Great Bend Center For Music

Great Bend Chorale & Youth Chorale - Community Music ProgramGreat Bends award-winning community ensembles are designed to build civic engagement by bringing together diverse and varied members from all throughout our community. For this reason there is no audition, and fees are on a sliding scale in order to maximize participation and build connections between less connected parts of our community while building community pride. In addition to their regular full year of programming, the Great Bend Chorale and Youth Chorale in this year accepted a Challenge America award from the National Endowment for the Arts to make their very first commercial recording, scheduled for release fall of 2025.

Great Bend Chorale - Therapeutic Veterans ProgramThis past year, a new therapeutic element (in addition to previous programs like Memory Care Choir and Grief Choir) was added to partner with the local veterans tiny home village quite near the church where the choir rehearses. Those veterans were supported to not only sing with the Great Bend Chorale, but as part of their therapeutic process they curated a selection of poetry to be interspersed with the music in the concert that they felt represented their lived experiences as veterans. Those selections were then read by the veterans in the program during the concert performance. Additionally, the vets also participated in a recording session and received copies of their performances as keepsakes and to remember the therapeutic insights theyd gained.