Lest We Forget a heartbreaking chapter in U.S. history, Whatcom Chorale reprises Sarah Mattox’s exquisite Heart Mountain Suite. In the words of Kara Kondo, we give voice to the unbroken spirit of over 120,000 Japanese Americans unjustly rounded up and incarcerated during WWII.

 We are thrilled to include a post-concert talk by Lori Bannai, one of the attorneys who succeeded in having vacated the wartime convictions of three men who resisted the incarceration orders. The legal team exposed government misconduct—including the suppression of key evidence—and demonstrated how fear and prejudice can override constitutional protections. Lori represented Fred Korematsu, who was incarcerated at Manzanar. She will speak to the experience of the many who endured this wrongful imprisonment. Their stories remind us that safeguarding civil liberties requires vigilance and courage in every generation.

Our musical program is rounded out by Scott Henderson’s entrancing arrangements of carols by Japanese children and Stephen Sondheim’s stirring “No One Is Alone.” We welcome back Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Kimberly Sogioka and violinist Laura Camacho, with flautists Debbie Arthur and Martin Bray, pianist Emily Perry, and Kay Reilly on percussion.

Please join us for the Saturday or Sunday concert in our wonderful new performance venue, Christ the Servant Lutheran Church on Lakeway.

Sarah Mattox, Composer

Sarah Mattox’s chamber opera Heart Mountain was workshopped in performances with Vespertine Opera Theater in July 2015 under the baton of Grammy Award-winning conductor Stephen Stubbs. In 2019, Whatcom Chorale commissioned Mattox to create a shortened adaptation for a single soloist and chorus, which became Heart Mountain Suite. Mattox is a 2014 John Duffy Composers Institute Fellow and won the 2013 Boston Metro Opera International Composers’ Competition Opera Puppets Mainstage Award for her song cycle Rumpelstiltskin and the Falcon King. Her songs and song cycles have been performed by artists across the country. Often injected with a strong dose of humor, her music draws from many genres of American sound.

Award-winning BMI composer Bern Herbolsheimer said of Mattox’s music, “More [incredible], however, is the just plain beauty of the music. It is haunting and keeps with one for a long, long time. The words are nearly Dickinsonian in their power and depth and economy.”  Henry Mollicone (The Face on the Barroom Floor) said, “Mattox's song cycles are filled with harmonic surprises and stylistic choices that range from Tango, some jazzy moments, and quiet lyricism. As expected from such a fine singer, the songs are well-written for the voice, and there is a natural sense of phrasing and flow in her writing. It is colorful, melodic, and tonal music.”

Mattox’s compositions have been programmed by the Sunriver Music Festival, the Oyster Bay Distinguished Artists Concert Series, the Maud Powell Music Festival, Inverse Opera, Transylvania University, the First Sundays Concert Series on Bainbridge Island, the Governor’s Chamber Music Series, the Yakima Symphony and Yakima Valley Museum, Asbury University, the Triple Door in Seattle, and the Panache Jazz Series on Vashon Island. Her work has also been featured on WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour and KING FM’s Northwest Focus Live with Sean MacLean, as well as the Women in Music radio series in Toronto, Ontario.

As a singer, this mezzo-soprano has performed principal roles with many opera companies, including Seattle Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Palm Beach Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Eugene Opera, Tacoma Opera, Pacific Northwest Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, and many others. As a concert soloist, she has sung with many regional organizations, including Seattle Symphony, Northwest Sinfonietta, Thalia Symphony, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Northwest Chamber Chorus, and Seattle Choral Company, and in four solo appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Kimberly Sogioka, Mezzo-Soprano

Praised by Opera (UK) as “the most opulent female sound on the stage,” young Japanese-American mezzo-soprano Kimberly Sogioka is drawing much attention as an exciting artist on opera and concert stages. In the 2018–2019 season, Ms. Sogioka sang Nicklausse in Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Opera Orlando and was a mezzo soloist in the Operatopia fundraising concert of St. John’s of Lattingtown Episcopal Church. Here she reprises her 2019 performance in Heart Mountain Suite with Whatcom Chorale.

Recent performances for Ms. Sogioka include singing in Symphony Silicon Valley’s Misa Tango concert, which explored the style of the Argentine tango; reprising the role of Stephano in Roméo et Juliette with Tampa Opera; and singing the role of Berta in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Opera Grand Rapids. Other recent engagements include Carmen in scenes from Carmen with the Metropolitan Opera Guild, workshops of Bruce Wolosoff’s The Great Good Thing and Sarah Mattox’s Heart Mountain, productions with Michigan Opera Theater as Siébel in Faust and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, which she also performed with Northern Lights Music Festival. In addition, Ms. Sogioka performed the role of Stephano in Roméo et Juliette in a new co-production with Opera Carolina, Virginia Opera, Toledo Opera, Lyric Opera Baltimore, and Opera Grand Rapids.

A frequent collaborator with composers on new music projects, Ms. Sogioka created the role of Nurse 3 in the Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera workshop of Michael Torke’s Senna, was a mezzo soloist in the Metropolitan Opera workshop of Scott Wheeler’s The Sorrows of Frederick, and collaborated with Clint Borzoni in his operas Margot Alone in the Light and Antinous and Hadrian and with Stephen Andrew Taylor in scenes from his opera Paradises Lost with the performance company Operamission. Ms. Sogioka’s other recent performances include the title role in Bizet’s Carmen with the Crested Butte Music Festival as a member of the Marcello Giordani Young Artist Program, Susanna in Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles with the Aspen Opera Theatre Center, Nerone in Agrippina with Operamission, and Dulcinée in Massenet’s rarely performed Don Quichotte with Utopia Opera.

Lorraine Bannai, Speaker

Lorraine earned her J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law and worked at what is now the San Francisco law firm of Minami Tamaki. While there, she served on the legal team that successfully challenged the infamous Korematsu v. United States decision, which had upheld the forced mass removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast.

In her 25-year teaching career, Lorraine wrote and spoke widely on the incarceration’s present-day relevance, the dangers of prejudice, and the importance of upholding the rule of law. She has testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and has coauthored numerous amicus briefs in civil rights cases across the country, including Hedges v. Obama (challenging the NDAA detention provisions) and Trump v. Hawaii (on the state’s challenge of the Muslim travel ban).

Lorraine’s books include Race, Rights, and National Security: Law and the Japanese American Incarceration and Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice. She has also served on numerous civil rights and community boards, including the Asian Bar Association of Washington (ABAW), the ACLU, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), and the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission.

Scott Henderson, Composer

Mark Davies is an in-demand baritone and pianist, having sung principal roles with such companies as Pacific Northwest Opera, Tacoma Opera, and Vashon Opera. Some career highlights include Figaro in The Barber of Seville, Schaunard in La bohème, and Stanley 

Kowalski in Andre Previn’s adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire. Davies has an affinity for new works and productions, including covering the role of Pablo Picasso in Tom Cipullo’s chamber opera After Life with Music of Remembrance, premiering a new chamber opera with the Seattle Opera Creation Lab, and participating in the inaugural season of the newly-formed Rising Waters Collective. He is also a member of the Seattle Opera Chorus and a vocal coach and accompanist. Upcoming engagements include the dual role of Pirate King and Major-General Stanley with Seattle Opera’s School Tour and Mr. Koffner in Menotti’s The Consul with Puget Sound Concert Opera.

Scott grew up in New Jersey, starting piano lessons at age 8 and writing music at 9. He studied composition at the Manhattan School of Music during high school, earning a BM in composition from Indiana University in 1978 and an MBA in Arts Management at UCLA in 1982.

He was named resident composer for the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles in the 1980s and has published several dozen choral and vocal works and arrangements since then. After a long career at USC and the classical public radio station, KUSC, he moved to Bellingham. He served as Executive Director of the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra from 2010 to 2013, and has sung with Whatcom Chorale since 2015. The chorale has performed several of his works for chorus and orchestra, including The Feast of Lights (2016), The Thrush in Winter (2017), and Ordinary Prayers (2019), as well as several pieces with piano or a cappella. The Bellingham Symphony Orchestra has performed his Cascadiana (2018), The Feast of Stephen (2024), and others.

On the lighter side, Broadway is his first love, and he and Martin Bray wrote and produced an annual series of cabaret musical comedies under the auspices of the Bellingham Music Club.

Mark Davies, Baritone

Emily Perry, Piano

Laura Speck Camacho, Violin

Violinist Laura Camacho maintains an active and varied performing and teaching career. She is currently on the violin faculty at Western Washington University and served previously as Instructor of Violin at the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp. Laura has been a member of the Phoenix Opera, Des Moines Symphony, and Des Moines Metro Opera, and has performed regularly with The Phoenix Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Nashville Chamber Orchestra, and Bellingham Festival of Music.She has been featured as a soloist with Skagit Symphony and Benzie Symphony Orchestra, and has performed frequently as concertmaster with the Pacific Northwest Opera orchestra and Whatcom Chorale Sinfonia.

Laura is committed to bringing music to the community, and has appeared in concert with the Bellingham Chamber Music Society, the Bellingham Music Club, Trio Lumina, and the Faculty Concert Series at Western Washington University. She frequently serves as a string adjudicator, both in the U.S. and in Canada, and enjoys presenting masterclasses on musician wellness. 

Laura holds a Bachelor of Music from Vanderbilt University, where she also holds a degree in Art and Art History. She earned her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Arizona State University, with a research specialty in body awareness and injury prevention for string players. Laura has studied chamber music with members of the Emerson, Juilliard, Kronos and St. Lawrence String Quartets, and her principal teachers include Dr. Jonathan Sturm, Christian Teal and Dr. Katherine McLin. 

Laura can be heard on the album Lanes featuring music by Bruce Hamilton, and on KING FM’s NW Focus Live Piazzolla music video.

Deborah Arthur, Flute

Debbie has been a proud member of the Bellingham community since 1999. She is the principal flute of the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra, where she also serves on the Board, and has performed with various ensembles throughout the Pacific Northwest. A former Washington State-certified firefighter and active community volunteer, she also serves on the Bayside Swim Club board and donates her time as a USA Swim Official.

In addition to over 30 years of experience in the private sector with Fortune 500 companies, Debbie has held leadership roles at Western Washington University, including operations manager for the College of Education and associate director of housing and dining business operations. In October, she continued her commitment to accessible, community-focused service as Whatcom County’s Emergency Medical Services Administrator.

For Debbie, performing Heart Mountain Suite is especially meaningful, as the music serves as a reminder that a community is strongest when it embraces inclusivity and diversity.

Martin Bray, Flute

For 34 years in LA’s Torrance School District, Martin’s most demanding audiences were his kindergarten students. He began studying flute in elementary school, then privately with Louella Howard during high school and college at Pepperdine University. He played in the Pepperdine Community Orchestra through high school. Later at Pepperdine, he received a full music scholarship, playing in the orchestra while earning his BS in biology in 1975. He went on to a teaching degree at Cal State Long Beach. Over the years and now in retirement, he continues to perform with ensembles, most recently for the music program at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. In addition, he has performed frequently as an actor, singer, and dancer in cabaret shows and Bellingham Theatre Guild productions.

Kay Reilly, Percussion

Kay Reilly, percussionist, has played with Whatcom Chorale on many occasions in the past. She is the band director at Squalicum High School (also since 2006) and is a National Board-Certified Teacher. Before moving to Bellingham, Kay taught in Issaquah, WA and at the Hong Kong International School. Kay earned her Bachelor of Music in Percussion Performance and Music Education from Northwestern University in Illinois, where she studied with Michael Burritt and James Ross, and won the school's annual concerto competition her senior year.  She earned her Master of Music in Percussion Performance from the Ohio State University, where she studied with Susan Powell and Joe Krygier, and won first place in the Women in Music Columbus competition. When not teaching or playing music, Kay loves playing yard-baseball and driveway-badminton with her son, walking on trails, working in her garden, cooking, and baking, and playing many a game of Skip-Bo or Phase 10. She is also a lifelong Star Trek fan, though she is year of the Earth Sheep and prefers to keep her feet on the ground.