No Audition, No Sheet Music: Wholehearted Chorus Brings Its 2026 Season to Carmel with Three October Concerts

More than a choir — a singing community that reads, listens, and talks its way toward a more loving world — returns to the Central Coast, where it began, for concerts at Hidden Valley, the Pacific Grove Performing Arts Center, and Carmel’s Sunset Center

Wholehearted Chorus, the welcoming community choir founded by internationally recognized songleader Lisa Littlebird, brings its 2026 season to California’s Central Coast this fall, returning to the region where the chorus began. The Central Coast season features three October concerts: an afternoon at Hidden Valley in Carmel Valley on Saturday, October 17, at 3 p.m.; a concert on Sunday, October 18, at the Pacific Grove Performing Arts Center; and a concert at the Sunset Center in Carmel on Tuesday, October 20, at 7 p.m.

Unlike a traditional choir, Wholehearted holds no auditions and uses no sheet music. Singers of all ages and experience learn the songs by heart through repetition, supported by lyric sheets, recorded practice tracks, and one another. The chorus describes its songs as sacred technologies of the heart, designed to uplift, heal, and nurture a sense of belonging.

“Singers of all ages and experience are wholeheartedly welcome in our choir and at our concerts,” said Lisa Littlebird, the chorus’s founder and artistic director. “We learn the old way, by heart. Together we do what none of us could do alone, and we consistently surprise and delight ourselves with how great we sound.”

Founded in 2014 and grown from the song circles Littlebird hosted in Big Sur and Monterey beginning in 2008, Wholehearted now has more than 250 singers across two chapters, in San Diego and on California’s Central Coast. At its 2025 concerts, more than 1,400 audience members joined the onstage singers in song.

But Wholehearted is more than a choir. The singing is the doorway into a wider community that gathers around the deeper questions the music opens up — through a community book club, honest and heartfelt conversations about the hard questions living inside the lyrics it sings, and their podcast A Song for All of Us, in which Littlebird speaks with composers and guests about the songs and themes of each season. Guests this season include Mpho Tutu van Furth — daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and co-author with him of The Book of Forgiving. Tutu van Furth joins to explore the way we create “enemy” and what becomes possible when we choose otherwise. Singers and audiences alike are invited to look clearly at the transformations a more loving world asks of each of us — and then to sing that world into being.

This season, the chorus centers a single question: What is mine to do? “In today’s world, that can be a hard question to answer,” said Littlebird, “when it’s so tempting to give in to overwhelm, confusion, reactivity, or numbness. Together we are embodying a playlist of songs that broaden our bandwidth for thriving aliveness in these wild times. We sing to resource ourselves, we sing to help attune to our deeper wisdom, and we sing to build capacity for powerful, loving action.” The 2026 season is created in collaboration with songleader Lyndsey Scott, whose songs anchor the repertoire.

“When I wonder: what is mine to do? My spirit responds: Love who and what you can reach.” said Scott. “But when out of superiority, judgement, fear, or victimhood, I refuse to open my heart, I shut off this reparative flow of Love. Author Margaret-Love Denman writes: ‘It’s only in an uncondemned state that any of us can change.’ When we are willing to engage in this brave process of self-love and reconciliation toward enemies inside and out, we begin to mend the torn fabric of the web of life. My own healing journey has required me to deeply grapple with the soul work of forgiveness and reconciliation. I’m honored that Lisa and the chorus have chosen to feature three of my songs that hold the heart of this theme, including 'Over/ Under,' which I wrote in a life-changing collaboration with an incarcerated musician.”

Littlebird is a pioneering figure in the international community-singing movement, which holds that singing together heals individuals and strengthens communities. She has facilitated community singing around the world for more than 20 years and created Littlebird Flight School, an online training program for emerging songleaders with more than 1,000 graduates worldwide. After many years in Big Sur and Carmel, she now resides in San Diego.

Members of the media are welcome to attend a rehearsal ahead of the concerts; contact The Buzz PR to arrange a visit.

Wholehearted Chorus is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Wholehearted Chorus must be made payable to ‘Fractured Atlas’ only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Registration and full season details are available at www.wholeheartedchorus.org. The opening concert is at Hidden Valley in Carmel Valley on Saturday, October 17, at 3 p.m.and.is open to the public. The 2026 season also includes a San Diego concert on Sunday, October 11, at 3 p.m. at the Magnolia in El Cajon.