Let's Start Telling the Right Story

Speaking to attendees at Chorus America's 2026 Conference in Minneapolis, president and CEO Christopher Eanes shared his thoughts on how choral music and the choral community can meet the moment in which we find ourselves. He delivered a realistic assessment of current challenges — from rising costs and shifting funding landscapes to an increasingly noisy political climate — and an energizing call to action: that the choral field must get better at telling the world about its vast impact.

While you may not exactly be a captive audience, this is the only chance that I have each year to speak to as many of you in one place as I can, so I’m going to use a part of my time on stage to offer you some thoughts about our work and our field. As with anything you hear at our conference, you’re welcome to take what you like and leave the rest, but if you stick around, you’ll hear a direct call to action for our field.

The time we find ourselves in is both precarious and full of opportunity, and how we move through this moment will define our work for years to come.

Here’s what we know: running a chorus is really hard right now. Expenses are up: Everything costs more, and you just want to continue to pay your team a living wage; and, while y’all seem to be selling record numbers of tickets, that income is not keeping up with how much more everything is costing. Give me a shout if I’ve hit a nerve.

Moreover, we’re working in a political climate that is, at best, noisy, and—I don’t know about you, but I find it exhausting. Choral music offers the direct antidote to this, but cutting through the noise to get your message out is harder and harder. What message is going to get me off my couch and away from the endless Netflix loop of Traitors and the Real Housewives?

While we’re at it, here’s a little more bad news: As you’ll probably hear Michael Bobbitt say on Saturday, there’s no more money coming from the usual funding sources. He’s right. Private foundations are getting more requests than ever, and many of those are for primary needs; government funding is at high risk of being cut and it’s certainly not expanding; and private donors of this generation aren’t giving like their parents did.

It’s rough out there.

But that’s the doom and gloom. Let’s talk about opportunity.

First of all, we’re not working in an artform that lacks engagement: so many people are coming out to sing that a lot of choirs are having a hard time managing their growth. Our artform is strong, vibrant, and growing. Young professionals are starting singing projects in record numbers, and programming in creative ways that knock my socks off. 

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from my words today, it’s this: We’re an artform that fights well above its weight class. We create more positive impact with a single dollar than just about any other arts activity. Our small little organizations—and even the largest of us are small, in comparison—we create incredible positive change in our communities for shockingly little money.

But it’s not enough to hope people find this out on their own. We know the outcomes—we’ve seen them—but for those that don’t have direct experience, it may be hard to believe that we deliver on so many fronts that folks care about.

So, try this: in the U.K., the arts save the country more than 1.5 billion pounds—almost 2 billion dollars - in healthcare and social welfare costs per year.

Or this: 67% of adults say they have no social network, but 73% of singers say that group singing makes them less lonely. 

How about this one: People who engage in arts activities more than once per month are 48% less likely to experience depression. 48%.

Let me be direct with you: For a long time now, we’ve been telling the wrong story – or at least an incomplete one. No matter whether you are a pro choir with GRAMMY awards on your mantle, a youth group changing young lives, or a social-justice choir winning hearts and minds, it’s time to change the narrative.

Your story isn’t how many kids you reach, how many accolades you’ve received, or how well your choir sings with Germanic Latin. It’s not your latest review, nor is it the social media reel that went viral.

Your story­—our story—is this: Singing is and has been a part of every culture on Earth because it is fundamental to human development and physical and mental health. It is not a ‘nice to have’; it is not optional; it is a biological fact of life.

Because of that, there are things wrong in our communities today that choruses – in tandem with our other arts partners – can help fix, and we can do it in a low-cost, intersectional, and deeply meaningful way.

The epidemic of loneliness? We’ve got a cure for that.

Quality of life for seniors? We can help.

High incidence of truancy? Not on choir days!

High cortisol levels? Come and breathe and sing with us.

Let me be clear: these aren’t just things we think are true—these are things that we now have the research and data to prove. It is real. The research is there, and part of our work at Chorus America is to get it to you.

Now, if you’re sitting there and rolling your eyes at me a little bit, you may be wondering why we can’t just focus on the art. Won’t the quality of the experience sell itself?

As a former artistic leader myself, I so wish that were true. What I would ask you to do is to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has not had the musical experiences that we in this room have had.

My time up here is limited, and in all honesty I wish I were able to give a talk about art—and maybe someday I will. But the business of our art is changing, and we have to pay attention to it. While we have been leaning on the assumption that our communities will inherently understand the value of our cultural output, other folks have been collecting data and advocating for their own initiatives relentlessly. So, if you’re wondering why your grant funding is decreasing, or why your local elected leader isn’t paying any attention to the arts, let me be really honest: we need to look at ourselves first.

More than 54 million Americans sing in choruses. What do you think would happen if we all started telling our story together? What if we used our size—not the size of our wallets, but the sheer number of us—to command the kind of attention that creates a new understanding of our impact. Wouldn’t it create a case for support that can’t be ignored?

From the outside, I can understand that it must just look like we are just a group of choir kids who like singing together. Most folks don’t realize we really are changing the world moment by moment, person by person. We cross all party and cultural lines, and we are everywhere. I’ll personally make a donation to Chorus America in your name if you can find me a United States congressional district that does not have a choir.

So, much as I love our little secret, it’s time to be more aggressive. And this is my call to action for you:

First of all, pay attention. I know you’ve got a lot to manage, but if you could set aside 1% of your time to think about our field as a whole, we could accomplish the unthinkable. In that one percent, read and respond to one of our government affairs calls to action. Look at some research statistics about our artform. Read a book about outcomes – and I’ll make a reading list for if you want.

Even better: schedule a meeting with a city council member or the mayor of your town. Sign up to testify in a budget hearing. Show up to the local chamber of commerce meeting. Speak at the Rotary Club lunch. Drink a beer with the Elks. And, get your singers involved—we know there’s no one more passionate about choral singing than a volunteer chorister, no matter their age.

Now here’s the best part: it starts today, in this room. We can guide, but this is not something Chorus America can do for you; it’s only something we can do together. I believe in this because I believe it will lead to more community support, more funding, and more awareness of the beauty and power of choral music. For our part, we’ll continue ramping up our efforts in government advocacy, research, and storytelling. When you’re a member of Chorus America, part of what your membership gets you is the knowledge that we are working on your behalf.

Now, everyone take a deep breath, and we’re going to talk about gratitude.

In this world of so much instability and no small amount of insanity, where everything just feels harder, I’m very grateful to be here with you.

I’m grateful to work in a field where all we provide is good. All we provide is good. There is no downside to singing together; there is no trade-off. If you sing – if you create opportunities for people to sing, together, you are putting something beautiful into the world. There’s no ethical downside; no need for a carbon offset or a justification for the funding. Just good. It’s clean, it’s organic, and it’s local.

Now, to the brass tacks: Over the course of the next year, you’re going to see a lot of new things coming from Chorus America. Our new motto is, what problem can we help you solve today? Leading a chorus is hard. Don’t do it alone. Ask us a question. Use the online community. Sign up for a webinar or workshop. Download a template.

Our goal is that every time you do one of these things, your job gets just a little bit easier. Every time you ask Chorus America for help, it frees up a little bit of your time to elevate the art, try the new idea, or call the legislator. 

We have one job, which is to make the choral field stronger, one chorus at a time.