This Memorial Day weekend, Orcas a Cappella will give a concert of choral music featuring three American composers who have made their homes in the Northwest.

James Hardman, a long-time resident of Orcas Island, has specifically set six William Butler Yeats poems (Wind Among the Reeds) to music for the a Cappella singers. Next, three pieces will be performed from Les Chansons des Roses, set to the poetry of Ranier Rilke, by Waldron resident and University of Southern California composition professor Morten Lauridsen. The third, and final, composer to be featured will be Stephen Chatman, music professor from the University of British Columbia, with his Elizabethan Spring.

This concert is also being sung in memory of two charter-member singers of Orcas a Cappella, Judith Struthers and Anthony Richardson, whose recent passing has had a profound impact on the group.

As Orcas a Cappella is comprised of singers from three islands in the San Juans, concerts will be held on Lopez, at Lopez Center, Friday, May 23, 7:30 p.m.; Orcas Theatre and Community Center, Sunday, May 25, 4:00 p.m.; along with the following Saturday afternoon, May 31, 4:00 p.m. at the Shaw Community Center. Please come and celebrate this music of spring, rebirth and the memory of loved ones.