A community of singers share their joy and love of music
By Blake Ashley Frino-Gerl
In 2005, Cassandra Tarantino was hired to conduct the new choral program on the Cuesta College North County Campus. The campus had been looking to establish a music program, a choral program in particular. Since then, Cuesta Concord Chorus has become a thriving community of singers that regularly performs locally and tours throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Tarantino remembers the first rehearsal in an old military trailer and the support she received. “The groundwork laid at that time was a true cornerstone for our 20-year success!,” she exclaimed.
The chorus began with eight members and went up to 55. Tarantino anticipates 50 members this fall. Members’ range in age from 18-80. Being a part of the chorus entails members to have “a big heart and prior vocal or instrumental experience,” Tarantino said. “Some of my members play other instruments and want to develop their vocal skills. Other members sang in high school and are looking to sing again. A lot of my members have been singing most of their lives.”
The group’s focus is on creating music through the community.
“I want everyone in the rehearsal space to know that they matter, that their voice is important, and everyone is there to support each other,” Tarantino explained. The “backbone of the any chorus is the accompanist,” she noted. The current accompanist is Ryan Hartzell, who started in 2023. The music they perform extends from medieval to contemporary choral music, a capella, accompanied, and in various languages.
While conducting and teaching flute, voice, music theory, and music history at Cuesta, she also serves as director of music at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in SLO and is a sommelier for CASS Winery. In addition, she co-founded the community-based opera company Central Coast Gilbert & Sullivan Company.
In her love for the chorus, Tarantino considers it as her instrument. With each semester’s membership the “depth and variety of personalities” bring out new sounds of the instrument, she said. She loves the challenge of uniting different voices together “into one full and glorious sound.”
The chorus provides veteran outreach and welcomes veterans to their concerts at no charge. Each year on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, the chorus sings at the Paso Robles Cemetery, as well as at the Lost at Sea Ceremony in Cayucos for Memorial Day.
The mayor of Montecatini, Tuscany, invited the chorus to represent the United States in an international choir festival this past June. It sang at the Florence American Cemetery in Tuscany and a soup kitchen benefit concert in Palermo, Sicily.
With “concord” meaning group harmony, the choir’s mission, as a community of singers, is to share “their joy and love of music near and far,” Tarantino said. That unity has brought them to sing with fellow community choruses around the world.
To celebrate the worldwide choral community, and in memory of benefactor and former member Ann Coppenbarger, the chorus is hosting its first International Community Chorus Festival in August 2025: “Voices Unite!” Cassandra said the festival is currently the only one of its kind in the United States, and will welcome choirs from around the world to perform at various venues throughout San Luis Obispo County.
The chorus welcomes new members and its first rehearsal for the fall is Tuesday, Sept. 10. To register, go to cuesta.edu/communityprograms/community-education/music/concord-chorus.html.
