Kith + Kin Chorus

THIS IS NO LONGER THE FUNDRAISING PAGE FOR KITH + KIN CHORUS
Please head to THIS NEW PAGE for all gifts
and thank you thank you so much.
-rachel ries, founding director

✨ 🎉 ✨ 🎉 ✨

kith + kin (def: friends and family)

Kith + Kin Chorus – an uncommon choir in the twin cities – strives to build community, spread joy and give in service of others through harmony.

Kith + Kin Chorus is a community choir in the Twin Cities, open to singers of all skill levels, and 75 diverse voices strong. Led by founder Rachel Kay Ries (of Her Crooked Heart), K+K Chorus aims to nurture a welcoming, joyful environment where anyone who longs to sing in a choir again (or for the first time!) can.

All are welcome:
No matter who you voted for, your gender identity, who you pray to or if you pray, your physical ability, the color of your skin, the culture that knit you together, who and how you choose to love, your age or education, how much music theory you know, how much money you have and on and on… You are welcome.

Joining is lottery-based and singers aren't required to have any formal theory knowledge as songs – while challenging – are taught both with sheet music and reference recordings. The song material is a wide, secular mix of classic & indie rock, pop, folk and whatever else inspires, arranged for a choir by Rachel and a few other helping hands. Think Queen, Björk, Yola, The Kinks, Paul Simon, Neko Case...

Converting songs into tangible good:
K+K Chorus gives back to the Twin Cities community by holding a fundraising concert each year, the proceeds of which go to local organizations that strive to make our Cities better, safer, healthier places for all. 

When Rachel began the choir in 2017, she saw it as a powerful way to to sing for good, tangibly: 
• childcare so a recent refugee parent can go to language study class
• formula, clothing, a new ID for a native mother & child fleeing violence in their home
• medically-tailored food delivered to someone living with terminal illness
• utility bills covered for a family so they can stay by their child's bedside in the ICU

Through our season finales we've been able to raise over $20,000 for local charities and non-profits! 

Singing our way through the pandemic...
When the pandemic brought our 4th season to an unceremonious and quietly screeching halt, we found ways to keep singing through the separation – see the first video below – and in the Fall of 2021 we began again in person. It was an incredibly hard and at times frightening season. Singing masked and feeling disconnected, having to move to Zoom during the Delta wave, close calls on Covid spread, contact tracing and defining (and re-defining) protocols... But, with great diligence and a slew of safety measures in place, we were able to safely reach our Season 5 Finale with jeremy messersmith and raise over $10,000 for Women of Nation's Eagle's Nest Shelter!
We couldn't have asked for a better do-over.

...and on into the future:
Now at the start of our 6th Season, we're hoping for a much less eventful and equally successful season with our musical collaborators, the stunning and wildly creative Aby Wolf & Eric Mayson. We're also working to expand our community and outreach offerings – Choir-aoke, open rehearsals, community singing events. All this takes extraordinary labor, skill, dedication, creative care and time.

With a current operating budget of $28,000, we rely on donations, dues, grants and good luck to cover rent, staffing, loads of printing, song arrangement licenses, community singing events and more. We truly could not keep doing this without the support of song-loving individuals like you!
Thank you for considering support!

Let's fill this hurting world with harmony. 

Kith + Kin is grateful to our fiscal sponsor, The Warming House.