CLICK HERE for recent concert reviews of The Philadelphia Singers.

2009-2010 PRESS RELEASES

March 30, 2010 - "The Philadelphia Singers Concludes 2009-2010 Season with Rachmaninoff's a capella Choral Masterpiece"


January 29, 2010 - "The Philadelphia Singers Presents an Evening of Premieres by Three New Music Giants"


August 10, 2009 - "A World Premiere by Philip Glass highlights The Philadelphia Singers 2009-2010 Season"


The Philadelphia Singers on the Radio
"Christmas with The Philadelphia Singers"
Thursday, December 24th, at 10pm - 11pm
Friday, December 25th, at 1pm - 2pm

An annual favorite, "Christmas with the Philadelphia Singers" is a concert of traditional and contemporary holiday music performed by the renowned choral group. This year, the famed ensemble celebrates Christmas on Logan Square with a program of 20th-century music. Host Ed Cunningham shares new seasonal sounds and cherished traditional favorites - from the beautiful candlelight procession to the spirited singing of carols with the audience. The hour-long concert is made complete by the choir's delightful arrangements of traditional hymns and carols.

CHORUS AMERICA CENTERPIECE CONCERT BROADCAST ON WRTI

The Philadelphia Singers’ recent performance of Bruckner’s Mass in E Minor, Charles Marin Loeffler’s By The Rivers of Babylon and Donald Martino’s Seven Pious Pieces will be broadcast on Sunday, August 2 at 3:00pm on WRTI’s "Sunday Afternoon Concert." Tune to WRTI 90.1 to hear this concert which The Philadelphia Inquirer called "joyous and wonderfully resonant."


THE PHILADELPHIA SINGERS PRESENTS CENTERPIECE CONCERT OF 32ND ANNUAL CHORUS AMERICA CONFERENCE

500 arts leaders from across the United States and Canada expected to attend Conference and The Philadelphia Singers Centerpiece Concert at Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

PHILADELPHIA, PA – The Philadelphia Singers will host the 32nd Annual National Chorus America Conference in Philadelphia from June 10th through the 13th at the Hyatt at Penn’s Landing and has the distinct honor of presenting the Centerpiece Concert in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Broad and Spruce Streets, on Thursday, June 11 at 8:00 p.m. The concert will include Donald Martino’s a cappella Seven Pious Pieces and Charles Martin Loeffler’s gorgeous By the Rivers of Babylon performed by The Philadelphia Singers fully professional chorus. The finale will feature Anton Bruckner’s exquisite and seldom performed masterpiece, Mass in E Minor, featuring the glorious 150-voice Philadelphia Singers Chorale. Tickets for the concert are $36, $51 and $61 and may be purchased by calling 215-893-1999 or Click Here.

The 32nd Annual Chorus America Conference and Centerpiece Concert will shine a national spotlight on The Philadelphia Singers, and welcome the service organization back to its birthplace. Michael Korn, who founded The Philadelphia Singers in 1972, established Chorus America in 1977 as the Association of Professional Vocal Ensembles. The association has since expanded and in 1993 officially changed its name to Chorus America to reflect its role as a service organization that embraces the broad spectrum of choruses. For more information on Chorus America Conference and the Conference visit www.chorusamerica.org.

Music Director David Hayes said, “The Centerpiece Conference will put the artistic focus almost exclusively on the chorus, showcasing The Philadelphia Singers’ artistry and virtuosity.” Bruckner’s Mass in E Minor combines moments of quiet a cappella tranquility with passages of soaring beauty. The Philadelphia Singers Chorale will be joined by woodwinds and brass from the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. A unique combination of flutes, harp, cello and organ will accompany the women of The Philadelphia Singers on Loeffler’s By The Rivers of Babylon and will feature organist Michael Stairs on the Kimmel Center’s magnificent Fred J. Cooper memorial organ. An expanded chorus of fifty-voices from the fully-professional ensemble will perform Martino’s a cappella Seven Pious Pieces.

Bruckner’s Mass in E Minor for chorus, wind and brass instruments is considered his first great work, premiering in 1866 when he was 42 years old. It is a beautiful combination of intricate Italian Renaissance polyphony and the dark sonorities and lush harmonies of the Romantic period. His use of a wind band makes it unique among the composer's works and among 19th-century liturgical works in general. Bruckner's choral writing is among the most glorious and powerful in all Romantic music: the polyphony for eight-part chorus in the Kyrie and the Sanctus is matched by few of his contemporaries. Bruckner's harmonic language is enormously expressive throughout, and much of the music is obviously inspired by the music of Wagner, whose Tristan und Isolde Bruckner had just heard.

American Donald Martino, who died in 2005, won the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1974 and was the former chair of the New England Conservatory’s composition department. His Seven Pious Pieces is an a cappella work for mixed chorus set to texts by 17th century poet Robert Herrick. The Philadelphia Singers previously performed the piece in 1994 at its Philadelphia Premiere. Although Martino was known as an academic and a serialist composer, in an interview with the Boston Globe in 1980, he said, ''My music is not austere and academic. It is a fantasy that anyone writes academic music. I write music for people to listen to, to react to; I want them to say, 'Hey, this is nice!' " It is in this spirit that he set out to write Seven Pious Pieces, which he composed with an intent to demonstrate that a twelve-pitch piece could be made to sound tonal.

Charles Martin Loeffler was born in Germany, but lived most of his life in America, becoming a U.S. Citizen in 1887. By the Rivers of Babylon is set to text from Psalm 137. It is typical of his choral writing, which he often set to texts that reflect the sadness and transience of life, the loss of something once known and loved. To express this quality, he used a unique instrumentation of two flutes, harp, cello and organ. The melodic line is reminiscent of the reciting tones of Gregorian chant, while varied colors provided by the unusual orchestration provide an intriguing contrast to the women’s chorus which moves from subdued lamentation to energetic outbursts to quiet pleas.