News
- Director search: Carmina and Illuminare have begun the search for our next artistic director. Please follow this link to carmina.org/director_search/ for details.
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Announcing Our 2022-23 SeasonWelcome to Our World of Early Music!
Thank You, Vera!
With much fondness and gratitude, Carmina and Illuminare honor Vera Kochanowsky, our founding director, on her retirement from choral directing. We celebrate her twenty-five years of superb and inspiring leadership, and we wish her and her husband the very best!
Watch for news of our 2023-24 season under the interim direction of Hubert Beckwith.
Watch for news of our 2022-2023 season.
Meanwhile, please get to know us!
Follow the links below for more information about our performances:
Except as noted, all performances feature Carmina and Illuminare
Upcoming performance:
- Vera’s final concert: A “Grande” Finale!
Sunday, May 21, 2023
Odeon Concert Series
St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, Falls Church, Virginia
Watch on YouTube - The Youthful J. S. Bach and His Forebears
featuring Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106
with The Friends of Fasch,
Thomas MacCracken, director
Tentative date: Sunday, November 22, 2020 details - "Music in the Mountains" Summer Festival
Cumberland, Maryland
Tentative date: spring 2021
Earlier this season:
- Carmina & Illuminare: The Orpheus of Amsterdam: Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
with Evanne Browne, soprano
Vera Kochanowsky, virginal
Steven Alan Honley, organ
November 1 & 2, 2019
- Listen to audio selections
- Discover Carmina and Illuminare on CD
- Read about our past performances
- Download our brochure
Watch for our 2022-2023 brochure!
About Carmina and Illuminare
Carmina and Illuminare are sibling early-music vocal ensembles who regularly perform together, directed by founder Vera Kochanowsky and assisted by Hubert Beckwith. Carmina has presented early music in the Washington region since its 1998 debut. Growing interest led to the creation in 2006 of the women’s group Illuminare, which shares members and programs with Carmina while also performing on its own. After a two-year stint as a men’s ensemble (2018-2020), Carmina has reintegrated the full range of singing voices.
Carmina, committed to performing early vocal music in the Washington area, has been praised by both The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post and was also featured in the Washingtonian magazine articles “Perfect Pitch” and “Good Arts Groups You Might Not Know About.”
Illuminare has established a reputation in the Washington area for tastefully persuasive interpretations of early repertoire. Early Music America lauded its 2015 Fringe Concert at the Boston Early Music Festival.
Carmina and Illuminare are honored to have received the Choralis Foundation’s 2016 Ovation Award in the category of Best Chamber Chorus in the capital region. In 2017 the groups were Ovation nominees for Most Creative Programming.
To learn more about us, please visit About Carmina and About Illuminare. Be sure to see our concert schedule at Upcoming Performances. Many of our programs are free or by donation. We hope to see you at a concert in the near future!
Visit Carmina & Illuminare on Facebook.