Although we remained optimistic that the situation would have improved in time for the 10th annual Serenade! Choral Festival this July, after careful consideration Classical Movements has decided that we must cancel the 2020 festival.

Classical Movements will dedicate next year’s festival to the same theme and take the opportunity to extend the celebrations of 100 years of women’s suffrage with “Serenade! Choral Festival: World Voices For Women Festival” in 2021.

Honoring the centennial of the most momentous achievement during the struggle for women’s rights in American history, Classical Movements’ 11th annual Serenade! Washington, D.C. Choral Festival (June 30—July 6, 2021) will again look globally with “World Voices for Women: Pioneers, Progress, Purpose”—inviting vocal ensembles of all kinds to celebrate the many international triumphs that women have achieved, while acknowledging how much more remains to be accomplished. 

Our own Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program will feature newly commissioned  choral works celebrating the legacy of five key suffragists.

The latest in our ongoing, conscious efforts to amend the canon by giving voice to composers too long excluded from the repertoire, with the 2021 Serenade! Choral Festival’s “World Voices for Women: Pioneers, Progress, Purpose,” we look forward to what higher mountains we will climb, deeper rivers we will cross and future glass ceilings we shall shatter.