After leading the Island Community Chorus in its triumphant performances of the Brahms Requiem a year ago, director Peter Boak chose a different direction for this year’s spring concerts, taking place April 8 and 9 at the Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center.

Titled The Chorus Takes the Stage, the concert program brings together music from nearly a dozen operas, operettas, movies and Broadway musicals. Many songs are well-known popular standards, including George and Ira Gershwin’s Summertime from Porgy & Bess, and the Harry Warren-Al Dubin hit Lullaby of Broadway, from the film Gold Diggers of 1935. But this year will include many new pieces.

“About half the concert is new material we haven’t sung before,” Mr. Boak told the Gazette this week.

One number was new even to Mr. Boak when he first heard it last year in preparation for Patti LuPone’s September concert at the Performing Arts Center.

“Sleepy Man was unknown to me,” said Mr. Boak, who with other Island singers provided backup vocals for Ms. LuPone’s show. Written by Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman for their mid-1970s musical The Robber Bridegroom, the song will feature soloist Jenny Friedman in this weekend’s performances.

Other soloists include Maurice Reidy, reprising his role as Harold Hill in The Music Man, which the chorus presented in a concert production six years ago; Molly Conole and David Behnke singing the roles of Violetta and Alfredo in Brindisi, from Verdi’s La Traviata, and Dorian Lopes in Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’. Chorus pianist Garrett Brown will be joined at the keyboard by his brother Wesley in a rousing four-handed accompaniment to The Gondoliers’ Dance a Cachucha.

Master of ceremonies Ken Romero will introduce the numbers.

“We’ve never done that before,” Mr. Boak said. But with each song completely unrelated to the next, “I didn’t want the chorus to just stand there and sing 11 songs and say thank you and go home,” he said.

Mr. Romero’s introduction to Sunday, from Sunday in the Park with George, includes words from the book by Edgartown summer resident James Lapine, who with Mr. Sondheim won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for their musical.

About 85 singers will take part in this weekend’s concerts, held on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center, located at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. A donation of $15 is suggested for adults. Children under 18 are admitted free.