Santa Fe Desert Chorale Takes Center Stage at ACDA National Conference

“The Desert Chorale is honored by this invitation,” said Artistic Director Joshua Habermann, “and looks forward to sharing a bit of Santa Fe with audiences in Dallas, and conference attendees from around the world.”

The performance will also feature Jake Runestad’s Earth Symphony, performed by the Baylor University Symphony Orchestra and a consortium of Texas collegiate choirs. A long-time collaborator of the Chorale, Runestad has been widely recognized for his expansive, deeply textured compositions. He will conduct the performance of Earth Symphony, a work that merges human voices with orchestral landscapes to convey themes of passage and interconnectedness.

This is the first time the Santa Fe Desert Chorale has performed at an ACDA National Conference since 2015, when its appearance in Salt Lake City was later broadcast by Minnesota Public Radio. Over the past decade, the ensemble has further refined its artistic identity, balancing an academic approach to early choral repertoire with a commitment to contemporary music. Since its founding in 1982 by Lawrence “Larry” Bandfield, the Desert Chorale has become one of the longest-running professional chamber choirs in the United States, with a reputation for both technical excellence and emotionally compelling performances.

Beyond the concert hall, the Chorale’s work extends into education and community engagement. Through its annual Santa Fe Sings!initiative, the ensemble hosts a citywide choral workshop, bringing together singers of all skill levels to explore the joy of collective music-making. The Insights & Sounds program further extends the Chorale’s reach, offering performances and symposia that engage local audiences in the historical and cultural dimensions of choral music. As part of its dedication to expanding the choral repertoire, the ensemble has commissioned over 30 new works and introduced several others to American audiences for the first time.

Following its ACDA appearance, the Desert Chorale will join forces with the Orpheus Chamber Singers for a one-night-only concert on Sunday, March 23, at 5 p.m. CDT at Lovers Lane Methodist Church in Dallas. The collaboration is a natural fit, Orpheus, a professional choir based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this season and is currently led by Artistic Director J.D. Burnett, who has been a tenor with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale for more than 20 years. For Burnett, this performance is both a professional milestone and a deeply personal homecoming.

“My love for Santa Fe and the Desert Chorale began 25 years ago when I sang my first summer season as a tenor with the Chorale,” he said. “I fell in love with the city, with professional choral music, and met friends and mentors who would shape the rest of my life.” Having been shaped by both ensembles, Burnett sees this concert as a rare and meaningful convergence of the artistic influences that have defined his career.

“There is something special about bringing these two groups together,” Burnett reflected. “To host the great Santa Fe Desert Chorale in Dallas and to sing side-by- side is an opportunity to affirm the importance of singing, of music, and of its great potential to bring beauty and wholesomeness to our community and our world.”

For both ensembles, the concert is a moment to celebrate the voices that have shaped them, the cities that have inspired them, and the lasting impact of choral music as a shared, living art form.

The evening’s program will highlight the strengths of both ensembles, featuring works by Veljo Tormis, Orlando Gibbons, Paweł Łukaszewski, Ayana Woods, and James MacMillan, among others. The Desert Chorale’s selections from The American Immigrant Experience will include spoken-word readings, emphasizing the literary and historical threads woven into the choral performance. Pieces such as Craig Hella Johnson’s arrangement of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child and Josephine Poelinitz’s City Called Heaven will be juxtaposed with modern compositions, offering a dynamic exploration of migration through sound and text.

As the Santa Fe Desert Chorale prepares for its performances in Dallas, both at the ACDA National Conference and alongside Orpheus Chamber Singers, the ensemble carries with it a legacy of artistic excellence and a commitment to choral music as a vehicle for storytelling and connection. The invitation to headline the conference’s grand finale underscores its place among the most esteemed choral groups in the country, while the collaboration with Orpheus highlights the deep relationships that emerge through shared artistry.