Masterworks Chorale
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Masterworks Chorale is a community choral group based in San Mateo, California.
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[edit] History
The Chorale was founded in the fall of 1964 by Galen Marshall (born 1934 in Greensburg, Kansas, but grew up in Modesto, California) at the College of San Mateo. The choral group began, with only 35 singers, as a new course offering as a community chorus. Within a year the chorus had grown to 100 singers.[1] Students and members of the community were invited to audition for the group, which initially performed with college musicians and then professional soloists and musicians. Originally known as the San Mateo College Community Choir, the name Masterworks Chorale was adopted in 1972, when the Chorale gave its first complete performance of Handel's The Messiah, using the authentic Watkins-Shaw score, with professional soloists and members of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Marshall, who was a graduate of San Francisco State College, led the group until 1997 in performances of music by such composers as Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leonard Bernstein, Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms, Benjamin Britten, George Frederick Handel, Franz Joseph Haydn, Arthur Honegger Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Carl Orff, William Walton and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
The Chorale attracted singers from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and, at one point, had about 180 singers. Marshall later greatly reduced the group to about 80 singers.
Regular performances took place in December and May at such locations as the College of San Mateo's Little Theatre, St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church in San Mateo, the San Mateo Performing Arts Center, the University of San Francisco, and St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco. In addition, the Chorale was invited to participate in the Midsummer Mozart Festival and the Cabrillo Music Festival.
In September 1971, members of the Chorale sang with the San Francisco Opera in peformances of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner. Some of the men also participated in a San Francisco Opera production of Billy Budd by Benjamin Britten.
In the summer of 1982, the Chorale sang in three performances of Mozart's Requiem, conducted by Calvin E. Simmons (1950-1982), during the Midsummer Mozart Festival in his final concerts before his tragic death later that summer.
In September 1984, the Chorale was one of four choirs to participate in four performances of the eighth symphony of Gustav Mahler by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Edo de Waart in Davies Symphony Hall. One of the performances was taped for broadcast by KQED-FM.[2]
Marshall took members of the group on regular European tours. There was also a special performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City. During one concert tour, the Chorale recorded a compact disc of a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, and William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast in Dvorak Hall in Prague.[3]
[edit] After Galen Marshall
In the fall of 1997, Marshall was followed by Richard Guerin, a former assistant director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Since 2002 the Masterworks Chorale has been directed by Dr. Bryan Baker. Galen Marshall is music director emeritus and returned to conduct the group in Beethoven's Choral Fantasy in 2004 to celebrate its 40th annviersary. It continues to perform regularly in San Mateo. The group is much smaller today than it was when Marshall directed it.[4]
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Linelle Marshall
- ^ Eyewitness account by Robert E. Nylund, member of Masterworks Chorale, 1970-85
- ^ Interview with former Masterworks Chorale members
- ^ Masterworks Chorale website
