FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – The 50th anniversary season of the Fort Wayne Children’s Choir wraps up this Sunday, but not before one more special concert that is now sold out for what is believed to be the first time ever.

Sunday at 4 p.m. is the choir’s annual spring concert. The concert always marks the culmination of a year’s worth of work for all of the performing ensembles.

However, this will not be a typical spring concert. As part of the 50th anniversary celebration, the choir is debuting brand new music and inviting back their alumni to participate in a special alumni choir.

Executive Artistic Director Jonathan Busarow says the concert will feature traditional choral music, along with nine commissioned songs for each choir set to make their world premiere. All of the choirs had the opportunity to work with the composers of these songs and helped them come up with the text and musical ideas. This has been a wonderful experience for the kids.

A total of 114 alumni are set to return to participate in Sunday’s performance. The choir is fortunate to have over 5,000 alumni and Busarow is excited to also welcome back former Artistic Director Fred Meads to lead the alumni choir. The choir is hosting two rehearsals prior to the concert for participating alumni and is supplying the music.

In addition, graduating seniors will be honored at the concert. The seniors graduating this year have a combined 70 years of service to the children’s choir. Ultimately, it is going to be special to bring all of the choirs together and have the alumni join in.

Busarow says “The children’s choir starts at about eight years old and goes through high school. And these big concerts allow our youngest singers to see our older singers all sing together, but it also lets them see in this instance, all of our alumni. And it’s going to show them not only how they can keep singing in the organization for ten years, but it will show them how they can keep singing for their entire lives…and that’s part of what the children’s choir is really striving to do…we want to teach music literacy, so kids can sing for the rest of their lives.”

In the Fort Wayne Children’s Choir, kids come from all different backgrounds and work toward a common purpose of making music together. The choir is excited to continue growing in the future. Next up is a summer tour to Japan for 10 days; they are visiting Fort Wayne’s sister city Takaoka. They are looking for new students to join the choir for the next school year and they see in their current students a bright future.

Even though the concert is sold out, you can visit the choir’s YouTube channel to view a live stream of the concert. You can also support the choir by visiting their website.