In North Hills on Haskell Avenue lies Vida Church, better known as “The Onion” for its peculiar dome shape that culminates to a flat point at the top of the roof. Although the building’s appearance may appear to be odd, its structure and sound quality are the inspiration for the nonprofit San Fernando Valley Master Chorale’s (SFVMC) next concert.
“It is a unique building because the sound in the space echoes for like four or five seconds, which is a really long time,” said Charles Kim, SFVMC’s artistic director. “A lot of concert halls don’t even have reverberation that lasts that long; it’s a real luxury and joy to sing in a space like that because you just kind of get wrapped in your own sound.”
The May 18 concert, scheduled for 3 p.m., is titled “Dreamscapes, a Musical Voyage to the Stars,” and is made up of musical pieces that will take advantage of the echo. Kim explained that as he was choosing the pieces – which are about dreaming, the moon, the stars, the Northern Lights and space – the narrative of the concert presented itself.
“Dreamscapes came about because all the music that ended up being chosen is really serial sounding and the poetry is very lofty,” he said. “It asks the listener to go way inside themselves, which these days especially only really happens in moments of solitude.”
The Onion was constructed in 1964 as the sanctuary of the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society. It was later sold to the El Camino Metro Church in 2021 due to a decline in membership, subsequently becoming Vida Church.
In 2009, the site was designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
Kim found Vida Church about five years ago, but due to the leadership change, the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost of renting it, the SFVMC was only able to lock down the venue around last December. They have been practicing since March.
The Chorale has previously collaborated with other ensembles and organizations, including the LA Symphonic Winds and the Independent Opera Company. But doing so, Kim said, has been taxing on their singers who have been trying to perform their own concerts. He added that such collaborations can be costly, as the revenue must be split among all parties.
The May 18 project will be SFVMC’s first solo concert since the 2022-23 season.
“This feels like a homecoming, and also feels like a victory in a way because we finally got the venue that we were wanting to get into for so many years,” Kim said.
“On top of that, this music … are all just like the greatest hits. Typically, you only get one or two of these in other concerts, and this whole concert is one after another.”
An hour before the program starts, there will be a pre-show conversation with Kim and Associate Artistic Director John Bergquist about the poetry by writers such as E. E. Cummings and Robert Frost, exploring their significance and how selected music augments those feelings in the poems.
“I hope people walk away with a greater sense of humanity,” Kim said. “We’re all in this together and I hope people walk away with a sense of beauty and wonder and awe for this world that we live in because it’s so easy for us to ignore everything.”
To purchase tickets, go to https://www.sfvmc.com/.