Springfield Choral Society sings for peace
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back, van der Loo laughs and says: “It’s charisma. Pure charisma.”

The Springfield Choral Society features a mix of amateur and semi-professional singers, as well as chorus newcomers and veterans of 20 years and more. Van der Loo lists voice professors, a dentist, a psychologist, a few nurses, teachers, homemakers and even the executive vice president of a local bank on her roster.

“People love to sing, and I’m glad they like to sing with me,” she says. “They love enriching the community with something they can do other than just what they do in their, quote, real lives.”

Mark Robinson, an elementary school administrator from Bloomington, joined the Springfield Choral Society this year. He doesn’t mind driving down to Springfield for weekly rehearsals, he says, because the chorus offers him opportunities that he doesn’t have at home. There isn’t an official city choral society in Bloomington, he continues, and while he’s involved with music at his church, it’s mostly contemporary.

“This is a real stretch for me and that’s why I want to be a part of it,” Robinson says. “The music is very different from anything I’ve done vocally, and I just appreciate the challenge of it.”

Jan Kirkham has been with the Springfield Choral Society since 1985. At that time, she says, she was a vocal music professor at Illinois College. She now works in a totally different field at the University of Illinois Springfield.

“I continue to sing year after year, because now it’s an avocation,” Kirkham says. “It’s a perfect way for me to express my musicianship.”

The Springfield Choral Society meets every