SOURCE is a fully professional chamber choir comprised of 16-24 of the best singers Portland has to offer, all with the unique lived experience of being Black in America. We share concert settings of the full scope of Black American music with audiences throughout Portland and beyond.
A Continuum
All music that is distinctly American has its roots in the songs that emerged from those enslaved people who were brought, or descended from those who were brought, to these lands from West Africa against their will. The old traditions they brought with them blended with new oppression to form the resilient soundscape that gave us what we understand as American music today.
Following after the example set in 1871 by the Fisk Jubilee Singers and the many choirs that came after them, SOURCE is a celebration of that ancestral gift and all music contributed by Black American artists from then until now.
DeReau K. Farrar
DeReau K. Farrar, the founding Artistic Director of SOURCE, is also Artistic Director of A Notion, A Scream, Artistic Director of Bridging Voices, and Director of Music Ministry for Ainsworth United Church of Christ.
His local theater and opera credits include the Portland Playhouse (A Christmas Carol, 2025, Music Director), Portland Opera (The Juliet Letters, 2024, Music Director/Conductor), Portland Center Stage (Lizard Boy, 2026, Music Director; The Brothers Size, 2025, Music Consultant; Sweeney Todd, 2024, Music Director/Conductor; Choir Boy, 2023, Music Director), and the Portland Revels (Un Pajarito Canto, 2022, Music Director). Prior to moving to Portland in 2016, he was a music director in Los Angeles, where he worked with A Noise Within (The Threepenny Opera, A Christmas Carol), DC6 Singers (SxSW, Jessye Norman’s Stand Up Straight and Sing! Tour, Sundance, Norman Lear, Jerry Kohl), Monkeypaw Productions (Get Out), HBO (All the Way), Selah Gospel Choir (Coachella, RuPaul’s DragCon), University of California Los Angeles (The First Lady), California State University Los Angeles (A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum), The Verdi Chorus, The RED Stamp (The Wiz, Ragtime, Songs for a New World), MUSE/IQUE Symphony Orchestra, and others.
DeReau sings with Portland’s Resonance Ensemble and served on its Artistic Advisory Team for the 2022 premiere of Damien Geter's An African American Requiem with the Oregon Symphony. Over the years, he has sung with many other prominent organizations, including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Los Angeles Opera, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Sacra/Profana, and the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers.