Founded
in 1949, the Choral Society of Durham (North Carolina) has a long-standing reputation for excellence in
performing great choral literature with professional orchestra and regionally and nationally
known soloists. We also engage in outreach to music students in
area public schools. Our 32-voice Chamber Choir, often featured
in portions of Choral Society concerts, also presents its own
concerts and makes guest appearances in the community.
Our
Christmas concerts feature classical works for the season and
arrangements of traditional carols. Our spring concerts and our collaborations
with the North
Carolina Symphony have featured such choral masterworks as
the Requiems of Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, Berlioz, and Fauré, Bach’s
B-Minor Mass and St. Matthew Passion, Haydn’s Creation and Mass in Time of War, Beethoven’s
Missa Solemnis, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil (Vespers), Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service), Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem, Janácek’s
Glagolitic Mass, and Philip Glass’s Itaipú.
We
rehearse on Monday evenings from 7:30 to 9:45 at the Durham Arts
Council Building, from September to May. Auditions
are held in September and January.
Milestones
and Honors
At our 2007 Christmas Concert, the Choral Society presented the world premiere Thou Whose Birth, a short choral work commissioned from Steven Sametz to celebrate Rodney Wynkoop’s 20th anniversary as conductor. A CD recording of that concert was released the following year.
On
May 9, 1999, the Choral Society presented the world premieres
of two choral works. One was Daniel Gawthrop’s Call Me
Thine: Four Modern Psalms, for chorus and orchestra, which
we commissioned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Choral
Society’s founding. The commission was made possible in part
by a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council and donations
from our Golden Anniversary Friends. The second premiere was At
a Solemn Music, the winning entry in our first-ever Young
Composers’ Competition, written by Antony John, then a graduate
student in composition at Duke University.
Conductor
Rodney Wynkoop and the Choral Society were honored in 1996 as
the only community chorus chosen to perform at the Southern Division
convention of the American Choral Directors Association, on March
2, in Norfolk, Virginia. Our program included three movements
of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil (Vespers), sung
in Old Church Slavonic; Verdi’s Ave Maria, from Four
Sacred Pieces; the Libera Me from Verdi’s Requiem,
with Monique McDonald as soprano soloist; and Slavsya,
from Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar.
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Mission
To
bring together persons who share a common interest in high-quality
performance of significant choral literature, both sacred and
secular.
To
ally our musical experiences with the cultural development and
enrichment of our community through concert appearances.
To
establish and maintain a standard of excellence in performance
of choral music.
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Staff
In
addition to conductor and artistic director Rodney
Wynkoop, our staff includes accompanist Jane Lynch and Administrative Assistant Susan Parham.
Jane
Lynch has served as rehearsal accompanist for the Choral
Society since 1981. A Durham resident, she is organist and choir
director at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, in Durham,
and teaches piano and organ privately. Ms. Lynch earned her
bachelor’s and master’s degrees in organ perfomance
from Oberlin Conservatory and Northwestern Conservatory, respectively.
She was formerly Associate Chapel Organist at Duke University
Chapel.
Susan Parham joined the staff of the Choral Society of Durham in August 2010 as Administrative Assistant. She is a native of Durham and has a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Before joining the Choral Society, she was a full-time mom and volunteer in various organizations, including the Durham Public Schools. She is very excited about being involved with this distinguished organization.
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Funding
A
nonprofit corporation, the Choral Society receives funding through
the following sources:
- ticket
revenues
- Friends
donations
- grants
- CD
sales
- membership
dues
The
Choral Society is a funded affiliate of the Durham Arts Council,
which currently provides about 3% of our budget, plus office and
rehearsal space in the Arts Council Building.
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Our
concerts are made possible in part through gifts to the Durham
Arts Council United Arts Fund and support from the City of
Durham, which believes that a great nation deserves great
art. |
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Please
help support live performance of great choral music —
become a Friend of the Choral Society.
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Governance
The
Choral Society is operated by a Board of Governors elected annually
from the membership. Board members are volunteers who serve as
the executive and administrative staff of the Society. Click here
for contact information for key Choral
Society personnel.
Choral
Society of Durham Board of Governors, 2011–12
President
—Norm Loewenthal
Vice President — Randy Rasch
Secretary — Dierdre Callahan
Treasurer — John Bennett
Historian — Caroline Banka
Policy and Planning — Kristen Blackman
Financial Oversight — Dan Gunselman
Financial Development — Wendy Kuran
Membership — Susan Van Eyck
Publicity — Brad Davis
Concerts — Justin Fries
Programs — Florence Nash
Tickets — Mike Lyle
At Large — Amanda Huber
At Large — Chris Mazzara
Conductor — Rodney Wynkoop
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History
The
Choral Society was founded in 1949 by Jane Watkins Sullivan and
Marian Wallace Smith, two Durham housewives and musicians who
were tired of commuting to Raleigh to sing in the Raleigh Oratorio
society. First organized as the Durham Oratorio Society, the group
incorporated in 1951 as the Durham Civic Choral Society. We simplified
our name to Choral Society of Durham in 1997.
We
owe much of our success to the outstanding conductors we have
had over the years. These four of our past conductors had the
longest tenures:
Allan
H. Bone (Duke University), 1949–56, 1967–70, 1971–72
Paul R. Bryan (Duke University), 1957–67
Robert Porco (UNC at Chapel Hill), 1972–80
Larry Cook (UNC at Chapel Hill), 1982–86
Concert
List (PDF)
— Click this link for a list of every Choral Society
concert, from 1949–50 to 2009, in PDF format (viewable with
Adobe Acrobat Reader). The list will open in
a new window.
Past
Board Members
— Click these links for lists of all past members of the
Choral Society Board of Governors (of whom we could find records),
from 1949–50 to 2004–05, in PDF format (viewable with
Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0 or later). Each list will open in
a new window:
Board,
Part I (PDF) — President,
VP, Secretary, Treasurer, Historian, Librarian
Board,
Part II (PDF) — Membership,
Publicity, Concerts, Receptions (Social), Finance, Development
Board,
Part III (PDF) — Tickets,
At Large, Programs, Policy and Planning, Friends
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