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Soromundi Lesbian Chorus of Eugene marks its 35th anniversary with a pair of concerts scheduled for May 17 and 18, 2025. Organizers are planning a celebration of music and community.
One thing is almost a sure bet as Soromundi Lesbian Chorus of Eugene prepares for “Everything Possible,” its 35th anniversary celebration Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18.
It’ll go better than the choir’s 30th anniversary.
Five years ago, the group was planning a tour to California — “we were two weeks away from getting on the bus,” said Lisa Hellemn, who’s been with the group for 34 of its 35 years and who now serves as its director. Soromundi was making plans for a recording. Preparations were well underway for that year’s performance at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts, complete with Soromundi alumnae returning to sing with the choir.
A global pandemic had other intentions. All of Soromundi’s plans had to be scratched.
The chorus pivoted to online activities — book clubs, workshops, support groups, an online talent show — but singing, a notorious method for easily spreading viruses, was out of the question for a time.
Those difficult years mean that this year’s 35-year celebration has to carry some of the weight from the canceled 30th events, and so it’s fitting that this year’s performances come complete with an exhibit tracing the group’s history — and a sneak peek at a new book, “Sisters of the World,” that tells the Soromundi story.
That story stretches back to 1989, when six women met in the living room of Soromundi founder Karm Hagedorn.
“It all started out as a safe place where it was all lesbian,” Hellemn said. “People could be themselves and be accepted.”
A year or so later, Hellemn saw the group perform at the Eugene Celebration, the three-day festival that the city held each year at the end of summer. “I thought I could be of help, because I was a music teacher,” she said. She signed on as the group’s accompanist. From 1998 to 2017, Hagedorn and Hellemn shared director duties; Hagedorn retired in 2017.
Today, the group — open to anyone over the age of 18 who identifies as a woman — has more than 100 members. Auditions are not required.
For the weekend performances, Hellemn will lead the group, including about 25 alumnae, through a program of about 20 songs. The first half of the show looks back at Soromundi’s history: “We have done protest songs, we’ve done social justice songs, we’ve done choral tunes. So we tried to pick stuff that represented the entire range of what we did,” she said. (The concert is scheduled to begin with a cover of “Price Tag,” the hit for the English singer Jessie J.)
The second half of the show looks forward and features songs that Hellemn calls, “for lack of a better word,” LGBTQ-friendly. That includes “Pink Pony Club,” the hit by Chappell Roan.
Unlike many other music directors, Hellemn doesn’t select most of Soromundi’s songs, which generally are suggested by its singers. At the end of each season, she said, dozens of chorus members gather for a retreat where they listen to clips of suggested songs and eventually whittle the list down.
“I’m there as a consultant,” she said. “It’s amazing because by sitting in the room, I know what their concerns are, what they’re focused on and you also know what they’re thinking about.”
She said she rarely vetoes a selection, and then only because of musical reasons: Is a song too reliant on vocal solos and not particularly suited to a choral arrangement? Would it be too difficult to arrange?
The process has helped the chorus grow musically, she said: “They have a better idea of what’s going to work and what’s not going to work.”
The weekend concerts go hand-in-hand with “Artists, Activists and Allies,” an exhibit documenting Soromundi’s history, on view at the Hult Center. Attendees also can preview proofs and preorder copies of the Soromundi history book “Sisters of the World,” which tells the group’s story from its 1989 origins.
In many ways, that story is about community, about finding a safe place to express yourself. And Hellemn said the community aspect of the group is just as important now as it was in the group’s first years.
And the chorus’ umbrella has expanded over the years.
“We started to grow where we had others with us and we had our allies in the same room,” she said.
In the meantime, Hellemn already is mulling plans to expand that community in a new direction: She’s in the midst of writing “Soromundi: The Musical,” which could be part of next year’s 36th anniversary celebration.
“It’ll be the largest community theater experiment ever,” she said.
If you go
“Everything Possible,” the 35th anniversary concerts for Soromundi Lesbian Chorus of Eugene, are 7 p.m. Saturday, May 17 and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 18 at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Eugene Center. Tickets are $28, $23 for students and seniors. Tickets can be purchased at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts website.
Admission to “Artists, Activists and Allies” is included with the ticket price. The history exhibit opens 90 minutes before showtime and closes 30 minutes before the curtain goes up.
