Cascade Foothills Chorale kicks off spring season, accepting new members

Rehearsals are Thursday evenings in the Enumclaw Middle School choir room.

The Cascade Foothills Chorale, sporting more than four decades of entertaining audiences, is kicking off a new season and welcoming new members to its ranks.

And, aside from the excitement of gearing up for months of rehearsals and aiming for June performances, there’s some added intrigue this time around: the nonprofit group has accepted an invitation to perform as part of a concert series as part of Memorial Day 2021 celebrations in Washington, D.C.

The invitation, directed to CFC director Sadi Wentz, came from Music Celebrations International, which partners with the U.S. Air Force and the American Veterans Center. The National Memorial Day Choral Festival will take place May 22-25, 2021, with performances taking place in the concert hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

But first, there’s a spring season that kicked off Thursday, Jan. 9. Chorale rehearsals will take place each Thursday evening in the Enumclaw Middle School choir room. Everything will culminate with a pair of June concerts reflecting the 2020 theme “On Stage and Screen.”

During the first four rehearsals (Jan. 16, 23 and 30 still to come), new members will be welcomed to the ensemble that is growing and now numbers in the mid-30s.

According to the Cascade Foothills Chorale website, the group welcomes newcomers “with varied musical and cultural backgrounds.” The group used to advertise as being a “nonaudition” organization but has since dropped that verbiage; still, anyone dedicated to the organizational mission is welcomed, according to CFC secretary Adam Trepus.

The Cascade Foothills Chorale, an adult choir, began as a group of community members who gathered to provide music at the 1976 bicentennial celebration of a local church. It was first known as BECCO (Buckley, Enumclaw Community Choral Organization) and was later called Northwest ECCO (Enumclaw Community Choral Organization).

The chorale had its first concert in 1978 under the direction of the late Bob Estby.

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