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St. Louis Symphony’s IN UNISON Chorus will debut a piece wrapped in ‘Family’ ties 45%
By Jeremy D. Goodwin0%
5/8/2026, 10:00:00 AM
Topics: Classical Music, Music
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Appeal to Emotion, and Optimism Bias, with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 24.2% saturation with 249 hits. Analysis detected 1,448 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,029 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 47.3% and a BS Rank of 45% (12,229 of 21,886 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 55.90% of the article peer group.
When many people were learning to use video calls to stay in touch with friends and family during the coronavirus pandemic, composer Nathalie Joachim used the technology to meet new people.
In spring 2020, the Brooklyn-born musician with family roots in Haiti had dozens of conversations with members of the St.
Louis Symphony Orchestra’s IN UNISON Chorus.
“I think they all showed up ready to have this very clear, musical, professional conversation with a composer.
And I just wanted to get to know them,” Joachim said recently, in another one of those video calls.
Joachim asked chorus members about their relationship with music — how they started singing and what it means to them.
The conversations helped her shape the text of “Family,” an SLSO commission that will feature the orchestra and IN UNISON, SLSO’s chorus focusing on work by members of the African diaspora.
Three weekend concerts that close the classical portion of the orchestra’s first season back in the renovated Powell Hall will also feature the St.
Louis Symphon Chorus on Maurice Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloé.”
Music Director Stéphane Denève will lead the orchestra through a past SLSO commission by Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning composer Kevin Puts, a St.
Louis native, as well.
From left, Stèphane Denéve, St.
Louis Symphony Orchestra conductor, and Kevin McBeth, director of the IN UNISON Chorus, speak during rehearsal on Tuesday, May 5 in Powell Hall in St.
Louis’ Covenant Blu-Grand Center neighborhood.
Words, then music
When IN UNISON members spoke with Joachim about their musical inspirations, a theme quickly emerged.
“The thing that came forth in the fabric of what they were saying to me, beyond the fact that they get to sing these great concerts and work with awesome artists, was really that this chorus meant so much to them as a community.
It's the thing that they anchored themselves to when they needed hope, when they needed a sense of belonging,” Joachim said.
The conversations gave Joachim a sense of belonging as well.
Her sister died unexpectedly shortly before the pandemic, and she was at home alone, social distancing.
“Getting to talk to each of these people about the meaning of family and that kind of connection really impacted me very, very deeply,” she said.
“It's incredible that they describe one another as being a community for each other, and they became a source of community for me in that time as well.”
The text she wrote for the chorus to sing is composed of simple phrases that unpack much emotion — like “all of my sisters,” “we understand each other,” “we’re still here.”
The words hit home for longtime members of IN UNISON.
“The words ‘still standing,’ that is truly a testament.
We all come together.
We don't know what each person is going through, but we come together and it brightens my day if I have a hard day,” said Patricia Brown, who's been with the ensemble since 2011.
“Sometimes it is challenging.
So even with the contrasts in ‘Family,’ when it comes together you hear the melodies come together.
So that is family.
That's family in a nutshell.”
Composer Natalie Joachim
'It really is a journey'
The season-closing concerts will deepen the SLSO’s relationship with Joachim, a Grammy Award-nominated musician.
She joined the orchestra on flute and vocals for a performance of “Fanm d’Ayiti (Women of Haiti)” in 2022, the piece that earned her a Grammy nomination for best world music album.
Her composition “Dam Mwen Yo” was included in the digital-only iteration of the SLSO’s “Live at the Pulitzer” series during the pandemic.
It’s a busy season for Joachim, who teaches composition at Princeton University and has served as scholar-in-residence at the Museum of Modern Art.
Later this month she’ll present an opera-in-progress in New York performed by members of the NY Philharmonic, and Philadelphia choir The Crossing will premiere another piece in June.
Although “Family” is thematically rooted in the warm fuzzies of IN UNISON members, it presents musical challenges to the chorus.
“It’s very much a contemporary piece.
There’s some unusual harmony, some unusual orchestration, some dissonance.
There's some difficult rhythmic things.
There's a couple really fast passages that we're just sort of holding on for dear life,” said Kevin McBeth, who just celebrated his 15-year anniversary as IN UNISON’s director.
“But then there are just beautiful moments where she created some space.
It really is a journey.
This is very much out of the box for what the chorus does.”
IN UNISON members have enjoyed digging into the piece.
“It almost seems like it's a little chaotic, and then out of the chaos comes these melodic tones and these harmonies that I wasn't expecting,” said Don Hutcherson, an 18-year veteran of the ensemble.
"We have some dissonant chords that only the strong will survive.
But there's always light at the end, and her piece makes me feel all types of emotion.
It's powerful.”
The St.
Louis Symphony Orchestra and its IN UNISON Chorus rehearse Nathalie Joachim’s “Family” at Powell Hall.
The season-closing concerts also include the St.
Louis Symphony Chorus.
Second chance for a first performance
“Family” was scheduled for a 2022 premiere before the concert was canceled because of a coronavirus outbreak within the chorus.
SLSO leaders then decided to save the piece for a performance in Powell Hall, which closed for renovations after the 2022-23 season.
In the meantime, Joachim wrote a thorough revision.
Then she met with the chorus again, as a group, on a Zoom call early on in rehearsals.
Six years after she began working on “Family,” in the early depths of the pandemic, the themes of the piece have taken on new resonance.
“It's interesting how it's come to have new meaning in this moment now, in 2026.
Being reminded that we are still here.
That we have each other.
That we all have blood families and chosen families,” Joachim said, “and that those are the things that we need to be tapping into right now — to give us the strength to dream towards something new for all of us.”
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100%flagged-word coverageDon Hutcherson
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