ember’s community, contemporary choral repertoire became a more central fixture of the ensemble. More frequent performances led to forming relationships with active composers, and eventually to more proactive forms of championing their work, and their causes.

A defining moment in Ember’s journey came when “the second performance problem” (well known among composers) was realized: Once a new piece has had its premiere, composers often have trouble finding a second performance. And so PROJECT : ENCORE (P:E) was born, to help composers extend the life and impact of their music, and to serve as a vetted, searchable resource for conductors looking for new repertoire ideas – free of charge to applicants and users. 

Some of these pieces in the P:E catalog are published by traditional publishing houses. Others are yet to find a publisher – and others still are not seeking one, in favor of self-publishing. The common thread to these works is that they hold the potential to become a new classic – with some added exposure. “What we are seeking to do is to give a hearing and a seeing to pieces that are not yet in the choral canon,” says King. Indeed, composers who have had works accepted to P:E early in their careers have become household names. 

“When Jake Runestad first sent in a piece, he was not well known, recounts King. “Now he's kind of the choral rock star of the world. One of our very first quarter submissions 15 years ago was Ivo Antognini. I wrote to him when his piece was accepted into our brand new catalog and said, ‘I would love to do the American premiere. Would that be okay with you?’ He said, ‘Oh sure – but you know, I'm just a jazz pianist. I'm not really a composer.’ I just said to him, ‘…I don't think that's right…’ And of course, now he's everywhere. He has quite a few works in P:E now from over the years.” 

Now in its 15^th year – or, exactly half of Ember’s lifespan on this anniversary year – PROJECT : ENCORE is the most visible face of the organization’s advocacy for composers and new music. “Beyond traditional publishing houses, it is really the source for curated new music,” says King. She is proud of its growing impact on the field as well as its self-sufficiency, noting that the score adjudication is done by an independent, anonymous panel of composers that keeps her out of the selection process. "No one does what Deborah is doing," says Shapiro.

The Care of Bringing New Work to Life

One thing that composers and singers and alike rave about is King’s style of partnership when conducting music of contemporaries. “Whether it's dialing in from Brazil or sitting in the room with us, the group gets very excited when we get to actually encounter the people that have created these works,” says Navarro. These exchanges between singers and composers are hallmark to Ember’s approach, which King says have often transformed the singers’ understanding of the work.

“She gets under the notes,” Shapiro says. “We [composers] sit alone in a room and put them down on paper, but our pieces are not done until someone like Deborah takes them.”

“She will also make suggestions to the composer,” Navarro shares. “All of the singers are thinking, ‘You’re allowed to do that?’ She'll alter the length of a note, or the way we sound a word, and then off the cuff she'll say, ‘I'm going to check in and see if that would work.’" The dialogue brings out the soul of the music.

“From my point of view, it feels extraordinarily collaborative,” King says. “Many times we'll discuss with the full ensemble in rehearsal – how are we going to approach this work? The times may be different than when it was written. We'll try out different things.”

The rapport that King has established with composer colleagues by demonstrating her expertise has led to significant projects. Before the premiere of Shapiro’s eight-movement work VOICES of the Holocaust, organized by Ember, the piece was an idea that the composer dreamed about for 20 years. After a dinner conversation where King insisted that he finally start writing, it was finished in seven months.

King calls the 2022 premiere of VOICES “a pinnacle experience,” presented at Central Synagogue in New York City, broadcast on two cable television networks and seen by thousands more online. And true to form, with the first movement now part of the P:E catalogue, Shapiro’s large-scale work has enjoyed additional performances. In 2023, excerpts were performed at the opening of the Reagan Presidential Library’s Auschwitz Exhibit, hosted by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and sung by the LA Master Chorale. Shapiro also shares that it is scheduled to be performed in England’s Gloucester Cathedral as part of next season’s Three Choirs Festival.

Ember’s direct engagement with composers has grown to include opportunities for aspiring composers to develop. Now in its second season, led by composer-in-residence Robert Paterson, the Ember Ablaze Composer Lab selects two young composers who are nurtured through the composition process over the course of a full year, providing in-person workshops with the ensemble along the way and culminating in a premiere performance.

Sustaining the Future

Now at three decades, having found an identity that they are fully leveraging to bring their own voice to the choral community, what comes next for Ember?

King is adamant about eliminating barriers as a way of staying relevant. “We really believe in access,” says King. “It costs us money. But we really believe that what we do is important, and we want more people to experience it.”

This philosophy is primarily visible through the organization’s efforts to maintain PROJECT : ENCORE as a free gift to the field. From its inception, there has never been a cost – whether to submit scores, be listed in the catalogue, or to find works. Ember has also invested in cultivating and serving a livestream audience for its concerts, which are now viewed internationally by an average of 600-700 people per program.

Furthermore, King and Ember appear committed to honoring their roots, continuing to draw on the well of personal experience that has enabled their storytelling to flourish. It is the ongoing search for insightful voices that have something to say about the times we live in that looks to propel the organization into the future towards its next 30 years. “They keep pushing the envelope even further and making choral music so completely important and relevant for now,” says Shapiro.

“Ember’s commitment to the choral art is based in honoring and nurturing individual creativity, through the shared art form of ensemble singing,” says King. “It is a continuing journey of listening and discovery!”

Visit the PROJECT : ENCORE website to sign up for quarterly newsletter with new scores, and learn more about submitting scores. The next quarterly score submission deadline is July 15. Learn more about Ember Choral Arts and its 2025-26 season at emberarts.org. 

This article is sponsored by Ember Choral Arts. Thank you for supporting the partners that make Chorus America’s work possible. If you are interested in learning more about sponsored articles, please contact us at mike@chorusamerica.org.