NORTHAMPTON — They’re back. And they’re in love.

The Young@Heart Chorus, which celebrated its 40th anniversary last November at a sold-out concert at the Academy of Music, will return to the Academy on Sunday, May 7, with a new program dubbed “The Love Show.”

Not that love songs aren’t usually part of Young@Heart concerts. But the coming show makes them a focus, and the setting for the concert will be a nightclub, which longtime chorus director Bob Cilman says will mirror the group’s rehearsal space at The Divine Theater at Gateway City Arts in Holyoke.

As a recent announcement for the show puts it, “You’ll be transported to a world where age is just a number and love is always in the air.”

To help celebrate that theme, Cilman noted in an email, Young@Heart members are “going even further beyond their comfort zone” by singing the songs of a younger generation of pop music singers than usual.

Some classic ’60s and ’70s tunes from artists including Lesley Gore, John Lennon and Marvin Gaye will be part of the playlist. But also on tap is the music of pop diva Rihanna (“We Found Love”), pop-country figure Miley Cyrus, the rapper Lizzo, and Japanese-British singer Rina Sawayama.

Rosemary Caine, a Y@H member from Greenfield, writes that the show will explore love “in all its expressions. We have enough songs, poems, and novels with the happy endings we crave to endorse the almost universal belief that all we need is love. Even the biggest cynics would agree we can’t do very well without it.”

“With an average age of 86,” Caine notes, “many of the Young@Heart Chorus are experts on the love subject but also no doubt on heartbreak, loves lost, and with a bit of luck — love rekindled.”

At a recent rehearsal at The Divine Theater, the Young@Heart members were pretty much dressed to the nines as they sang and danced to that theme, at one point pairing off in couples to reflect the new show’s nightclub setting.

As was the case for some of the more recent Young@Heart performances, Cilman said “The Love Show” has been co-directed by Julia van IJken, a native of the Netherlands who began working with the group online during the pandemic while pursuing a master’s degree in experimental communication at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Van IJken has been in the Valley since late 2021 to continue that work in person and has done a bang-up job, Cilman says — and the group wants her to stay, hopefully by extending her visa.

Meanwhile, the chorus continues to reach audiences well beyond the Valley. Cilman says a video of the group’s 40th anniversary show in November “was picked up by WNET Channel 13 in New York City and will play on all public TV channels in New York state during the month of May.”

“The Love Show” takes place May 7 at 3 p.m. Tickets range from $20 to $50 and can be purchased online at aomtheatre.com or by calling the Academy box office at 584-9032, ext. 105 Tueday-Friday from 3 to 6 p.m.

]]>