The Lira Ensemble is the nation’s only professional performing arts company specializing in Polish music, song and dance. Its mission is to bring the best of Polish culture into American life. Founded as the Lira Singers in 1965, the ensemble now makes about 50 appearances a year in the Chicago area, across the Midwest, occasionally around the nation, and has made six concert tours of Poland. Lira has produced nine major recordings that are sold nationwide. Lira presents the full spectrum of Polish music and dance, both classical and folk, with informative and witty English language narrations that explain the traditions and history behind the works performed. Lira has long been trusted by Polish Americans as an expert culture bearer. Lira is the arts outreach group of Chicagoland’s Polish-American community and often represents Polish Americans and Polish and Polish American culture at city, state and national events. Lira has won high praise, as well as awards, for its series of concerts performed jointly with Mexican Americans and African Americans and its outreach concerts for the American Jewish community, as well as outreach to other ethnic groups. The company consists of a symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, singers and dancers who perform serious, folk and popular Polish dance and music in the original language and in English translation. When appropriate, Lira artists perform in authentic folk garb of various regions of Poland as well as historically correct costumes from several periods of Polish history. Lira is based in Chicago as artist-in-resident at Loyola University Chicago.