About Us

Our mission

We are a multi-generational group dedicated to celebrating all women’s voices in a vibrant, reflective, and joyful singing community.

The core work of the Tucson Women’s Chorus is to foster community through song. We provide a rich musical and interpersonal experience to women from a diverse range of backgrounds.

We take pride in the process of making music together, and we embrace musical challenges.

Our singers feel that their voices are valued, that they are appropriately challenged by the difficulty of the music, and that they are given the tools to succeed.

Connections

Singing is a powerful way to connect — with each other, with audiences, and with an array of histories, communities, genres and styles. Connections made through singing empower individuals and foster empathy.

Singing together means listening to each other, and that has implications well beyond the rehearsal room.

We are an open group of women singing heartfelt music to uplift the world.
— a Tucson Women’s Chorus singer

The Tucson Women's Chorus outside a brick wall, singers in black with red, green and orange scarves

Our story

The Tucson Women’s Chorus has celebrated the joy and community of singing together since 2002.

Karleena Ravenwood founded the chorus that year to help women find their voice in song. Her vision was a chorus that was musically, financially and physically accessible to all women — no auditions, everyone welcome, and music learned by ear rather than read from the page. The group thrived as singers, and as a community.

Karleena directed until October 2015, when her health forced her to withdraw. She kept working behind the scenes almost until her death in August 2016. The chorus she imagined is still the chorus we are.

Twice since then, TWC has come close to ending. After Karleena’s death, members wondered whether it could continue — and Catherine Shaw, a leading member, stepped forward and led the chorus for several more years. Then the pandemic silenced it. For more than a year the women dared not gather, and Catherine led two short series online so they could sing together even when they could not be together. For the second she chose Rising Appalachia’s “I Am Resilient.”

Both times, the chorus held.

When Catherine moved on, Natalie Killom arrived — an experienced and energetic choral director whose skill and warmth helped the chorus thrive again. And when it was time for Natalie to move on, TWC chose Sinamar Respicio from a field of highly qualified candidates, for her passion for singing with women and her willingness to meet singers where they are.

Sinamar Pascua Respicio conducting

Sinamar Pascua Respicio, DMA

Artistic Director

Sinamar Pascua Respicio is an award-winning choral conductor known for her advocacy of Filipino and Pan-Asian music. Alongside the Tucson Women’s Chorus she directs the Filipino Pan-Asian choir Cuyog Chamber Singers and the Chancel Choir at Christ Church United Methodist, where the chorus rehearses. In 2026 she made her Carnegie Hall conducting debut, leading a program of works by Filipino composers.

She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in choral and orchestral conducting from the University of Arizona, a master’s degree in choral conducting from St. Paul University–Manila, and a bachelor’s degree in Church Music from the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music.

In the community

We believe in music’s power to bring people together and to uplift communities.

We collaborate with other choruses at community singing events, and each year we give two performances out in the community — at assisted care homes, and at Sister José Women’s Center.

In 2026 we attended our first Sister Singers Network national conference.

Board of Directors

2026-2027

Michelle Yauger, President
Kim Marsh, Secretary
Rashel Olald
Jodi Mallie
Rahmana Sayre
Christina Grossman