Robert Shaw Chorale

Robert Shaw Chorale
Robert Shaw Chorale
RCA Victor

The Robert Shaw Chorale was a renowned professional choir^[1] founded in New York City in 1948 by Robert Shaw,^[2] a Californian who had been drafted out of college a decade earlier by Fred Waring to conduct his glee club in radio broadcasts.

History

The Chorale enjoyed an intermittent existence, being formed and re-formed on an ad hoc basis for national and international tours and several

U.S. State Department

as part of a cultural exchange program, including 21 European and Mid-eastern countries in 1956; South America; and in 1962, a seven-week tour of Russia.

The Robert Shaw Chorale was notable

Mass in B Minor, several teachers protested that he would ruin their students’ voices. At the end of the tour, when teachers remarked with astonishment that the voices had actually improved, Shaw replied to the effect that “Bach has been teaching singing.” Alumni of the Chorale include a number of singers who had significant careers as solo artists, including sopranos Yvonne Ciannella and Shirlee Emmons, alto Florence Kopleff, tenors Seth McCoy and Jon Humphrey, and baritone

Thomas Pyle; and several others who have worked with distinction as directors of their own choruses, such as Clayton Krehbiel, Donald Craig, and Maurice Casey.

The Robert Shaw Chorale ceased operations with Robert Shaw's move to Atlanta. Subsequent groups with which Shaw gave concerts and made recordings,^[3] apart from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, were the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, a group which operated mainly around Shaw's summer home in France after his retirement as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's Music Director; and the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers, an Atlanta-based group composed chiefly of members of the Atlanta Symphony Chamber Chorus.

Sources

This article is based on interviews with Florence Kopleff, who was a member of the Robert Shaw Chorale throughout its existence and served as administrative assistant to Mr. Shaw; and on recollections of John W. Cooledge, a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus, and of the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers throughout the existence of that group.

The Billboard Book of Gold & Platinum Records first published 1990.