A Detailed Herstory of Windsong
WINDSINGERS CARRY IT ON AND SING WITH FULL HEARTS!
Windsong boasts a long and full Herstory of making beautiful music while promoting feminism and social justice, going all the way back to 1979. First known as the Cleveland Women’s Chorus, the group changed names several times—The Moral Chorale, The Haggettes, and Windsong Womyn’s Ensemble—before settling on Windsong, Cleveland’s Feminist Chorus in 1996. Our numbers have fluctuated over the years, with as few as a half-dozen hardy souls keeping the chorus alive, to as many as forty-nine dedicated singers in 2018. Windsong rests solidly on the dedication of our founding mothers and early leaders: June Adams, Betsy Reeves, Lisa Rainsong, Gayle Pilat, Penny Guy, Nan Gerald, Gayle Crawford, Ellen Catlin, Diane Hobus, Michelle Colopy, Sharon Marrell, Julie “Maze” Henderson, Argerie Vasilakes, and Karen Weaver.
Windsong is a proud member of the Sister Singers Network, an organization founded in 1981 to nurture the spirit, energy, and diversity of the women’s choral movement. We have participated in SSN choral festivals in Grand Rapids, San Diego, Chicago, Champaign-Urbana in 2014, and again in Grand Rapids in 2018 at the 12th Sister Singers Network National Women’s Choral Festival.
SSN gathers every four years to share workshops, performances, and fellowship. As many as 400 singers, including members of more than two dozen choruses from across North America, plus individual singers, composers, and directors, attend the festivals to sing together and perform for each other, culminating in a mass chorus event on the last night. Windsong rocked the house at the University of Illinois in 2014 under the direction of Karen Weaver, both in our own set and in one of the mass chorus pieces. We did it again in Grand Rapids in 2018 under Heather Russell’s direction. We co-hosted that festival with Grand Rapids and are looking forward to co-hosting the 2022 festival here in Cleveland with another SSN member chorus.
Windsong has collaborated with Artemis Singers of Chicago and SheWho of Philadelphia. We’ve shared the stage with the Columbus Women’s Chorus, both here in Cleveland and in Columbus. We have enjoyed being guest performers with the North Coast Men’s Chorus (NCMC), and hosted them in our concerts at Lakewood Presbyterian Church and The Church of the Covenant. In August 2014, Windsong participated in “The Big Cleveland Sing” at the State Theatre during the International Gay Games. Performing individual sets along with Good Company, the NCMC, and the 2014 Gay Games Festival Chorus, we joined in a mass chorus finale of over 150 voices from all over the globe.
Our collective voice has been heard in the larger community through participation in the Womyn’s Variety Show, the Holiday CircleFest in University Circle, and the Cleveland Pride festivals. Windsong has performed at the Lakewood Public Library and at Barnes and Noble at Crocker Park, and we sang the National Anthem at the Veterans Administration Employee Appreciation Multicultural Celebration in August 2016.
In the fall of 2013, we released our first commercial CD, Season of Light: Celebrating holiday traditions sacred and secular, a recording of our December 2012 holiday concert at The Church of the Covenant.
Our last performances under the direction of Karen Weaver were in the 2015–2016 season. Heather Russell became our assistant director in 2014 and our Acting Artistic Director for our spring concert in May 2015. We sang with more than a dozen former Windies at Karen Weaver’s memorial service in April 2016 under the direction of Jan C. Snow. Heather Russell became our Artistic Director, and we dedicated our May 22 concert to Karen’s memory.
In 2016, we were so glad to sing at the opening festivities of A Place for Us, an LGBT-friendly housing community on Cleveland’s West Side—and the lifelong dream of Windsong member Linda Krasienko, who worked for years with many other dedicated dreamers to make it a reality.
We presented three concerts in 2016-2017: “Never Turning Back” in November; “Words Noted: Music of Jan C. Snow” in March, featuring the works of our favorite composer and arranger; and “The Heart and Soul of Windsong” in June, a bouquet of songs evoking the fondest memories and deepest connections of our singers. In July 2017, we performed at River’s Edge as part of “Circle the City with Love,” organized by the Sisters of St. Joseph.
Our 2017-2018 concert season included “Walk on the Earth” in December and “Telling Our Stories” in the spring where we performed in both East Side and West Side venues. Anne E. DeChant brought her guitar to the West Side concert and joined us in her “Girls and Airplanes” for a fabulous encore. Just a few evenings later, we opened for California’s guitar-playing social satirist Roy Zimmerman in his ReZist concert in Cleveland Heights. We were proud to join him in his patriotic “My Vote, My Voice, My Right.”
Jessica Gallagher-Steuver was hired as Artistic Director in 2022 and emphasized the importance of intersectional feminism, doing the work to become an actively anti-racist organization, and honoring our transgender, nonbinary, and otherwise gender-expansive siblings in song. In 2024, we collaborated with Case Western Reserve University Choirs and members of the community to produce A Concert for Rage. The event was inspired by The Case for Rage: Why Anger is Essential to the Anti-Racist Struggle by philosopher, professor, and author Dr. Myisha Cherry, who also served as a special guest speaker. The concert featured a multi-ensemble performance of Dr. Rollo Dilworth’s Weather, for which Dr. Dilworth served as a guest clinician.
We collectively emphasized the importance of maintaining momentum for justice advocacy and formed Windsong’s first committee for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). We also created an ongoing book club to further our work towards radical inclusivity.
In 2024, Windsong also celebrated its 45th anniversary with Cleveland’s first Intersectional Feminist Festival, radio and television features, and a concert at the Cleveland Museum of Art entitled “Honor the Past, Inspire the Future.” We are grateful for the feminist matriarchs who paved the way, and are excited for the next 45 years of growth and empowerment!
Windsong, now ~60 members strong, continues to grow as a chorus and an organization dedicated to promoting intersectional feminism and social change. Through times of darkness, resilience, and joy, we will continue to share our songs and our message in events that align with our mission.
We thank every one of you for coming to hear us and supporting Windsong!
