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A new season for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra also marks a fresh line-up of concerts for its sister ensemble, the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Though perhaps not as much in the spotlight as the Orchestra, the Chorus nonetheless has built an international reputation as one of the premier such groups in the world.
Fritz Reiner, music director of the Chicago Symphony in 1953-62, asked Margaret Hillis, a then-rising star in the choral realm, to form a symphony chorus in Chicago. The new ensemble debuted in March 1958 in Mozart’s Requiem with guest conductor Bruno Walter, and Hillis went on to serve as its director for 37 years, retiring in 1994.
In a typical season, the Chorus takes part in four or five of the orchestra’s programs, and that is the case in 2024-25. It will make five sets of appearances beginning Oct. 17-19 with a program that includes Beethoven’s Elegy and Mozart’s Mass in C Major (Coronation) and concluding June 19, 21 and 24 with Verdi’s Requiem Mass, which is infused with turbulent emotions and the dramatic sweep and of his operas. The CSO’s Zell Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä will lead the Chorus (the sopranos and altos) for the first time during April 24-25 performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3.
A search is currently underway for the next director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, following the retirement of Duain Wolfe in 2022, after 28 years in that role. The process, which began shortly after his final season, has been overseen by a committee composed of Chorus members, CSO musicians and CSOA administrators. In the interim, various guest directors have been invited to prepare the CSC for each concert.
A chorus director, or, in this case, a guest chorus director, is tasked with preparing the chorus for the orchestral conductor who will lead the concert. That conductor has just one rehearsal alone with the chorus to pass along his or her interpretative ideas, so the singers have to know the work intimately and be flexible enough to quickly adjust to the conductor’s approach.
“Often you have to prepare the chorus to not only get the notes, the rhythms, the intonation, the style, the character and the details, and there are many of those, but also to anticipate what the conductor who will be coming in to do the performance will want,” said Cheryl Frazes Hill, the associate director of the CSC.
That last part can be tough. Sometimes, conductors will provide their own marked scores with indications about how they want the choral part to go, but often the chorus directors have little contact with the conductor ahead of time. “That really means,” she said, “that the chorus has to be very thoroughly prepared because you just don’t know what a conductor whom you have only worked with once a year or perhaps not at all will be expecting of the chorus.”
Among the guest chorus directors for 2024-25 is Donald Nally, who taught at Northwestern University in Evanston in 2012-23 and is a former chorus master at Lyric Opera of Chicago. He serves as conductor of the Crossing, a Philadelphia-based chamber choir that he founded with a group of friends in 2005. It was named Musical America’s 2024 Ensemble of the Year.
It will be his first time working with the Chorus, but he knows many of the singers because of his connections with numerous other Chicago organizations where they also perform. “I feel like I know what I’m walking into,” he said. “We’re dealing with a very high level of artistry and musical skill, and we’ll be able to walk in and get right to work.”
He will prepare the Chorus for the Orchestra’s first-ever performances of Haydn’s Mass in Time of War on March 13-15. The work was written in 1796, when Austria was engaged in battle with the French in Italy and Germany and there were fears of an invasion. Part of a set of Masses written for Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy, it has what Nally called “almost operatic flair” with a well-known part for the timpani that brings tension to the piece.
Preparing for these concerts will be Nally’s first association with the Mass. “Somehow, it and I have not crossed paths, so I’m really excited about it,” he said. “I spend almost every day all day in new music, so doing historical music is just really fun for me.” He will begin rehearsals Feb. 17 and return at the beginning of each subsequent week before the concerts.
As one of the Chorus’ two assistant directors, along with Jennifer Kerr Budziak, Benjamin Rivera has typically done just what his title suggests, assist the chorus director with rehearsals. But in 2024-25, he will also serve as one of the guest chorus directors, preparing the chorus for the Oct. 17-19 concerts. “It’s Mozart and Beethoven,” he said. “It doesn’t get more meat and potatoes than that.”
Nicholas Kraemer will conduct, and Rivera, who is starting his 28th season with the chorus, first as a singer and later in his present role, has collaborated with the British maestro previously in both capacities. “So, there is something very comfortable and familiar about working with him,” Rivera said. “We get along really well.”
In addition to taking on all the preparatory tasks for Oct. 17-19 concerts, he will continue his usual tasks in 2024-25 as an assistant director, which include taking notes at rehearsals and occasionally running a rehearsal in the absence of another director. “There is quite a bit that assistants do even if they are not preparing a work themselves,” Frazes Hill said, “and, of course, they are a back-up. A lot of these guests are coming in from out of town. If a plane is delayed or someone becomes ill, you really do need to have coverage.”
Outside of the Chorus, Rivera holds three other posts, including chorus director and regular conductor of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic in Indiana, and he has prepared choruses for the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Grant Park Music Festival and Music of the Baroque.
Frazes Hill is beginning her 48th season with the chorus. She began as a singer, and Hillis appointed her an assistant conductor in 1987 and promoted her to associate conductor three years later. She will serve as a guest chorus director for the orchestra’s holiday program, Merry, Merry Chicago!, which runs Dec. 18-23. As of early September, she did yet know what the repertoire, but she had pretty good idea of what attendees can expect.
“Typically,” she said, “it’s those wonderfully recognizable tunes that an audience will appreciate, along with arrangements of Christmas music that will not necessarily be familiar but will be exciting for the audience to hear.”
The other guest chorus directors for the 2024-25 season are James Bass and Donald Palumbo. Bass is a Grammy Award-winning conductor and singer who serves as a professor and director of choral studies at the Herb Alpert School of Music at the University of California, Los Angeles. Palumbo retired from New York’s Metropolitan Opera earlier this year after 17 years as its chorus master.
With Wolfe at the helm for 28 years, the singers knew what to expect. It is an unavoidably unsettled time now with different guest chorus directors for each program, but Frazes Hill said the Chorus is handling the change well. “I think having this group of professional singers really helps,” she said, “because they know how to roll with the different conductors who come, and they try to give each of these guest chorus masters a really good opportunity to do what they do”
That said, Frazes Hill admits she will readily welcome the stability that will come with a new director when he or she is appointed. “Then that will begin,” she said, “a new chapter in the history of the Chicago Symphony Chorus.”
