luminaria As if walking, jogging, skipping, running—the point is, moving—with hundreds of others toward a cure for cancer in a Relay for Life weren’t its own reward, participants in the American Cancer Society event at California High in Whittier on Saturday will be treated to a performance by the musical group, project ERANOS.

The classically trained vocalists and instrumentalists, who met at Cerritos College while studying under soprano Ann Gresham, will blend their talents to create an appropriate soundscape for the 9 o’clock Luminaria ceremony—when Relay for Life participants circle a track that lined with glowing luminary bags that bear the name of someone who has battled cancer.

Only five of project ERANOS’ seven singers will perform Saturday night—Gina Maldonado (soprano), MaryAnn Zacharias (coloratura soprano), Cindy Hernandez (soprano), Josue Orozco (baritone/guitarist) and Jose Maldonado, Jr. (baritone).

But that’s one more than the four voices I heard the first time I happened upon the group, May 25 at the Older Americans Recognition Day luncheon in downtown Los Angeles sponsored by Fourth District County Supervisor Don projecteranos Knabe. That day they relied on a program of patriotic American hymns and singalongs, from “America” to “This Land Is Your Land.”

Saturday night’s selections are are Kurt Weill’s “Lost in the Stars,” and Stephen Sondheim’s “No One is Alone.”

This kind of range is characteristic of project ERANOS, which combines musical styles, eras and idioms with live instruments and inspired singing in one fluid, continuous presentation of classical, folk, jazz, music theater, opera, rock and world music.

In fact, it is the inspiration for the group’s name, which is drawn from the intellectual discussion group, Eranos, which is dedicated to the study of psychology, religion, philosophy and spirituality and has met annually in Switzerland since 1933.