More than 450 people packed the seats and lined the walls of St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church in Brattleboro, Vermont, on December 8, 2001, to hear the Brattleboro Community Chorus’s premiere of Paul Dedell’s Come Life, Shaker Life, a commission funded by a Choral Arts New England Alfred Nash Patterson Grant for the 2001-2002 season. Then the word spread: not only did the Brattleboro Community Chorus (BCC) have another full house for their repeat performance on December 9, they also had to turn away 100 people.