Renatum was founded on a simple belief: stories matter.

In a world that often feels divided and hurried, we believe music has the power to bring people together, inviting us not just to hear beautiful sounds but to experience the stories that connect us. Every Renatum performance is carefully crafted to invite reflection, inspire conversation, and remind us of our shared humanity. Through extraordinary voices telling extraordinary stories, we create concerts that linger long after the final note.

As West Virginia’s only professional chamber choir, we are also making a quiet statement of place and purpose: that world-class artistry belongs everywhere, including rural Appalachia. Our singers travel from across the region and the nation to build something together that could not exist anywhere else. In doing so, we celebrate history, elevate overlooked voices, and strengthen the communities we call home.

This season, we turn our attention to Thomas LaVoy's The Witness: Incidents of the War of the Rebellion. A work that transforms the 1880 memoir of Civil War soldier James Waxler into a powerful musical meditation on lived experience during the conflict. Drawing on Waxler’s firsthand account, the work weaves together moments of courage, grief, sacrifice, and hope to illuminate the human cost of war beyond the battlefield. Through its evocative score, it invites reflection on memory, reconciliation, and the enduring impact of history on the present.

To bring this project to life, we invite you to join The Witness Project, our $10,000 fundraising campaign. This is more than a fundraising goal; it is an investment in meaningful art, in the labor of professional singers, and in the careful, time-intensive process of building a work that carries historical weight and emotional truth.

Every gift helps us do the work that makes this possible: providing fair compensation for professional artists, securing inspiring performance spaces, supporting rehearsal and production time, and ensuring that our concerts remain accessible to audiences throughout our region. Just as importantly, it allows us to shape a project that treats history with care and artistry with seriousness.

But your support is not only behind the scenes.

As part of The Witness Project, you are invited into the making of the work itself. We invite you to see how music is shaped in rehearsal, how historical fragments become sound, and how a choir of individual voices becomes something unified and larger than itself. Whether through rehearsals, artistic reflections, or behind-the-scenes insight, you will witness the process as it unfolds.

Whether your gift is $25 or $2,500, you become part of something larger than a single performance. You become part of a community that believes stories deserve to be heard, artists deserve to be supported, and music like this deserves to flourish in Appalachia.

Together, we can ensure that extraordinary voices continue telling extraordinary stories for our neighbors today and for generations to come.

Thank you for believing in Renatum, and for helping bring The Witness to life.