Choral concert benefits foundation protecting Laguna de Santa Rosa

A choral concert to benefit the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation put on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 near Sebastopol created “a lot of positive energy,“ according to a foundation official.

Around 80 people came to the foundation’s main hall each of the two days to hear the 20-member Acorn MusEcology Project, a local choral ensemble that creates original musical arrangements of environmentally focused poetry.

“They had a truly creative way of elevating the words of the poems,” said Christine Fontaine, director of education at Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, of the “Side by Side: Songs in Conversation” concerts.

Tickets were $25.

Directed by longtime musical collaborators Robin Eschner and Sarah Saulsbury Dupre, the Acorn MusEcology Project formed in January 2020 and performs benefits at community centers and churches.

“Part of our mission is to collaborate with nonprofits who are working on environmental stewardship,” said Dupre. “Attitudes around the environment don’t change in a vacuum and artists and writers are oftentimes the vanguard of these cultural shifts.”

For the concerts, the group selected poems about the natural world from poets like Terry Tempest Williams, Kathleen Lynch and Kim Stafford. While topics of the poems can be serious, Fontaine said the ensemble made the messages in poems accessible and even playful at times.

“The concert was full of reverence,” Fontaine said. “It really feels like a gift, what they’re putting out there.”

Fontaine said the foundation raised about $4,500 from the shows, which will go toward scholarships for its educational offerings such as the Learning Laguna program, which includes in-classroom sessions and field trips to the habitats along the Laguna's 22-mile span.

For more details, go to lagunafoundation.org and acornsings.com.