Whenever Karen TenBrink talks about music, her eyes light up. From her earliest years, it’s brought her joy, and it’s brought people together. For the past decade she’s been sharing those pleasures as director of the Ann Arbor Civic Chorus, which celebrates its fortieth anniversary on December 10 with a concert at Pioneer High (see Events).

“I’m American but I grew up in Munich, Germany,” she explains at Sweetwaters one October morning. That’s where her father, Mike Thatcher—a jazz pianist, arranger, and producer—was working. When he toured Europe, he’d take the family on road trips, playing “the music from that country so that we could learn some of the music and phrases.”

“My sister and I went to a music and arts magnet school, and so we had music every day,” she says. They sang in the school and jazz choirs and played in the orchestra. “Music was just a part of our daily lives.”

Her father was diagnosed with cancer when she was thirteen. When he died a year later, music, and the ensembles she played and sang with, offered comfort and support. “That’s such a special thing; to make music together. That’s what binds you.”

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She came to the U.S. for college at the Oberlin Conservatory, then spent two years in Japan. She taught English as a second language using music as her “textbook” and says it worked beautifully—“language learning works really well with the ear and with music.”

In 1999, she came to Ann Arbor to get her master’s in music education. She sang with the Vocal Arts Ensemble and continued to train in aikido, which she’d begun in Japan. In the ensemble, she met fellow singer Evan Padgitt, who years later would tip her off to the open position at the Civic Chorus. At Huron Valley Aikikai, she met Scott TenBrink.

They married in 2004 and set off for Bangkok, Thailand. She got a job with the Bangkok Opera and he with a Thai engineering company, and their son Leif was born there.

In 2007 they returned to Michigan with the hope of living, working, and raising their family in Ann Arbor. But by then, “the market had tanked,” TenBrink recalls. “We had trouble finding jobs in Ann Arbor. The closest we got was Jackson.”

She began giving voice lessons, at first part-time while she cared for Leif and then his sister Elin. Then she got her director’s position with the civic chorus, Scott got a job at the U-M School of Information, and slowly but surely they shifted their lives from Jackson to Ann Arbor. In 2017, they bought a home near Weber’s Inn, where TenBrink continues to give voice and piano lessons.

She still sings with the Vocal Arts Ensemble, and in addition to the Civic Chorus, directs senior choirs at Glacier Hills and Balfour. Both Leif and Elin are singers, she says, and Scott “sings really well and listens to music all the time.” The parents and kids share their playlists.

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“It was a little bit of a Hail Mary,” says Padgitt, when he suggested that TenBrink apply for the position at the Civic Chorus, “but I knew she was a good person, really loved music, and was a good singer.” He’s so glad he did.

“I think we just take it for granted that she’s always very well organized, she knows what she’s going to do during the rehearsal, she has a plan laid out, and she follows it,” Padgitt says. “And she follows it with a very positive attitude. I’ve never seen Karen get angry with us or anything.”

There are no auditions for the chorus—people just sign up through the public schools’ Rec & Ed division. “I truly believe everyone has the ability to sing,” TenBrink emails, “and that everyone should have the chance to see how powerful it is when you put voices together toward one common purpose.”

That’s more than “just singing all the right notes or the right rhythms,” she says. “I’ve heard plenty of performances that were perfect and didn’t move me.” She tells her singers, “Your job is to touch your audience. If there’s a wrong note, I don’t care. But if you’ve moved your audience, then you’ve done your job with your music.”

“It’s hard not to get woo-woo” about that, says Carol Holden, who has been singing with the chorus since its founding. Holden is a forensic psychologist by day, but for two hours on Monday evenings, she’s a singer. “Monday is our first day back at work, but I’m never sorry I’ve gone to sing.

“It’s uplifting, fun, even when things don’t go well. I remind myself not to be a tentative singer, singing with confidence and verve, with intensity and passion.”

“Every semester I get singers who have never been in a chorus,” says TenBrink. “We make it work. We have rehearsals, so they learn by ear. I record individual parts, and then I have strong singers in each section … Even if there are wrong notes or something like that, we will work hard to fix those things, but I will never shame anybody, or put anybody on the spot. I don’t want it to be a stressful thing.”

“Karen always encourages us to aim high and be our best, and she does so without ever putting anyone down,” says attorney Veronique Liem. “It is challenging, but also very rewarding. It is exciting to perform as a group in a concert, and we are all very grateful to our friends and family who come and listen.”

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The anniversary concert will include an original composition, “Create the Circle,” that the chorus commissioned for the anniversary. Detroit poet/lyricist Jacqueline Suskin wrote the lyrics and Detroit composer Stacey V. Gibbs put them to music.

“We are, in essence, creating community through singing,” TenBrink says. “That’s why the concert is named after the poem for the commission, ‘Create the Circle,’ because through the act of singing together to create art, we are building a safe and welcoming space for all, and bringing beauty into the world.”