The Southern Oregon Repertory Singers will open their 2024-25 season with a concert celebrating human connection, featuring folk music from across the globe and poetry from the likes of Rainer Maria Rilke to Mother Teresa.

Titled “The Heart’s Reflection,” the concert delves into themes of love, unity and connecting community locally and around the world.

The concert will include a wide variety of traditional and contemporary pieces centered around composer Daniel Elder’s “The Heart’s Reflection,” “Canciones de la Luna” by Craig Kingsbury and “Stars” by Eriks Esenvalds.

“This will show the power of music; music can go straight to the heart and bypass everything,” said Paul French, music director and conductor of SORS. “I’m a big heart guy.”

Prior to the music, Peggy Evans, Southern Oregon University professor emerita of music, will provide an hour-long pre-concert lecture, informing audiences and providing context and insights into the music that will be played.

The season premiere of “The Heart’s Reflection” will be given at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2. A second performance will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 3.

Both concerts will be at the SOU Music Recital Hall, located at 450 S. Mountain Ave. in Ashland.

Tickets range from $15 to $40 depending on seating section; $5 tickets are available to SOU students. Tickets can be purchased by calling 541-552-0900 or online at repsingers.org/concerts.

A key objective of the program is to provide a concert that inspires unity and love for listeners, especially with the current state of the world.

“Right now everyone’s terrified, and we want to do something to give people a moment of calm and beauty,” French said.

From poetry to contemporary compositions, music was selected to evoke emotion from audiences.

“The program has a huge variety of music, from the Baroque composer Claudio Monteverdi to the music of our day,” French said. “A lot of the varieties of styles come from traditional, classical choral music … and we will perform some folk-based pieces and a crossover piece, merging that line between pop and traditional.”

The 73-member choral group will also bring languages from around the world into the concerts.

“We will be singing in six different languages — Italian, German, Spanish, Haitian, Polish and Scots language and English,” French said. “We’re doing music from all these different musical languages and styles to show we have many things in common.”

“The Haitian piece is about voodoo with improvised percussion and is sort of wild, folk-based and rustic with big-time energy with drums going,” he noted.

For the pieces and conductors selected for each program, French spends a lot of time and effort finding tunes that truly connect with the choir’s audiences.

“I spend a lot of time thinking about getting enough variety in the program so it’s very easy to listen to, everything’s beautiful and a lot of different styles are involved,” French said. “I don’t program music that’s good for you or music you should like; I do music I know people enjoy and are drawn to.”

The repertory singers have been a key part of Southern Oregon’s arts and culture community for the last 39 years.

French started directing the choral group in 1990 and has built a group of talented singers that have stuck together through thick and thin.

“This year, for us, is about building back from the double whammy that was the pandemic, where for two-and-a-half years we didn’t perform, and now we’re getting to do a whole season again,” he said.

The Southern Oregon Repertory Singers will continue their season with “All the Stars Looked Down” in December, “Charm Me Asleep” in March and “Cannons into Bells” in May.

To learn more about the choir, or purchase tickets for upcoming performances, visit repsingers.org.