Due to their popularity, a VOENA concert was held during the McCloud Holiday festivities, called “Voices of Winter Lights,” for the fourth year in a row.
This all-children’s choir currently has 75 children, ages 5 to 18, performing all over the world. Darlene Mathis, owner of the McCloud Mercantile, was able to have a dozen of these young performers come to help celebrate the holiday season on Saturday night with a performance of a variety of holiday songs to a full house.
Dressed in Victorian attire, these young artists played instruments and sang holiday songs, some in different languages including Hebrew and French. The founder and director of VOENA, Annabelle Marie, says, “If they stay long enough in VOENA, they learn to sing in over 20 different languages.” Annabelle Marie also said that they caught the attention of Presidents Bush and Clinton and have sung in the White House and in Abu Dhabi for the Crown Prince during the Peace Festival. Over the 30 years of their existence, they have also performed at Carnegie Hall, the London Olympics, the World Expo in Japan, the Grand Ole Opry, and in Sicily, Greece, and Bali, just to name a few countries.
There is no audition to join VOENA; membership comes through word of mouth and social media. The older kids mentor the younger ones. Annabelle Marie’s mission is unifying the world with children’s voices. Her goal is for them to think beyond borders using multicultural music and hopefully become our future leaders. She says, “It is more than just singing: 1) To accept the challenge, 2) Self-motivation, and 3) A hard work ethic prepares them to be self-disciplined.”
To learn more about this amazing a cappella group of young artists, go to their website at voena.org.
