#  Harvard Magazine: "How a Harvard and Lesley Group Broke Choir Singing Wide Open" 

 





March 03, 2026

 

 

- [ Department News ](/news-categories/department-news)
 
 

 

## **How a Harvard and Lesley Group Broke Choir Singing Wide Open**

   ![Cambridge common voices](/sites/g/files/omnuum12086/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2026-03/Screenshot%202026-03-03%20at%2010.33.41%E2%80%AFAM.png?itok=BsJQu4EY) 

 

**Adam Roberge (center) sings into a microphone with fellow members of Cambridge Common Voices during a performance in Sanders Theatre.** | Photograph courtesy of Cambridge Common Voices### Cambridge Common Voices draws on principles of universal design. 

Recently Andy Clark, Director of Choral Activities, sat down with Schuyler L Velasco and *Harvard Magazine* to discuss the ongoing work and performances of Cambridge Common Voices.

Cambridge Common Voices is a community chorus established in partnership between Harvard College and the [Threshold Program at Lesley University](https://www.lesley.edu/threshold-program), a transition program for young adults with diverse learning challenges. This ensemble strives to create an inclusive musical space and practice, affirming individual voices, and explore innovative approaches to music-making, including elements of Universal Design for Learning and Empowering Song.

#### **Excerpt**: 

When conductor Andy Clark co-founded Cambridge Common Voices (CCV) in 2018, he envisioned the all-abilities community chorus as cutting-edge and explicitly political.

“I had these lofty ambitions of an innovative group that would reject the common practices and pedagogies of choral music,” says Clark, the director of choral activities and a senior lecturer on music at Harvard University. He thought the repertoire would include “music to advocate for the world we wanted to see and bring to light the ways callousness toward folks with disabilities compromises the quality of life for everybody.”

The group’s members, however, didn’t want any of that. They just wanted to sing.

“So many were pushing for choir as their friends had experienced it,” Clark recalls. “They wanted a conventional experience, and they wanted to perform music about love, about loss, about joy.”



 

 

 

 [ Read the Full Article arrow\_circle\_right ](https://www.harvardmagazine.com/arts-culture/harvard-cambridge-common-voices-choral-music) 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 Share on:- [     Facebook ](#)
- [     Twitter ](#)
- [     Linkedin ](#)