who we are: mission & history

ABOUT SHARING A NEW SONG
Sharing A New Song (SANS) is a nonprofit community chorus based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.   For 40 years SANS has made meaningful musical connections around the world, and here at home.

• We sing to celebrate the human spirit and affirm our common humanity.

• We travel to connect, learn and grow into more engaged world citizens.

• Singing in Boston and around the world, SANS sparks transformative connections that can change the world, one song at a time.

The SANS mission has come alive in countless experiences on our annual singing tours, including:

Singing Encourage My Soul/The Storm is Passing Over with Dr. Carolyn McKinstry, after she recounted her experience of surviving the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama that killed her 4 girlfriends in 1963.

Participating in the inaugural concert of the Bergrivierkoor (Berg River Choir),
the first racially-integrated chorus in Picketburg, South Africa, many years after the official end of Apartheid.

Being welcomed by the Houma Indian community in Houma, Louisiana: Singing in schools, enjoying traditional dance performances and a seafood boil, and making long-lasting friendships. 

Visiting an orphanage in Cambodia.  After singing to a huge group of students and teachers in a courtyard they sang New York, New York for us - in English!

Singing with indigenous Guarani villagers in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina.

Singing We Who Believe in Freedom Shall Not Rest under the “Hanging Oak” in Charleston, South Carolina, in a large circle, tearfully holding hands with our Gullah-Geechee tour guide.

Singing for Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his home church in Cape Town, South Africa in 2017. Though he had not been well, he joyously danced in his seat in the front row!

And, how it all began: Singing, dancing, and building lasting friendships with Russians in 13 consecutive trips to the Soviet Union, during the height of the Cold War.

History

SANS was founded by David Clapp, a high school teacher concerned about attitudes toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was 1983, and David’s personal and professional connections with the Soviet Union inspired him to want to foster cultural understanding and citizen diplomacy between the United States and the Soviet Union. Over the years, SANS has made many trips to the former Soviet Union to share music and friendship. The project led to high school choral and language exchanges, numerous adult choral group exchanges, several choral director exchanges, a documentary film jointly produced by American and Russian filmmakers, and countless personal ties in Russia.

For 13 years, SANS traveled to the Soviet Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States, sharing music and building bridges across barriers to understanding.

Since then, SANS has taken its mission to many other countries. In Russia, Georgia, Czech Republic, Siberia, Armenia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania, China, South Africa, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brazil, Nicaragua, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay and the United States, thousands have shared experiences and created lasting friendships through music, travel, exchanges, and personal ties.

 More highlights along the way:

• Journeying to South Africa in 1997 with Praise, a gospel choir from Dorchester. Since then, SANS has returned to South Africa many times, joining South African choruses in concert, sharing the power and beauty of choral music with people in both urban and rural townships.

• Joining 29,000 singers at the Estonian Song Festival in Tallinn in 2004 as part of SANS 20th anniversary tour to Russia and Estonia, singing with 15,000 singers in a song festival in Riga, Latvia in 1998, and participating in a song festival celebrating the millennium of Yaroslavl, Russia in 2010.

• Traveling to Cuba several times, initially in 2000, performing in the 2002 Corhabana International Choral Festival and forming lasting relationships with choruses throughout the country.

• Continuing to build bridges with a 2003 domestic tour to the Gullah community of South Carolina and the Houma Indian Nation in Louisiana, ending with a visit to New Orleans. SANS has returned to Louisiana several times, singing and offering service to communities stricken by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

• Expanding the SANS experience to Latin America traveling to Brazil in 2008, Nicaragua in 2013, Colombia in 2016, and Argentina and Uruguay in 2019.

• Hosting a women’s chorus from Latvia and several South African choruses, enabling these choruses to share their gifts in the New England area, and, through home-stays with SANS members, to deepen one-on-one relationships in a meaningful way.