Welcome! 

October greets us with wonder and beauty; we return again and again to the circle of seasons. 

What a gift! Trees turning golden, geese flying south. We are harvesting, preparing and gathering to sing and create community.

It is our 40th anniversary year, a time to celebrate the energy and love that so many people have given so that choir could continue.

I am filled with gratitude.Thank you all so much. 

The theme for this season is “coming home.” What does this mean to you? Early this summer, choir members shared ideas for songs, themes and important points.

First thoughts centered around coming back to the beginning, honoring cycles.Some talked about coming home to ourselves, our bodies, our breath; others of home as feeling safe, warm, accepted. Others talked of creating home with new people, or seeing the whole world as home. We also talked of migration and immigration. But what happens when the new place is not safe? When there is no place to go, or or you are sent away? 

We talked about the earth as our home and making a home in a beloved community. Many of us mentioned the importance of ceremonies/rituals/holidays as essential for home and community and how the Winter Solstice concerts are touchstones, a time to pause, notice, remind each other of our obligations as well as the gifts we have received. 

But also before all else, we remember that we occupy the stolen original homeland of the Onondaga People of the Haudenosaunee, the Keepers of the Fire, who are still here with vital messages and instructions for the earth. What is our obligation when our home is on stolen land? 

In 2010, for our 25th anniversary concert I wrote: “…ideas of home/land have been used to dominate and hurt when land is taken to build an empire, when people are displaced, when ancient olive trees or villages are bulldozed…when home means privilege, war, violence or abuse. Or dictatorship. Fascism. Genocide. 

For me creating home, coming home, is also about justice. And justice means acting for all of life, for all people, for the whole earth.” And we must reconcile those places where we have been complicit, where we have benefited from such brutal thievery.

Like most things, coming home is complicated. And yet there is still beauty, still room for gratitude and active hope. We need all of our good thinking and kind hearts moving forward. We must create the world we want right now, at this moment, and we must give each other courage to challenge, resist, organize. 

There are many people doing such work around the world. It’s important to notice. Each year at the Winter Solstice Concert, we give a People’s Peace Award to ordinary citizens doing the radical work for peace and justice.

This year we will honor SIRDN (Syracuse Immigrant and Refugee Defense Network) through the Workers Central of Central New York. We will hear from them later in the season. 

So let’s do it! 

I am looking forward to hearing your beautiful voices and to lend my own in this journey. Peace and justice, Karen Mihalyi, Founder 

PEOPLE’S PEACE AWARD 2025 

The Syracuse Immigrant and Refugee Defense Network 

(SIRDN) works for Immigration justice in Central New York and beyond through organizing, advocacy, and solidarity support for directly affected individuals and their families. Under the leadership of the Workers’ Center of Central New York SIRDN volunteers strive to be allies and accomplices in the fight for human dignity for all people regardless of their citizenship status. 

Rehearsals and Important Dates: 

• October 5 (Sun): 3 pm First Rehearsal of the Teen Choir at Info 601 Allen St
• October 7 (Tue’s): After school – 5:15 First Rehearsal Youth Choir at Info 601 Allen St.
• October 8 – December 10 (Wed): 7-9 PM Rehearsals at Grace Church 
• Harvest Dinner and Song Circle Sunday Nov 23 5 pm Grace Church 
• No rehearsal Wed Nov 26
• Plowshares Saturday Dec 6 rehearse at 12 sing at Nottingham High School
• Saturday December 13 Rehearsal 10-1pm at Grace Church 
• Concert Sunday December 14, 4pm at St. Paul’s Cathedral, downtown

Singing for Peace and Justice for 40 years

In the spring of 1985, we put out a call for singers, arranged three songs (We Are the World, Peace Is, and The Harriet Tubman Song) and sang at a peace gathering in Thornden Park. The next winter, we presented our first Solstice Concert at Grace Church, in the room we rehearse in now.

We began our celebration of this incredible anniversary year by first joining with our Onondaga Friends for a concert at the Nation School. We’ve had a long relationship; for most of these 40 years.

We will end our season with a concert at St Paul’s Episcopal Church, a venue we have used many times over the years. Most of the songs we are singing are songs we have sung before.

A lot of children have grown up in the choir. There are now some families that have had three generations of singers.

As we return to familiar songs in a beloved space, we’re reminded that the Syracuse Community Choir is more than music — it’s a living family that grows, changes, and continues to sing together through generations. This season, with fresh voices and renewed energy, we honor our past while singing toward the future.