Choral Arts New England

The Somerville Community Chorus in Somerville, Massachusetts, announces a special choral composition contest in honor of the 35th anniversary of its founding. The winner of the composition contest will receive a $1000 prize. The selected composition will be premiered by the Somerville Community Chorus on May 31, 2020 in Somerville in our Spring Concert, entitled "The Sung and the Spoken Word," which will be conducted by music director David Giessow. Travel expenses to the premiere are the responsibility of the prize recipient.

The New England choral community continues to grow, and many great performances are scheduled throughout the coming year. Listed below are just a few highlights for the season that starts in September 2019. Currently, about 480 performances are listed on the Choral Arts New England events calendar through June 2020; that number will certainly grow substantially by the end of the year. See the online calendar for complete, up-to-date listings.

Choral Arts New England has announced the funding of 15 grants, for a total $13,650, in the 2019 season. The funded projects were selected from the 52 proposals received. This year's awards are the largest number of grants in the history of the organization, reflecting growing activity and innovation in the New England choral community. Both the number of applications and the amount requested have steadily risen over the past several years; last year, 51 applications were received and $14,150 was given in grants. Awards will be presented at the annual awards ceremony on November 3, 2019.

The grant recipients are Burlington Choral Society (Burlington, Vt.), Cantilena (Arlington, Mass.), ChoralArt (Portland, Maine), Chorus Angelicus c/o Joyful Noise Inc. (Torrington, Conn.), Commonwealth Chorale (Newtonville, Mass.), Coro Allegro (Boston, Mass.), Fairfield County Children's Choir (Trumbull, Conn.), Greater Boston Choral Consortium (Boston, Mass.), Lorelei Ensemble (Cambridge, Mass.), Montpelier Community Gospel Choir (Montpelier, Vt.), New Hampshire Master Chorale (Plymouth, N.H.), Outer Cape Chorale (So. Wellfleet, Mass.), Somerville Community Chorus (Somerville, Mass.), South Shore Children's Chorus (Quincy, Mass.), and St Mary Schola (Falmouth, Maine)

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.