Heartland Sings is a musical organization that’s unprecedented in a city like Fort Wayne in this day and age. 

They are a professional choir that performs all styles of vocal music, from classical through jazz and pop. Their concerts present between 16 and 38 singers. The seven principal singers are full-time paid staff members and the others earn part-time stipends.

We are late catching up with Heartland Sings this year since their 2023-24 season, their 27th, kicked off Oct. 8 at Plymouth Congregational Church, 501 W. Berry St., where they gave their first concert of all Spanish-language music. 

“In Music of the Americas, we wanted to try to get a good flavor, because there’s such a rich heritage from so many different cultures, from South America to Central America, Mexico, and some in the Caribbean,” artistic director Robert Nance said. “And so we are doing music that brings us right into the United States.”

“The whole point of this, of course, is to delve into cultures that exist here in Fort Wayne.”

Going international

Heartland Sings doesn’t only present professional concerts. They want to encourage everybody to sing. 

“We have done a number of educational and outreach programs in the Hispanic and Latino community,” Nance said. “We’ve even started a Spanish-speaking choir in conjunction with the YMCA and Plymouth Congregational Church downtown.”

Much of what Heartland Sings performs could be called “classical” or “academic,” but most is ultimately based on folk music and songs people love to sing. Nance revels in featuring music written by living composers throughout the New World much more than stuffy old European classical masters — but they are represented, too.

There’s another reason Heartland Sings are featuring music in languages other than English this season. They have connected with an international community of professional singers, many of whom come to the U.S. for graduate school, and go on to perform and tour with opera companies and other groups. 

Heartland Sings recently hired three singers: tenor Dr. Wagner Pástor of Ecuador, bass Antonio Azpiri of Mexico City, and tenor Jude Balthazar of Haiti. The group sponsored them to emigrate to Fort Wayne, where they not only perform but also teach at their Vocal Arts Institute, 2402 Lake Ave., which accepts students at all levels. The institute holds monthly workshops and master classes.

Get into Christmas spirit

Since the pandemic, Heartland Sings have presented dozens of regional pop-up free concerts, outdoors in the warm months with small groups of singers. During the school year, they are once again visiting public schools, kindergarten through high school, with their own curriculum-based education program.

Heartland Sings’ best-known tradition, now in its 10th year, is the Spirit of Christmas concerts in the rotunda of the Allen County Courthouse in downtown Fort Wayne. This year’s shows will be Dec. 15-17.

It’s a unique architectural space to set up hundreds of seats and stage a show, but it also has fascinating, reverberant acoustics. 

Every year, Nance arranges traditional Christmas music that fits the choir’s voices to that space plus his original compositions. This year, in addition to familiar English-language Christmas music, there will be pieces in Spanish and French, according to the influences brought by the tenors and bass who recently joined. 

Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.

Every year, Heartland Sings performs a concert around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, We Are the Dream. This year, it will be Jan. 14 at Plymouth Congregational. 

With choral arrangements of spirituals and songs from the civil rights movement, a jazz combo and organ, Heartland Sings will collaborate with groups from churches like Pilgrim Baptist. This year, the Rev. Bill McGill will provide narration. 

“All the words of Martin Luther King are woven throughout the show, and music punctuates it and carries it along,” Nance said. “There’s no commentary.

“In the end, there’s a call to action. How can you take these words and put them into action in the days ahead? This year, we are going to have community-based groups that are working within those ideals at the reception that follows, where people can sign up and participate in doing something to realize the dream. It’s on us to carry that ideal and make it real.”

Rustic for Celtic show

To mark St. Patrick’s Day, Heartland Sings will present Celtic Landscapes, an Irish-flavored pop concert, on March 16-17.

Instead of being held in a church, this show will be presented in the new performance space at Electric Works, The Forum. 

“It’s like a historic, rustic, earthy space,” Nance said. “We want to have an experience where the performers are close to the audience members.” 

It will feel like an Irish pub, with food and drink for the audience as well. 

“And of course you’ll hear some great music,” Nance said.

Opera comes to town

Heartland Sings will close out their season May 20-22 at the Auer Performance Hall at Purdue University Fort Wayne with an ambitious undertaking the likes of which Fort Wayne has never seen. They are staging an international vocal competition, culminating in a concert with a full orchestra, and cash prizes for the top singers. 

Called A Night at the Opera, it will feature 12 finalists from around the world.

“This is a big deal,” Nance said.

It’s going to include grand opera in the high-Romantic verismo tradition: Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner. They will invite young professional singers from Canada to Mexico to submit audition materials, with space also allocated for singers in northeast Indiana as well. 

“We want to encourage the folks locally to be a part of this competition and not exclude them because maybe they can’t compete with singers from New York and Chicago and all over,” Nance said. “We have some wonderful artists here.”

While the application process has yet to open, “My feeling is that the majority of the singers will be young professionals who have either graduated or are looking to get to win some competitions to add to their résumé. 

“The 12 finalists, the ones who are chosen to come here to do the competition, will receive a stipend. They are out absolutely nothing to participate in this competition. That’s unheard of in the competition marketplace.”

Heartland Sings wants this event to make an impact on Fort Wayne. 

“We’re going to have quite an amazing opera program because of the influx of internationally qualified young artists,” Nance said.

“This is going to be, as (Sweetwater Sound founder) Chuck Surack would say, a music town!”

For information about all their activities and to purchase tickets, go to their website at heartlandsings.org.