Returning to the heart of Orlando after a star turn at the Immerse festival downtown earlier this year, the Orlando Vocal Collective reform like a vocal Voltron in collaboration with Creative City Project this week.
Founded in 2025 by Chris Keough, the initial spark of inspiration for Orlando Vocal Collective was what he saw as a need for community in the ever-growing creative scene of Orlando.
“I selfishly have the opportunity to create the community that I want to see,” Keough tells Orlando Weekly. “And I think that it’s important to know that, in a lot of places, especially as an independent creative, you won’t fit in a lot of places. Your dreams, passions, ideas and things won’t always be understood. You won’t always be celebrated. In fact, sometimes you’ll be pushed out. And I think in those times where you’re searching for things and you can’t find anything that fits you, you have to create your own thing. But then I’m realizing more and more every day, nothing worth creating is created alone.”
The group’s debut was at the Immerse festival, a performing-arts takeover of downtown Orlando’s streets hosted and produced by Creative City Project. The Collective performed a ferocious open-air set, reimagining music by Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and many other crucial pop hits. At their debut, OVC was 20 vocalists strong. These performances will feature 12 singers and a four-piece band. The process of choosing OVC members is led by Keough. He looks not only for talent, but for people who have inspired him and that he wants to collaborate with. He’s attempting to bring together disparate scenes and foster unique creative alchemy.
“My goal is to uplift and platform these artists in ways that show you what I see in them.”
Orlando Vocal Collective founder Chris Keough
“At the heart of why people have received Orlando Vocal Collective so [well] is because they create something of excellence. They create something of feeling and meaning. There’s a visible relational connection between the singers on the stage. They create consistently. They take opportunities, and they always execute at the highest level. And they end up creating something that people literally can’t experience anywhere else in the world,” says Cole NeSmith, founder of Creative City Project.
Keough and NeSmith have history far predating OVC. The pair met singing on the steps of Universal Studios as colleagues and since then have formed a formidable friendship.
“One of the things that I have seen to be really impactful when it comes to cultivating a creative community is finding the gatherers, the people who are getting other creative people together to produce and create something,” NeSmith says. “And so one of the things that I think Creative City Project can do in the city with the resources that we’ve been entrusted with is to not just find artists, although we support a lot of individual artists, but to also be really strategic about how we’re partnering with the gatherers. And Chris is a great example of that.”
Throughout their friendship they have collaborated on many projects, including the predecessor of OVC known as Wavelength. The original concept of Wavelength was an idea of NeSmith’s to take people on a journey of connection through sound and light. It came to life with 21 vocalists in 2024 and was the first time that Keough organized a vocal ensemble for a project like this.
“I saw through Wavelength that this large ensemble affected a group of people who were not necessarily vocalists, who maybe don’t even consider themselves artists, but they were moved by this experience, and by these sounds, and by these sounds being multiplied by 20. And so, just seeing the idea, the need, and then the possibility and opportunity for more is how [OVC] came about,” Keough says.
Every part of the experience with OVC is carefully planned out. Keough has a meticulous creative vision that starts with building the world for the audience before even thinking about the setlist. “I have to create the scene first [before writing]. The show has been being worked on for months. But it was the aesthetic. It was the feeling. It was the logistics. That all has to be done, so that way, I know it’s done. Every time I do something musical, I think if something doesn’t quite land as authentic with an audience, it’s because all of those things are not aligned,” Keough says.
This upcoming show is in a unique setting: 1010 West. The event venue is traditionally used as a wedding venue, not for concerts. It is located in Parramore, a historically Black neighborhood of Orlando.
“For the first time, all of this Orlando Vocal Collective group is a minority,” Keough says. “I thought it was important for us to take our history into a place that reflects what it is, to showcase it through the lens of our culture and also to shine a light on the district of Parramore that has such a rich history and deserves our protection.”
The venue is a converted industrial hangar that provides a soaring setting perfect for the powerhouse voices of the collective. In similar fashion to their debut appearance, the collective will be reimagining music by Janet Jackson, Earth Wind & Fire, Beyoncé and more.
“My goal is to uplift and platform these artists in ways that show you what I see in them,” Keough says. “And I think you will see that sense of community and togetherness on stage, but you will also see it shine through these people in a whole new way.”
7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Aug. 6-8, 1010 West, 1010 W. Church St., creativecityproject.com, $38.
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This article appears in Aug. 5-11, 2026.