True Concord Voices & Orchestra was nominated by the community and selected as one of the 2021 winners of the IdeaFunding Resiliency Award. The Resiliency award was new to IdeaFunding in 2021 to recognize and celebrate the exceptional innovation, creativity, and grit that our small businesses have displayed this year in the face of extraordinary challenges. True Concord is a nationally recognized ensemble, known for innovative programming that fuses the best professional voices and instrumentalists from across the country. Learn more about this resilient local gem.
Q: Describe your company. What’s your product and what problem are you solving for your customers?
A: True Concord is Tucson’s Grammy-nominated chamber choir and orchestra. Currently in our 17th season, True Concord creates experiences through music that move, enrich and inspire. We accomplish our mission primarily through the performance of the great choral masterworks and music of America’s cultural mosaic. We believe in music’s power to create joy, peace, hope and healing in listeners and performers and to bring together people of all backgrounds. William Shakespeare called this “true concord” in his Sonnet No. 8.
Q: Congratulations on winning the IdeaFunding Resiliency Award! What are your next steps? How will this money help you achieve your goals?
A: We’re thrilled and honored to win the IdeaFunding Resiliency Award, and grateful to Startup Tucson and Nextrio for selecting us! Next steps are to continue to be resilient and innovative, as the ongoing navigation of Covid and its aftermath continue into next season. One of our top priorities before, during and long after the pandemic is to provide as much compensation to our artists as possible, since they truly are the lifeblood of our organization. The award money will go right into the paychecks of our amazing, daring and dedicated artists.
Q: What was the biggest thing you learned this year that helped you stay resilient through the pandemic and everything that was happening?
A: The biggest thing we learned is that we can do anything we set our minds to, and that gathering as many minds from throughout the organization in the problem-solving and creative process ultimately yields the best decisions for everyone involved, especially when innovation is required. We knew last winter that we somehow had to have a concert season, in order to provide music to our community in dark and anxious times when it is needed most. We also knew that everyone’s safety was paramount in any and all activities. Through our relentless dedication to these guiding principles, we explored and studied many options over many months before we arrived at our “bubble” approach to this season. It is that relentless dedication that has continued to get us through this pandemic with all its concomitant challenges, and that will ultimately get us to the other side of it, ready to embrace the next challenges and opportunities that come our way.