About Us: The Chorale

The Back Bay Chorale is one of the premier amateur choruses performing in Boston, drawing its 100 members from the Greater Boston area and offering a broad repertoire of choral music, from Baroque to Contemporary, in an annual subscription concert series. The Chorale celebrated its 30th anniversary in May of 2004 with its performance of Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus in Sanders Theater at Harvard University and appointed its fifth Music Director, Scott Allen Jarrett, to begin the 2004–2005 season.

Founded in 1973 in Church of the Covenant in the Back Bay by musician, minister, and social activist Larry Hill, the Back Bay Chorale is committed to sharing music in the community. Under its Music Directors Larry Hill, Beverly Taylor, Julian Wachner, and James Olesen, the Chorale has presented over one hundred concerts, frequently appearing with prominent Boston vocal soloists and the orchestra of Emmanuel Music.

In the Boston area, the Chorale has given concerts at Jordan Hall, Sanders Theatre at Harvard University, Emmanuel Church, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Church of the Covenant, and Symphony Hall, among other venues.

The Chorale has collaborated with the Providence Singers, the Charles Street A.M.E. Church, and the National Center of Afro-American Artists. In addition, the BBC or a number of its members has appeared with the Boston Pops under John Williams and Keith Lockhart in nationally televised concerts on the Esplanade, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra under Gunther Schuller and Gisele Ben-Dor, the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra under David Cammanday, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under Gil Rose. The BBC most recently participated in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, under Charles Ansbacher, on the Boston Common in June of 2004.

In its support for the music community, the Chorale has commissioned and premiered several works, including Marjorie Merryman's Three Ballads, James Russell Smith's Canto V: The Second Circle, Robert Kyr's Unseen Rain and Passion According to Four Evangelists, and Stephen Paulus's Voice, and Julian Wachner’s Symphony no. 1, Incantations and Lamentations. For high school music students, the BBC offers free concert tickets to students of the Boston Arts Academy, a Boston City magnet school.

Taking part in community events is a vital aspect of the Chorale’s mission. BBC members have sung for the annual AIDS Walk, walked and sung for The Walk for Music (to support music education in the schools), joined in RiverSing and other community events. In November 2004, the BBC honored the 100th anniversary of the Boston Red Cross, inviting Mass Bay Red Cross CEO Deborah C. Jackson to introduce its performance of Benjamin Britten’s Cantata Misericordium, a musical dramatization of the story of the Good Samaritan, written by Britten for the 100th anniversary of the International Red Cross. In January 2005, the Chorale participated in the concert Lux Aeterna: Choral Responses to the Tsunami Disaster along with more than fourteen Greater Boston choral ensembles to benefit Oxfam America. The groups appeared individually, then massed together under the direction of BBC Director Scott Jarrett, to sing Edward Elgar’s Lux Aeterna, The concert came together in a quick two weeks and raised over $13,000 to aid victims of the disaster.

The Chorale's discography includes recordings of John Knowles Paine's St. Peter Oratorio with Gunther Schuller conducting; James Yannatos's Trinity Mass with the Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliffe Choral Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, under the direction of the composer; and, with conductor emerita Beverly Taylor, Robert Kyr's Unseen Rain and Passion. New recordings include Benjamin Britten's Company of Heaven, featuring the Chorale under the direction of Julian Wachner (2002), and Lukas Foss's Griffelkin with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.