The singers stand ready, organized by voice part and height, music binders open, eyes on the director. “Watch me, my loves!” says Ruth Naomi Floyd, raising her hands to conduct. “Alright, let’s run it.”
And so began a rehearsal of the new Penn Staff & Community Choir on a cold windy evening in January. The musicians were preparing for their debut mini-concert, scheduled for 7 p.m. on Feb. 4 at St. Mary’s Church on Locust Walk, accompanied by piano and violin. Entry is free, but pre-registration is required.
The choir, which has about 40 members, was formed by Penn’s Office of Social Equity and Community (SEC) in the fall. An email went out inviting people to sign up, and the Tuesday evening weekly rehearsals started in October. No auditions are required.
“The choir is very accepting, and very open,” says Floyd, a professional jazz singer, music composer, and choir director.
The choir was spearheaded by Charles (Chaz) Lattimore Howard, Penn’s vice president for social equity and community, and Nicole Maloy, SEC director. Both Penn alums, they both were in The Inspiration A Capella as undergraduates. “Performing arts are very close to our hearts in this office,” Maloy says.
The goal is to bring together adults in the Penn and Philadelphia communities to have a chance to connect, sing, and perform a range of music across genres and traditions. The choir fits right into the SEC mission for “building awareness, connection, and understanding,” Maloy says.
The wellness element is particularly important to us, Maloy says. “It’s an amazing thing to be a part of a group of people singing: that is healing, and it’s joyful.” The choir also has a social benefit. “It’s one thing to sing together. It’s another thing to know who you’re singing with,” Floyd says. “That’s part of wellness.”
Floyd was a visiting scholar in the SEC’s Equity in Action Visiting Scholars Program. Her research on the famous contralto Marian Anderson resulted in the performance “Are We Yet Somehow Alive?” at Penn Live Arts last April. Floyd’s research on Anderson continues; she is creating a body of work to be performed in July 2026.
As for musical performance experience in the choir, there is a wide range. “People who have never in their lives sung in a choir of any kind are sitting side by side with people who have been in and directed other choirs,” Maloy says.
“We have such a wonderful blend,” Floyd says about the range of experience. “I view singing, particularly as a community, as an opportunity to come together to create something beautiful. It is so powerful.”
Carla Anderson, director of operations for admissions and financial aid and director of access initiatives at Penn Carey Law says: “I am not a professional singer, nor do I claim to have a great voice, but I think my voice is perfect for a choir, a blending of many voices.” An alto, she was in a glee club in high school and a gospel choir in college.
When Anderson read the notice about the new choir, “I realized that this is something that I think has been missing in my life because I love to sing,” she says. “The mood is always kind of joyous, uplifting, a sharing of this love of singing.”
Erik Nordgren, a bioinformatics data administrator in the School of Arts & Sciences, was in the Penn Glee Club when he was a doctoral student in the 1990s, and then was director of the club from 2000 to 2015. “I’ve always been a scientist by day, musician by night,” says Nordgren, a tenor who is paid to sing in the Episcopal Cathedral choir. “I’ve been a semi-professional musician for decades.”
Nordgren knew Howard and Floyd and decided to join the new choir. “It’s not really just about the music-making but about the community-building,” says Nordgren, who is one of the soloists. “The pace of it is much more relaxed, intentionally, taking time to get to know each other in the group, making it a social experience.”
Included in the selections planned for the Feb. 4 concert are “Lean on Me,” “Tenderly,” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” Floyd says. “I thought very deeply about the repertoire. We chose songs that that speak encouragement.”
“I love the songs Ruth has selected, because it’s all about healing and love and faith and hope,” says Sheila Quarles, who lives in West Philadelphia. She is co-owner of a healing center that has held workshops at Penn, and so she received the email about the choir recruitment. She was an alto in high school but now sings the tenor voice part.
Quarles, who volunteered as a soloist, says it is validating, encouraging, and uplifting to be a part of the multigenerational choir. “I always leave there with a smile on my face,” she says. “For me it was something to do to possibly meet new people, and it’s actually brought back the joy of singing to me.”
Plans are to have two concerts a year on campus and two for community partners. In February, the choir is planning to sing at the Community Living Center, a nursing home affiliated with the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia. After that, recruitment will begin again, with a spring concert planned for May.
“It’s just fun to be a part of something like this,” Anderson says. “I think we’re going to have a great concert. You know, we might have some mishaps and stray voices where they shouldn’t be, but I think that’s going to be part of the fun of it.”
