After earning a master’s degree in choral conducting in 2017, Anna Ahrens “opened the door to any location” in her job search. That decision resulted in her moving from her home state of Ohio to Summit County, Colorado, to direct church choirs.

Ahrens said she “didn’t know what I was getting myself into” with the move, not realizing how many people dream of relocating to Colorado’s mountains for the recreation and lifestyle.

“Colorado’s like, a big relocation destination for a lot of people,” Ahrens said. “I didn’t know that. I just was like, ‘Oh, great, a job. Let’s go to Colorado.'”

The career-driven move worked out for Ahrens, who became the artistic director of the Summit County Choral Society in 2022 and now teaches private voice lessons and middle school music classes on the Front Range.

Music has a “life-chaning capacity,” Ahrens said, and she appreciates that an adult chorus like the Summit Choral Society helps people find a safe space and create connections. She said singing together bonds people to one another and that chorus members are often “better members of their community and their society.”

“To be able to be part of that and facilitate that — I just think we can’t have too much of that in our world,” Ahrens said. “If everybody was in a choir, I feel like it’d be a much more peaceful place.”

Ahrens and her five siblings all had to take piano lessons growing up. After learning the basics of music theory, Ahrens switched to the harp and spent most of her youth playing it. She also loved to sing, so when the homeschooled middle schooler finished eighth grade, she went to a traditional high school so she could be in a choir. Ahrens said her high school music teacher, Mrs. Yachanin, encouraged her to pursue music.

“I was just super shy kid,” Ahrens said. “She saw something in me and gave me some responsibilities and just encouraged me in my music.”

Singing took center stage for Ahrens in undergrad, where she studied music with voice as her primary and piano as her secondary instrument. There, she took a conducting class and “really loved it.”

“I, as a person, love collaboration,” Ahrens said. “As a conductor, you can’t create music without collaborating with other people. There’s no point doing anything if there’s not people who want to do that music with you.”

Ahrens said she got more used to the spotlight though her music education, but she was never quite comfortable in it. The chance to share the stage with other people helped lead her to conducting when she went to graduate school.

One of her conducting professors at the University of Akron, Dr. Marie Bucoy-Calavan, gave Ahrens “everything she could” to help her be successful. Ahrens credits Bucoy-Calavan, who now directs the Choral Arts Society of Washington in Washington, D.C., with teaching her much of her leadership and conducting expertise.

“Being able to learn from a woman in a male dominated field was really, really important to me as well,” Ahrens said.

Now in her fourth year leading the Summit Choral Society, Ahrens said she loves the community aspect of the community chorus. She wants those in the chorus to feel community with one another and for the choral society to have a connection to the broader Summit County community.

Ron Gebhardtsbauer, a 10-year veteran of the Summit Choral Society, said Ahrens is a great director and human being. He has seen Ahrens’ commitment to community since she took over the director role, he said, giving the example of Ahrens organizing a trip for chorus members to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts to see the new musical “Shucked” because the group sang a song from the production.

Ahrens also organized a trip for the chorus to Washington D.C. this year to perform for Memorial Day at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and a parade, Gebhardtsbauer said. 

Gebhardtsbauer said Ahrens likes to involve members more in the group’s organization. He said Ahrens has volunteers explain new songs to the group at rehearsals and has members run holiday caroling groups on their own.

“She doesn’t even come to all the caroling (events),” Gebhardtsbauer said. “People organize it. We put the music together, we pick the songs, we have the pitch pipes, and we lead it.”

Most choruses rehearse from September to May, Ahrens said, but the Summit Choral Society rehearses year round. The schedule allows people who only live in Summit County to participate in at least one of the three yearly concerts, she said.

On top of other performances with other groups, the choral society has a holiday concert in the winter, a spring concert that focuses on classical music and a summer concert featuring popular, contemporary music.

“We’ve done musical theater, we’ve done jazz, we’ve done Disney music (in the summer),” Ahrens said. “Anything that is something a little bit more contemporary.”

Ahrens said the different genres and styles all have different things to teach the chorus’ singers. Plus, she said, there is something for everyone. Gebhardtsbauer agreed, saying kids in the audience got up and danced when the group performed a medley of songs from Disney’s “Frozen.”

“The kids love it,” Gebhardtsbauer said. “They know the words. In fact, we sang with a high school choral group, and they all knew it. And in fact, all the women in our choral group knew it. All the men didn’t.”

Gebhardtsbauer said he enjoys singing a wide range of music. He recalled singing the song “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story” from the Broadway musical “Hamilton.”

“I went and saw it on Broadway, but I’d never really sung any of the music,” Gebhardtsbauer said. “It’s not easy. It’s very modern, more rap-like.”

Ahrens drives from the Front Range to Summit County for each weekly rehearsal, but she said it never feels like a burden because she gets to work with a fun group that she loves. She said the range of experience level in the chorus is something she enjoys about the non-auditioned group.

“We have everything from people who used to be music educators in Summit County to people who don’t know how to read music (and) have never taken a music lesson in their life.”

The chorus’ size fluctuates throughout the year, Ahrens said, but it has around 70 registered members. She said the singers are kind, hardworking and generous people.

“I feel like every member has said to me, ‘If you ever need to spend the night, I have room at my house!'” Ahrens said.