July 4 Vallejo/Vacaville Arts and Entertainment Source: Benicia’s acclaimed VOENA choir returns to Croatia for immersive tour

The VOENA children’s choir is embracing the familiar and the foreign in an upcoming tour to Croatia.

The internationally acclaimed choir has historically traveled all over the world to perform its multicultural, multilingual songs — including annual visits to Carnegie Hall. But rarely do these trips abroad feel like a return home.

Five years after the choir first visited, 10 hand-selected vocalists aged 12 to 19 will make VOENA’s long-awaited return to Croatia. The intrepid travelers will also be joined by world-renowned Italian guitarist Peppino D’Agostino, who brings his decades of travel and talent to pair with the young professionals.

Led by executive director Annabelle Marie, the two-week cultural immersion tour is more than a performance opportunity. It’s a way to revisit and reconnect with the hospitality, customs, language and cuisine that left an indelible mark on Marie and her students in 2019.

“We have so many relationships developed already,” said Marie. The choir’s initial Croatian trip laid a foundation for relationships that would withstand years.

“Going to these villages, it’s the same people that are still doing work with children,” said Marie. “And I’m still doing work with VOENA. So it feels like a reunion almost.”

VOENA’s mission to “unite the world with children’s voices” has been a guiding beacon for the choir since its founding 1994. But despite aligning with the mission, the journey to Croatia was pure happenstance.

Croatian drummer Elvis Katic, who performed with the Croatian/Bosnian band Rock Ko Fol, was living in Benicia when he heard about VOENA’s work.

Katic approached Marie and asked, “Have you ever considered Croatia?” Inspired by the choir’s commitment to world music, Katic was certain Croatia would love to have an American choir that didn’t just sing in English, but multiple languages including Croatian.

As it turns out, Katic’s assumption would prove correct. “They were like, ‘What? American children value our music?’” laughed Marie, who said that the audience was thrilled with the three songs they performed in Croatian.

VOENA’s impact was not soon forgotten. “We’ve been invited every year to come back to Croatia for these festivals,” said Marie.

In addition to delighting audiences with Croatian songs and American classics at these festivals, Marie wants her students to get as culturally immersed as possible. One cultural exchange aspect will feature a youth-to-youth workshop with the Sfida choir, a high school group of klapa singers that will teach VOENA the a capella style of klapa.

Marie also sent her students videos of the klapa style in advance, giving them a chance to orient around the sound. When it’s not videos, Marie will also employ the expertise of some of the VOENA parents who are Croatian. Anecdotes from where they grew up and what life is like there help to give the students “that extended family feel” that Marie wants for the kids.

That “family feel” will remain with the students as their siblings and parents join them for the tour. For longtime VOENA parent, former board member and now press contact Patrick Vandeweg, this trip is a family vacation and performance experience rolled into one.

Vandeweg’s two daughters, both of whom started as young as 5, are now 12 and 14 and experiencing a series of monumental firsts this summer. Not only are the Vandeweg sisters both taking the stage to perform on the tour, but they are also flying internationally for the first time.

“She has her calendar and marks off the days,” said Vandeweg about his youngest daughter. “Over the last six months she’s been saying ‘It’s six months, it’s five months, it’s three days,’” laughed Vandeweg.

Tools like Google maps and photos of hotels have helped make the trip seem more real to the girls. “They got real excited when they started seeing where we are going and what we’re doing,” said Vandeweg, joking that there still won’t be a McDonald’s there.

Finding comfort with travel is not unlike the comfort that many students like Vandweg’s daughters have come to find on the VOENA stage. Vandeweg recalls the evolution of seeing his two young daughters come into their own, rise to the occasion and learn intricate songs in a matter of weeks.

“I’ve seen this explosion of confidence,” said Vandeweg. “And it’s carried over to other aspects of their lives.”

All of the students in VOENA reflect that discipline and passion that Vandeweg sees in his daughters, but especially those who are selected for the trip.

Marie makes it her priority to select seasoned performers when traveling abroad, those who she can count on to practice and hold their own part. The mix of students traveling to Croatia includes three families who are returning while the rest are new.

Introducing a new generation of VOENA families while honoring the longtime families is all part of Marie’s broader focus of fostering connection.

“Post-COVID, this is important to me,” said Marie. “Because so many of these kids during COVID were isolated from each other, isolated from their friends. All the more reason why I feel like I need to promote, family, family, family. People to people, face to face.”