2024 Blooming 50

Stepping out with confidence, singing a vivid landscape of voices

TCS Fifty Mixed Choir is the only mixed choir of the TCS Institute for Choral Arts. Invited to perform in Japan, the choir won high praise from audiences and from the conductors of its Japanese partner choirs. On stage, its members redefine joy and beauty, drawing on rich life experience to convey the delicate emotions of each piece, and through singing they make life as vivid, changeable, and shimmering as water.

Blooming 50, the 2024 TCS Fifty Mixed Choir showcase concert, presents choral works in a variety of languages and styles. The first half features choral works in foreign languages. Its first part covers classic film and stage music: an arrangement of the spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”; “Dry Your Tears, Afrika,” composed for the film Amistad by renowned film composer John Williams, record holder for Academy Award nominations; “Seasons of Love” from the Broadway musical Rent; and “Already Home,” adapted from the stage musical The Wizard of Oz. The second part includes the world-music-inspired “Adiemus,” the traditional Romanian dance “Chindia,” and the Japanese songs “Inochi no Uta” (いのちの歌) and “Miagete Goran Yoru no Hoshi o” (見上げてごらん夜の星を).

The second half centers on the languages of Taiwan. Its first part brings the Chinese folk song “The Fisherman’s Joy” (漁翁樂), the Amis song “Malan Maiden” (馬蘭姑娘), and two Hakka songs, “Quiet Thoughts” (恬恬想) and “Brother A-Shu’s Grocery Store” (阿樹哥个雜貨店). The second part features the Taiwanese song “Far from Home” (出外人), “Four Rhymes of Nostalgia” (鄉愁四韻), a setting of modern poetry, “The Ancient Mountain Trail” (今山古道), arranged from a folk song, and the Rukai song “Sing in Praise” (讚美歌唱), bringing the concert to a fulfilling close.