ch Carmina & Illuminare :: Home

News

  • Carmina and Illuminare are auditioning for highly qualified singers, especially altos, tenors, and basses. Singers must be comfortable singing a cappella in a small group. The 20-minute audition will consist of vocalizing and sight-singing. In addition, singers should prepare a short piece from the early music repertoire, such as a familiar madrigal. Auditions will be held on Saturday afternoon, August 19 and 26. To schedule an audition, please email Steve Honley at sahonley@his.com.

    Both groups rehearse Monday evenings at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Annandale, VA. The season’s first concert, on Saturday afternoon, December 2, will feature Advent and Christmas music of the Spanish Renaissance.

via PayPal:

Receipt by email

> Meet Our New Artistic Director: Dr. Richard Robbins

Announcing Our 2024-25 Season:Welcome to Our World of Early Music!   Thank you for supporting our 2023-24 season. Watch for news of our coming performances.

Watch for news of our 2024-2025 season.

Meanwhile, please get to know us!

Follow the links below for more information about our performances:

All performances feature Carmina and Illuminare

Upcoming performances:

  • Echoes of Poland: A Journey Through Polish Vocal Masterpieces
    Sunday, November 17, 2024 at 4 p.m.
    St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Annandale, Virginia
  • Holiday “Lobbying” at the Willard
    Wednesday, December 11, 2024 at 6:00 & 7:15 p.m.
    Willard InterContinental Hotel, Washington, DC
    45-minute program, performed twice Details
  • Una Festa Italiana: Music of Casulana, Aleotti, and More
    Saturday, March 22, 2025 at 7:00 p.m.
    Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Bethesda, Maryland
  • Charles Goudimel
    Les Cieux en Chacun Lieu: Vocal Music of the French Reformation and Counter-Reformation
    Sunday, May 11, 2025
    Church of the Little Flower
    Bethesda, Maryland Details

Thank You, Vera!

With much fondness and gratitude, Carmina and Illuminare honored founding director Vera Kochanowsky in May, 2023 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 Vera’s farewell concert on Youtube: view video

Carmina, A 'Grande' Finale! (May 21, 2023)

About Carmina and Illuminare

Carmina and Illuminare are sibling early-music vocal ensembles who regularly perform together. 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 again includes 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!

Facebook icon Visit Carmina & Illuminare on Facebook.