The Anna Crusis Women’s Choir is set to delight audiences with its spring concert, “Beauty Unmasked: Songs of Strength, Wisdom and the Beauty Inside. ”
The Philadelphia-based feminist choir will perform June 7 at Overbrook Presbyterian Church, 6376 City Ave. in Philadelphia, and on June 8 at Trinity Episcopal, 301 N. Chester Road in Swarthmore.
In honor of Pride, Anna Crusis is offering a 20-percent discount to attendees who enter the code “pride” when purchasing tickets online.
Anna, as the choir is affectionately known, has long been committed to musical excellence and social justice. Those values are evident in its repertoire, which features songs by musicians such as folkie Holly Near and classical composer Jennifer Higdon, and also in the themes of its concerts.
According to Miriam Davidson, Anna’s artistic director, “Beauty Unmasked” emerged from members’ concerns about the media’s portrayal of femininity and its promotion of a distorted body image.
“How do we address what’s really important about who we are?” Davidson said. “Is it how we look, is it more of what’s inside, is it where we get our strength from? Is it places we get inspiration from? People we admire? How we move through the world? And that’s where this particular concert theme came from.”
After settling on a theme, members began mulling over songs. It’s a democratic process and always has been at Anna. Members typically suggest potential pieces and then discuss them thoroughly.
“In terms of finding the music, we look everywhere,” Davidson said. “We pull from classical, from world music, from folk to pop. We try to find things that speak to the theme of the moment in some way.”
As artistic director, it’s Davidson’s job to take those ideas and shape them into a cohesive, artistic statement. It’s a task she’s well-equipped to handle. The multi-instrumentalist grew up in a musical family and sang in Anna during the early 1980s. Later, she toured and recorded with the duo Wishing Chair for more than a decade.
For her part, Davidson is excited about the songs selected for “Beauty Unmasked,” which include a mixture of old chestnuts and new material.
“Our songs this concert, some are sassy, some are spiritual, some are empowering,” Davidson said. “We’re doing ‘Brave,’ you know, it seemed like a no-brainer, the Sara Bareilles’ song that you hear everywhere right now.”
Anna’s diversity extends far beyond its music. From the choir’s earliest days, it was intended to provide a place where women could find their musical voices and lend their talents to worthy causes.
Today, Anna has roughly 60 members, 48 of whom will perform in “Beauty Unmasked.” Davidson, who has been proudly out for decades, estimates that the choir’s current roster is half-straight and half-queer, but there is more to it than that.
“We definitely run the gamut between straight and differently oriented,” Davidson said. “All the people who are not straight are not lesbians, but most are. And age-wise, we are very multi-generational now, which is very exciting. We’ve got women in their 20s and women in their 70s.
“We have truly built a place where people feel welcomed and supported, and we care about each other,” she added.
Joy Paton is one choir member who recently experienced that warm welcome firsthand. She joined Anna in January, after being gently nudged to audition by both her partner and her boss.
As a youngster, Paton was reluctant to sing after an adult had criticized her voice, but she had to overcome that mild phobia while serving as a nun in the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“I was encouraged to sing by my superiors, and they were not particularly impressed by my appraisal that I couldn’t sing,” she said.
Paton found singing during services liberating, but she had to put music on the back burner after leaving the order. Yet, even as she was fashioning a new life, including finding a career and being out, she still occasionally broke out into snippets of song.
Since passing the audition, Paton has been working hard to prepare for the concert.
“As I grow in confidence, I find that not only am I learning the music, how to sing it, but I’m finding that the themes of the music are really teaching me, because we’re trying to sing very empowering, woman-friendly, feminist-inspired, social-justice-inspired music,” she said.
Indeed, connecting with the music is important, a point that Davidson underscored when talking about what she hopes “Beauty Unmasked” will accomplish.
“We are really hoping that people will go on this journey with us, this journey of self-empowerment and self-acceptance and awareness, and leave the concert feeling like they can hold their head a little higher,” she said.
For more information about Anna Crusis or to buy tickets to “Beauty Unmasked,” visit www.annacrusis.com.