Arizona Women's Chorus

Mission: AWC fosters a harmonious, diverse, and inclusive community for adult treble singers by providing a supportive platform for expression, education, personal growth, and meaningful connections. Through artistic excellence, our varied repertoire enriches those we touch with the beauty and unity of our voices.

As the premier women's chorus of Tucson, AWC strives to sing quality music that showcases our voices and desire to entertain. We perform from the ever-expanding and highly varied repertoire written specifically for women's or treble voices. Our performances have included music such as the Baroque Missa de Profunctis, Broadway medleys, Spanish folksongs, jazzy sambas, and more. We have commissioned new choral pieces for women's voices by David Childs, Brant Adams, Khris Dodge, Sheena Phillips, Robert Cohen, and Mark Hayes.

AWC has been directed by Terrie Ashbaugh since 1998. She was nominated for the 2008 Governor's Arts Award, and received a letter of recognition from the Mayor of Tucson in 2009, bolstering her reputation as an outstanding choral director in the Southwest and beyond.

Exciting News!

The chorus has been invited to perform at Carnegie Hall with Terrie Ashbaugh as guest conductor in June 2026. To honor the occasion, Terrie commissioned a composition from Tucson’s renowned composer, Khris Dodge, who teamed up with lyricist Katherine Byrnes. The result is a powerful composition tracing a woman’s life journey, called The Tides of Life. This beautiful world premiere will be performed first in Tucson in April at the exciting La Rosa Stage for our spring concert series before its debut at Carnegie in June. This is a piece for voice and orchestra, with lyrics that tell a story through the metaphor of natural elements: air, fire, earth and water. Katherine's poetry uses this imagery to convey the experiences and emotions of a woman's life journey, while Khris’ comfort with both jazz and classical styles results in melodies that flow effortlessly from one to the other. Together they have produced a composition that is, in Khris’ words, “simple yet complex, tuneful yet dissonant when needed, delicate yet powerful.”

We invite you to visit our website, www.azwomenschorus.org, or the La Rosa website, to purchase tickets for this world debut. 

Also on the program are three songs by Khris Dodge based on the poetry of Robert Frost (previously composed for the Arizona Women’s Chorus) and the beautiful Exsultate Justi In Domino by Brant Adams.

This year we were also thrilled to be the recipients of a Certificate of Appreciation from Pima County Supervisor Rex Scott, in recognition of our 40 years of singing to southern Arizonans, as well as a Proclamation of Appreciation and Recognition from the Mayor and City Councilmembers of Tucson.