The women who make up Stetson’s Inspirare inter-generational choral group come from within Stetson and from the outside community, sharing one thing in common; they love to sing. All local women singers are invited to join an all-women choral group, Inspirare, at Stetson University. Inspirare means to breathe and to inspire. This group was organized by Dr. Ann Small of Stetson’s School of Music. It is part of the Stetson University Community School of Music.

Auditions are not required, but participants must commit to performing in the group’s concert, scheduled for Thursday, May 30 at 7:30 p.m. There must be at least six singers on each part: S1, S2, A1 and A2. The cost is $35 per person.

Rehearsals are scheduled beginning on Monday, April 29, and for each Monday that follows until the concert: May 6, May 13 and May 20, from 7-9 p.m. Rehearsals will be held in room 352, Presser Hall, 419 N. Woodland Blvd. on Stetson’s DeLand campus.

Women singers from across Volusia County, as well as Stetson faculty and staff, are invited to participate in this project. Women’s choirs are ideally suited for music about spiritual and romantic love. Small has chosen classical and contemporary pieces to express these subjects. The program will include sacred and secular music by Mozart, Mendelssohn, American composer Randall Thompson and some secular favorites from Scotland and Ireland.

A professor of music education at Stetson, Small is an internationally known scholar and conductor. Her children’s choirs, also part of the Stetson Community School of Music, have performed across the United States and in Scotland and Canada. They also participated in a worldwide school of music event sponsored at Disney World by the American Choral Directors Association and the Music Educators’ National Conference.

To learn more about this group, contact Small at [email protected], or call Stetson University’s School of Music at (386) 822-8950.