Laura Veirs will put out a new live album, “Laura Veirs And The Choir Who Couldn’t Say (Live In Angoulême)”, digitally on 10th October via her own label Raven Marching Band. The recording documents Veirs’ May 2025 performance of 14 of her songs – as well as one by case/lang/veirs (from Veirs’ 2016 collaborative album with k.d. lang and Neko Case) – alongside a French school choir of 32 students (30 girls and two boys, ages 12-18) and featuring arrangements by their director, Patrice Cleyrat.
It is the Portland, Oregon-based Veirs’ second live album in two years, and a surprising collaboration. The choir and Cleyrat practised for nine months before Veirs joined them on stage for a recorded live performance in Angoulême on 24th May 2025. Veirs accompanied the choir on vocals and guitar on most songs; Cleyrat played keyboards on many as well. The recording was a community effort, co-produced by Veirs and Cleyrat, captured live by Etienne Jouanneau, mixed in Paris by Edouard Bonard, and mastered in Portland, OR, by Jon Neufeld. Veirs created the cover art and an accompanying show poster in her art studio in Portland.
Veirs, Cleyrat, and the choir will reconvene for another concert in Paris in early 2026. Veirs will follow the performance with solo shows around France.
“Hearing their brave and soulful renditions of my songs and performing with them was a career highlight,” recalls Veirs. “I’m so glad we were able to capture the magic of this performance and can share it with the world in the form of this new album.” You can pre-order the album here.
Veirs has also shared one of the songs, ‘I Can See Your Tracks’, from her 2010 album “July Flame”, alongside a video. Gorgeous, sparse and deeply moving, “Laura Veirs and the Choir Who Couldn’t Say (Live In Angoulême)” captures the intensity, soulfulness and hard work of school children in a middle-class community in France collaborating with a renowned American singer-songwriter, and is a hopeful demonstration of international artistic collaboration during dark times around the globe.
