Four young children standing together, each holding a book, on a city street.

Urgent phone calls flooded in from singers who had registered—asking if the Missoula Community Chorus would go forward with the first rehearsal. No one asked to delay it, but rather declared that they needed to be together and sing.

And the answer was “YES, we will hold the rehearsal! We need to be together, and we need to feel our way through this together.”

One hundred and twenty people showed up for that first rehearsal. We sang—and we cried together—and then we sang some more.

The following week, our first public performance was at Missoula's 9-11 Memorial Service in Caras Park. Every person who sang, every person in the audience who listened—were all united in our grief and our determination that this terrorist event would not break our nation, but make it stronger.

On December 31, 2001, the chorus presented its first concert.

Every September 11th…

remember the power of music

“The musical beauty of singing together continues to inspire hope, help create safe spaces for joyousness and grieving, and allows us to find the strength of our community. Music can take you places, it can heal your places, it can create new places.”
— Robbin Roshi Rose, Founding Executive Director

Read more about the founding of the Missoula Community Chorus: I wanna hold your mule train

Missoula Community Chorus

In the summer of 2001 small group of Missoulians were working towards the first-ever rehearsal of a new community chorus…

We had forty people signed up and thought that if sixty showed up, we’d be well launched.

On 9/11, we woke to the stunning news of the attack on the Twin Towers, followed by the attack on the Pentagon and crash of United Flight 93.

SING ON

SING ON

A colorful digital poster featuring clouds and sunlight, promoting a singing event called 'Sing On' with the subtitle 'Together Our Voices Rise Above the Storm.' Logos of Missoula Community Chorale, Power of Voice, Missoula Forte, and musical notes are displayed at the bottom.

Missoula Keeps On Singing

Join us on November 23, 2025, 3p

All three choirs under the Missoula Community Chorus, Inc. umbrella will perform:

Forte Children’s Choir, MPower Voices and the Missoula Community Chorus!

Find out more

MPower Voices

Formed in 1998 by Alayne Dolson and Malcolm Lowe, the choir was originally part of VSA Arts programming.

MPower Voices serves the differently-abled community by offering an opportunity for social engagement and artistic expression. They serve Missoula with musical offerings that surprise and delight with their heartfelt, open manifestations of joy.

Three elderly people, two women and one man, are on stage likely during a performance or event. One woman is sitting wearing a festive red and white outfit with glasses and pigtails, holding a red purse. The other woman is standing in the center, smiling, wearing a red and black patterned blouse. The man, seated on the right in a wheelchair, is wearing a white shirt and glasses, with a camera attached to his wheelchair.
Man wearing a Santa hat with a red number 2, glasses, black shirt, blue tie, and holding papers, speaking into a microphone on stage, with a woman in a Don’t Stop T-shirt in the background.
A woman with glasses smiling in a black-and-white photo.