A choir is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.
The Cincinnati May Festival is a two-week annual choral festival, held in May in Cincinnati, Ohio, US.
Robert Lawson Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. He was known for drawing public attention to choral music through his wide-ranging influence and mentoring of younger conductors, the high standard of his recordings, his support for racial integration in his choruses, and his support for modern music, winning many awards throughout his career.
Sir David Valentine Willcocks, was a British choral conductor, organist, composer and music administrator. He was particularly well known for his association with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which he directed from 1957 to 1974, making frequent broadcasts and recordings. Several of the descants and carol arrangements he wrote for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols were published in the series of books Carols for Choirs which he edited along with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter. He was also director of the Royal College of Music in London.
John Wesley Work III was an American composer, educator, choral director, musicologist and scholar of African-American folklore and music.
John Black Haberlen has served as the Director of the Georgia State University School of Music since 1996. Dr. Haberlen is a past national President of the American Choral Directors Association.
Jameson Neil Marvin is an American choral conductor, composer, arranger, and editor. Between 1978 and 2010, Marvin directed the Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliffe Choral Society, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum and has also taught choral conducting at Harvard University. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Music from the University of Illinois, a Master of Arts in Choral Conducting from Stanford University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Music Composition from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has worked with Howard Swan and Robert Shaw, and his students have gone on to lead major choruses throughout the country. With the Holden Choruses, he has made nearly a dozen appearances at conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, including six national conventions. His academic specialty is the music of the Renaissance, and he serves as principal editor of the Oxford Music Renaissance series. Marvin retired from Harvard at the end of the 2009-2010 academic school year.
Jeffrey Douma is the Director of the Yale Glee Club and the Marshall Bartholomew Professor in the Practice of Choral Music at the Yale School of Music. He is the founding Director of the Yale Choral Artists and serves as Artistic Director of the Yale International Choral Festival.
Robert Romeo De Cormier Jr., sometimes known as Robert Corman, was an American musical conductor, arranger, and director. He arranged music for many singers and groups, including Harry Belafonte and Peter, Paul and Mary, and worked with Milt Okun.
Charles Bruffy is an American choral conductor. He is artistic director of the Kansas City Chorale in Kansas City, Missouri, and is Chorus Director of the Kansas City Symphony. He lives in Kansas City.
The Robert Shaw Chorale was a renowned professional choir founded in New York City in 1948 by Robert Shaw, a Californian who had been drafted out of college a decade earlier by Fred Waring to conduct his glee club in radio broadcasts.
Donald Neuen is an American choral conductor, composer, arranger, editor, and educator who was formerly the Distinguished Professor of Conducting and Director of Choral Activities at the University of California, Los Angeles. He conducted the UCLA Chorale while teaching courses in conducting and directing one of the most respected graduate programs in choral conducting in the United States. He was 80 years old when he retired.
Norman Mackenzie is the multiple Grammy Award winning director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus.
Hubert Leslie Woodgate was an English choral conductor, composer, and writer of books on choral music.
John Barry Talley was a musical director at the United States Naval Academy.
Scott Arthur Tucker is an American conductor. He is most widely known as the artistic director of The Choral Arts Society of Washington from 2012 to 2022, and as the director of choral music at Cornell University from 1995 to 2012.
Craig Hella Johnson is an American choral conductor, composer, and arranger.
Jake Runestad is an American composer and conductor of classical music based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has composed music for a wide variety of musical genres and ensembles, but has achieved greatest acclaim for his work in the genres of opera, orchestral music, choral music, and wind ensemble. One of his principal collaborators for musical texts has been Todd Boss.
Black conductors are musicians of African, Caribbean, African-American ancestry and other members of the African diaspora who are musical ensemble leaders who direct classical music performances, such as an orchestral or choral concerts, or jazz ensemble big band concerts by way of visible gestures with the hands, arms, face and head. Conductors of African descent are rare, as the vast majority are male and Caucasian.
Everett McCorvey is an American classical tenor, teacher, impresario, conductor and producer, living in Lexington, Kentucky, where he holds an Endowed Chair in Opera Studies at the University of Kentucky, is director of the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre and Professor of Voice. He is also the founder and conductor of the American Spiritual Ensemble, Artistic Director of the National Chorale and President of Global Creative Connections, a production company producing live public and private events. He has also been on faculty at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Bay View Music Festival in Bay View, Michigan. His students have won numerous national and international singing competitions and regularly perform at leading houses throughout the world.
