Singing has always been a part of Natalie Young’s life. However, the classical music the soprano has been singing recently was not aligning with her life.

“As an artist, I was finding it kind of hard to relate to a lot of the music that I had sung over the past 10 years or so, especially classically,” the associate artistic director of Heartland Sings said. “My situation had changed so much by becoming a mother.

“So, I thought, ‘Why not put together a concert that centers around this idea and the changes: the challenges and the joys that come along with it.’”

That concert is Songs of Motherhood, which will be put on free at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 9, at Plymouth Congregational Church. Although it is free, patrons are encouraged to donate diapers (sizes 4, 5, and 6), which will be given to the local nonprofit Journey Beside Mothers.

Finding venue, repertoire

After developing the idea for the concert, Young turned to fellow Heartland Sings member Ashlee Bickley, a mezzo-soprano and mother of two, and pianist Nicole Busarow, who has four children of her own.

With a trio and idea in place, the next step was finding a venue. 

“The music director (at Plymouth Congregational) is Robert Nance, who I work closely with at Heartland Sings, and so does Ashlee,” Young said of Nance, who is president and founding artistic director at Heartland Sings. “When we told him about the idea, he jumped on it and was very excited. He really wanted to support us.”

Everything was now in place. Well … outside of the songs. And that proved to be a bit of a challenge itself. After checking in on social media groups of classically trained singers for suggestions, the repertoire began to come into focus.

“Most of the music is written in the last 100 years, and a lot of it is from the perspective of female composers, which is unique and not something we had a lot of,” Young said. “A lot of the music has not been performed a lot because it feels like the themes around early motherhood are kind of … ‘you don’t talk about.’ That’s something in the concert we want to really shine a light on that — putting themes and ideas on the stage that more people should know about and more people should be talking about. There shouldn’t be this stigma or taboo thing that we don’t talk about in our society.”

In the end, Young was able to put together a show that features selections from Libby Larsen’s The Birth Project, John Alden Carpenter’s Gitanjali, Lauren Spavelko’s Baby Book, pieces from Jack Heggie, and some lullabies.

“We finally narrowed it down to some really great pieces,” Young said.

Relevant selections

Young said the show may become annual, perhaps including pieces that follow a mother’s journey through the years.

For now, selections are based on early childhood, a nice break from what Young has become accustomed to singing.

“Whenever you’re training in classical singing, a lot of what you sing are arias from operas and art songs,” she said. “But specifically, the aria packages you have to put together for auditions and things, the repertoire I was singing was like ‘the young girl in love.’ It just felt like, ‘OK, I’ve moved on from this. What kind of repertoire can I connect with?’ ”

That connection will be on display Feb. 9 at Plymouth Congregational.