Choral Arts New England

The Portland, Maine chorus ChoralArt seeks new Christmas carols from composers with a New England connection (born in, current resident of, or composer currently studying at a college, university, or conservatory in one of the six New England states). The winning entry will be premiered during the 2019–2020 holiday season. Entries must be a cappella or keyboard accompaniment settings for SATB chorus (divisi up to SSATB) of an English text, with a duration of about three minutes. The winning composer will receive a $750 cash prize.

The Vermont professonal chorus Counterpoint is presenting a series of workshops throughout the state during the 2018–2019 season that are designed to educate and motivate young students on the dangers of human-caused climate change. The program is called "Six Degrees," a double reference both to the cataclysmic result of the warming of the planet by six degrees Celsius, and to the “six degrees of separation” that connect all of humanity.

The Community of Jesus in Orleans, Mass., is holding a three-day Gregorian chant retreat from March 27-30, 2019. Surrounded by the beauties of early spring on Cape Cod, attendees will explore some of the richest repertoire of Gregorian chant found in the Holy week chants and discover this ever-relevant form of conversation through sung prayer. For more information see http://communityofjesusretreats.org/gregorian-chant-retreat.html or call 508-240-2400.

Choral Arts New England held its 34^th annual awards ceremony and reception on Sunday, November 4, 2018, honoring our 2018 Alfred Nash Patterson grant recipients and our Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Dr. Gwyneth Walker. The ceremony was at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

The New England choral community is as vigorous as ever, and many great performances are scheduled throughout the coming year. Listed below are just a few highlights for the season that starts in September 2018. Currently, about 450 performances are listed on the Choral Arts New England events calendar through June 2019; that number will probably double by the end of the year. See the online calendar for complete, up-to-date listings.

The Choral Arts New England calendar is a great resource if you'd like to learn about patterns and statistics — and if you're interested in learning if a particular work has been sung (much), or what your favorite soloist is doing. You can get charts (as well as numbers) of the number of events at any time during the year, for the past five years. You can also search the calendar to find performances of interest during that time period.