Our Mission and Values

The OACC's mission is to make the joy of performing high quality choral music available to everyone, and thereby enrich the cultural life of our community. As a non-auditioned chorus, we inspire singers at all levels of ability to improve their vocal technique through informative rehearsals and performances of a wide variety of music, including sacred and secular, classical and popular, and historic and contemporary.

  • We strive to authentically represent our community.

    As a true “community” chorus, we are fully committed to accurately representing all of the ethnic, racial, and socio-economic levels found within the populations of Ottumwa and the surrounding communities.

  • Music is for everyone!

    We firmly believe that individuals of all ages and of all musical ability levels should have the opportunity to sing with a fun and exciting group of individuals! Therefore, we do not require any auditions to become members of either one of our choruses.

  • We strive to provide an experience for members that cultivates wellness.

    We firmly believe in the significant mental, social, physical, and academic benefits that have been proven to be the result of participation in a community singing group.

  • Participation will be free.

    This correlates with and extends our value that music is for everyone; we never want an individual’s/family’s financial situation to be the reason they are unable to participate and sing in our two choruses.

Who We Are

In an effort to authentically represent the diverse demographic groups in our community, the OACC membership includes singers of all ages, from many cultural, ethnic, and musical backgrounds, and including both an adult chorus and a children’s chorus, with a total of 71 singers between the two combined choruses.

Members of the adult chorus range from 16-85+ years old, and include retired public and private music teachers, students from Indian Hills Community College and Ottumwa High School, and many other adults of all ages.

Members of the children’s chorus range from 5 to 15 years old, and they perform both alone and together with the adult chorus in a variety of performance opportunities. We have provided singers in this area with a total of over 32 performance opportunities over the past six years.