“My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord!” Mary proclaims her joy for her cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy with words that have become one of the greatest songs of mothers: the Magni cat.

This season, GVOC collaborates with the Eastman Community Music School’s youth choirs to celebrate music of Mothers, Families, and Children. November’s concert features John Rutter’s setting of the Magni cat, along with music by Tavener, Pärt, and Praetorius that connects us to the joys and sorrows of motherhood.

For GVOC’s annual fundraising concert, we encourage nostalgia for the days when fam- ilies and friends would gather to watch and sing along with classic movies. The program features music Disney  lms that hold special places in our hearts, such as Mary Poppins and the Lion King. GVOC and Eastman’s youth will also pay tribute not just to The Sound of Music, but also to the true histo- ry of the Trapp Family Singers. They were a family that sang together, and we hope to inspire everyone to sing frequently with our own families. A portion of funds raised from this concert will support Eastman’s Pathways, a program that provides inner-city children with free music lessons and classes.

Hear our children’s voices! Their innocence and humor have always inspired humani- ty, but we live in a new era where it is com- monplace for our youth to experience mass shootings, entrapment in war zones, and the threat of enslavement. Rutter’s Mass of the Children lets us pray with them, while works by Ešenvalds, Nyman, and Hawes help us to see delight in the world through a child’s eyes. Cecilia McDowall’s Everyday Wonders represents GVOC’s hope for us to be inspired by the incredible resilience and optimism of children. This work pays tribute to the “Girl from Aleppo” who, despite cerebral palsy and wheelchair dependence, escaped war-torn Syria. Please join us as we journey through her adversity to her optimism when our mu- sicians conclude the work singing the joyous “Song of Life Itself.”