When Henderson-Hopkins School opened its doors in East Baltimore in January 2014, the state-of-the-art facility became the first new public school built in Baltimore City in more than 30 years. Now, with some help from the Peabody Institute, those halls are echoing with music.

Each Tuesday night at Henderson- Hopkins, 16 adults of all ages and backgrounds join Ernest Liotti, director of the newly created Peabody Community Chorus, to rehearse music of varying languages, historical periods, and styles. In December, the chorus presented its first concert—featuring Handel’s Gloria in D Major—in the Henderson-Hopkins 300-seat auditorium.

The creation of the Community Chorus at Henderson-Hopkins came about from Peabody’s collaboration with the Johns Hopkins School of Education, which is operating the school in partnership with Morgan State University’s School of Education and Urban Studies.

“In addition to creating a robust array of music programs for students at Henderson-Hopkins, we wanted at least one program that would attract adults,” says Gavin Farrell, interim executive director of the Peabody Preparatory. “The effort here is to bring Peabody, the East Baltimore community, and the wider Johns Hopkins community together in one place where they can rehearse and make music together.”

The Peabody Community Chorus at Henderson-Hopkins, with subsidized tuition for participants and financial assistance to those who qualify, welcomes all those who wish to participate to audition. Auditions for the 2015–2016 Chorus will be held on Saturday, August 27, or at the chorus’s first rehearsal at the Henderson-Hopkins School. For more information, call the Preparatory office at 410-234-4630.

— Carin Morrell