Disclosure: When I lived in the District of Columbia, I was a chorister with Norman Scribner’s Choral Arts Society of Washington and then with Dr Paul Traver’s University of Maryland Chorus. Both Orchestra Choruses had frequent engagements with the National Symphony Orchestra and touring (inter)national orchestras in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.  After moving to San Francisco, I was a chorister with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (Margaret Hillis, Vance George Chorus Directors).

As for the University of Maryland Concert Choir, do they spend all year preparing for their Messiah performances in December with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center? That should only take up the Fall semester, if that. So what do they do during the Spring semester?

When the University of Maryland School of Music disband/liquidated the renowned University of Maryland Chorus, the University of Maryland Concert Choir was named as the symphonic choral ensemble on campus. 

I remember reading that many people on campus did not agree with this decision by the University, including University students not from the School of Music.  One guy wrote that he was not a music major but he would walk by the rehearsal hall when the University Chorus was rehearsing to hear them.  He said he was so proud of them and their many accomplishments with major symphony orchestras, and it was very sad to see the University disband them. 

I do think there’s an unspoken story there however.  Before The Maryland Chorus was disband, there was a picture of them on the website of the School of Music and I counted approximately 90 choristers, as I remember.  I noticed their smaller size.  When they were at their height, they were known as the 150-voice University of Maryland Chorus.  (They filled the stage behind the NSO; they looked like a Symphony Chorus).  What happened?  Were they having trouble getting choristers because they no longer had their frequent orchestral engagements?  Or was the Chorus deliberately made smaller after Dr Traver retired?  I don’t know.

They have the state-of-the-art Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on the College Park campus, so one would think that the UMD Concert Choir would be performing on a regular basis on campus with the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra, no? One would also think that they would be recording all of their symphonic choral performances to YT, no? The University would own the copyright to their own performances, no? But they’re not doing any of that for some reason, and why not?

If Dr Paul Traver (Founder and Director of the University of Maryland Chorus) were alive, knowing Dr Traver as I did, I suspect they would be doing that. If they are performing regularly as I suggested in the paragraph above, they are not uploading any of their performances to YT, Tiktok or any site like other schools are doing, such as New England Conservatory, for example.

The University of Maryland wrote that the University of Maryland Concert Choir “performs frequently with the National Symphony Orchestra.”  That is not true.  One (or even two at the most in a good season) performances a year is not “frequently.” 

The University of Maryland Chorus performed frequently with the NSO under Doráti, but the UMD Concert Choir does not.  That’s because no choral ensemble “performs frequently” with the NSO these days or even at the time that was written because the NSO does not programme symphonic choral repertoire “frequently,” other than the usual Messiah tradition/rut in December — and Maryland seems to have become the Messiah Chorus for that — and then The Washington Chorus (or maybe the Choral Arts Society of Washington) get an invite for a Beethoven’s Ninth or another run-through of Carmina Burana.

In other words, we’re down to The Big Three.   Other than a rare exception, we’re down to the performance of three symphonic choral works:  Messiah, Beethoven’s Ninth and Orff’s Carmina Burana.  They are the three symphonic choral works that have survived.  Other than the odd exception, the vocal scores for everything else is on the shelf “collecting dust.”

And from what I read, the University seemed to be trying to credit the guy who came after Dr Traver for what Dr Traver did. In fact, they made no mention of Paul Traver. Dr Traver (my choral mentor) is responsible for the choral programme at Maryland being what it is today because of his legacy with the superb and renowned 150-voice University of Maryland Chorus and their frequent performances with the National Symphony Orchestra and guest (inter)national orchestras touring the Kennedy Center and at Wolf Trap, and also their performances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Such as when the University of Maryland Chorus was invited to perform with The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam under Claudio Abbado (they performed Beethoven’s Ninth and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis).

It’s as if the University is trying to forget about Dr Traver’s legacy because the University of Maryland Chorus was not an all-student Chorus and I don’t think the University was all that hot on that, but they allowed Dr Traver to do that.  Auditioned members of the community (non-students) were required to pay the University a fee to sing with the University of Maryland Chorus.  The Maryland Chorus — as they were also known — was a “town and gown” Chorus, meaning auditioned members of the community were part of the University Chorus. Whereas the UMD Concert Choir is an all-student ensemble.

I was there in the Kennedy Center when the University of Maryland Chorus performed with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam with Claudio Abbado conducting. Dr Paul Traver’s University of Maryland Chorus was glorious throughout! I think that’s what The Washington Post reviewer said as well. Sheila Armstrong was the soprano soloist for the performance and she was interviewed at that time by WGMS and she said in the interview (it came out of nowhere), “I want to make mention of this Chorus. This is one of the finest Choruses I’ve ever heard.”  (I compared them to Margaret Hillis’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus).  The guy conducting the interview said, “We should mention that the Chorus is that of the University of Maryland.” Margaret Hillis (Founder and Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus) had recommended The Maryland Chorus to Abbado because she had worked with them in a choral workshop on campus; Abbado called her in Chicago asking for a recommendation for an Orchestra Chorus in the DC area.

I had a friend who worked in the classical music station in Georgetown and one day I went in to see him.  He had heard the University of Maryland Chorus the night before at the Kennedy Center and he said to me, “That Maryland Chorus can sing the shit out of choral music!”  An interesting way to put it, but I got his point, and he knew his choral music.

This is not meant to negate the work and accomplishments of anyone who came after Dr Traver, but let’s tell the truth here. Dr Traver started the University of Maryland Chorus and brought the Chorus to international recognition.  They were practically the Official Chorus of the NSO during the Antal Doráti years because The Maryland Chorus was Doráti’s favourite Chorus and he programmed them with the NSO as often as possible to the jealousy of some in the Choral Arts Society of Washington.  Yes, some CASW choristers were jealous/envious of the number of performances that Maryland had with the NSO, that they felt that the Choral Arts Society should have had. 

Dr Traver also started the Maryland Händel Festival and the University of Maryland Chorus was the resident Chorus for the Festival. The Maryland Chorus and the Smithsonian Chamber Players performed all of the oratorios of Händel in the order they were composed.

From the University’s website: “The UMD Concert Choir is a distinguished 100-voice symphonic ensemble, recognized as the Choir of choice for both the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO).”

Recognised as the Choir of choice?  What?  Says who?  Sounds like someone is trying to make Maryland the Official Chorus of the NSO.  Whoever wrote that is exaggerating and I’m afraid I can’t agree with that at all and that’s because the University of Maryland Concert Choir doesn’t usually get any more invitations than The Washington Chorus or the Choral Art Society of Washington.  For the 2025-26 season (if memory serves correctly), The Washington Chorus received the most invites of the three Choruses, including an invitation to perform with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Yes, Maryland got one invite too from Baltimore but not for a major symphonic choral work. If memory serves from my research — these seasons are blurring one into the other — I think it was for the 2025-26 season for the first time to my knowledge that the Choral Arts Society did not receive an invitation to perform with the NSO. Well, that’s unheard of from my experience having performed with the CASW when I lived in the District and having followed them over the years since. I think the NSO did not invite them because they were in the midst of turmoil over trying to find a new Chorus Director. Their newly hired Chorus Director at the time — who couldn’t decide their gender so the person wanted to be known as “they/them” — only lasted about 6 months. So the Choral Arts Society was back to searching for a new Chorus Director. In the meantime, they asked (begged?) the guy who prepared them for years and who was approved by Founder and Director Norman Scribner to come back and prepare the Chorus for their upcoming performance at that time, which he did. With the all-student 100-voice University of Maryland Concert Choir, they don’t seem to be doing anything compared to what The Maryland Chorus did. The University of Maryland Chorus had quite a legacy with the NSO with 3-4 or more sets of major symphonic choral performances each season. Works such as: Verdi/Requiem, Beethoven’s/Ninth and Mahler/Symphony No. 2 (The Resurrection). Even without the invitations to perform with the NSO, the UMD Concert Choir could be performing regularly on campus and I don’t see them doing that. If they are, I’ve seen nothing about that on their site or on YT. I haven’t seen anything like that announced on their website. They could be performing several major symphonic choral works with the UMD Symphony Orchestra in the Clarice each year and recording them and uploading them to YT, Tiktok or some site to help promote those ensembles and the University’s School of Music.

So what does the UMD Concert Choir do? I really couldn’t tell you. If they do anything, it’s not made public, at least from my research. It certainly doesn’t take an entire semester to work on Messiah when they just performed that oratorio how many years in a row with the NSO? Nine years in a row, according to the language from the Kennedy Center. But I’m not sure that’s correct, because I remember the Choral Arts Society performing Messiah at least one year.

The UMD Concert Choir had a Carnegie Hall performance with the NSO during one of the seasons (they performed Rossini’s Stabat Mater) after performing the same piece at the Kennedy Center, but that was a rare occasion. Carnegie Hall performances are not something they do on a regular basis.

According to their website, in the past they have performed: Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Britten’s War Requiem, Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony, and Orff’s Carmina Burana….the Choir has presented major works including Bach’s Magnificat and Weihnachtsoratorium, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Verdi’s Requiem, and Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri.  Why were none of these recorded and uploaded to YT/Tiktok, et al?

From their website: Quote: This coming season, they will present Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Dett’s Chariot Jubilee in collaboration with the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra. End Quote Will “This coming season…” — assuming that is current language and they mean the 2025-26 season, will Beethoven’s Ninth be recorded for YT or some site?

In November 2025, they have an engagement with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Unfortunately, what they’re doing is nothing to get excited over — I wouldn’t be excited about it if I were in the Choir — because it’s not a major symphonic choral work. I think of it more as incidental music. It’s just the wordless Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Suite 2. There’s not even any diction to work on with that piece, since there’s no text. Too bad it’s not something like Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, Mendelssohn’s Elias, Händel’s Israel in Egypt (known as the oratorio of choruses) or Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.

From the Kennedy Center’s website (they didn’t proof it; I’ve corrected the mistakes): “This year [Ed. What year?], the University of Maryland Concert Choir celebrates its 16th consecutive season of collaborations with the National Symphony Orchestra. Since 2003, the ensemble has since performed works such as the Durufle Requiem, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Mass in b minor, the Haydn Creation, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah, among many others, with the NSO and these concerts mark the ninth appearance for the ensemble in performances of Handel’s Messiah.

Conductors for NSO and UMD Concert Choir collaborations have included Music Director Gianandrea Noseda, Christoph Eschenbach, Ivan Fischer, Helmuth Rilling, Sir James MacMillan, and Donald Runnicles. Their most recent appearance with the orchestra were a series of performances of the The Gospel According to the Other Mary by John Adams. The ensemble travels to Carnegie Hall this coming May with the NSO for performances of the Rossini Stabat Mater. The UMD Concert Choir comprises singers chosen by audition from throughout the University. It maintains a rigorous schedule of concerts both on and off campus. [Ed. Why aren’t the concerts on campus put on YT or Tiktok or some site? I haven’t seen the “rigorous schedule” on their website.] At the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the UMD Concert Choir has since performed repertoire as diverse as Bach’s Weihnachts Oratorium, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, and the Verdi Requiem. In November 2013 the ensemble made its debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop in highly acclaimed performances of Britten’s War Requiem. The ensemble has since returned to Baltimore for performances of Mozart’s Mass in c Minor under the baton of Masaaki Suzuki, the Brahms Requiem with Markus Stenz, and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and the Mozart Requiem under Marin Alsop. The UMD Concert Choir is one of six full-time choral ensembles at the University of Maryland School of Music. The ensemble perform a wide range of a cappella and concerted music, from medieval chant and Renaissance polyphony, to masterworks of the 20th century and premieres of contemporary compositions. The University’s choral ensembles appear regularly by invitation at the professional conferences of the National Association for Music Education and the American Choral Directors Association. Music Director Edward Maclary became Director of Choral Activities at the University of Maryland in 2000. Under his guidance, the choral program at the University of Maryland has risen to national and international prominence. Maclary directs the School of Music’s graduate program in choral conducting and alumni from that program now occupy leadership positions at colleges and universities throughout the country.” As for that first sentence in the paragraph above, “This year, the University of Maryland Concert Choir celebrates its 16th consecutive season of collaborations with the National Symphony Orchestra.” Well, when that was written, the same thing could be said about The Washington Chorus and the Choral Arts Society of Washington. It seems that the University is trying to put the UMD Concert Choir on some pedestal, almost as if they are the Official Chorus of the NSO. The NSO has never had its own Symphony Chorus, by choice. And what they wrote is not unique to the University of Maryland Concert Choir. Let’s tell it like it is here: Maryland is just one of the three Orchestra Choruses invited to perform with the NSO on the odd occasion that the NSO decides to programme a symphonic choral work. Again, I think it was for the 2025-26 season, The Washington Chorus received the most invites from the NSO and they got one from Baltimore. Maryland got one invite: Messiah. These days, unfortunately, it’s nothing like it was when I was performing in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall with the NSO and the Choral Arts Society and then with the University of Maryland Chorus. At that time, the University of Maryland Chorus had several engagements a season — I would say that they were the Chorus of choice at that time because of Antal Doráti, but when he left, things changed — the Choral Arts Society had several engagements a season and the Oratorio Society of Washington (now The Washington Chorus) had a couple engagements.

Looking back on that day, I consider when I was performing there to be the height of the symphonic choral movement. It’s nothing like that today and hasn’t been since I left, which is why I feel very fortunate to have come along when I did.

If I were a chorister today, I would feel very frustrated with such sparse symphonic choral programming and it would feel as though our Chorus has nothing to do. “This is all we’re doing for this season?” I would ask.

I remember after I left the District and moved to San Francisco that my former piano teacher who helped get me into the Conservatory told me over the phone when I asked her about the DC Orchestra Choruses. Her son was in the University of Maryland Chorus. She said, “the Choruses are now having to do their own thing because they’re not getting the invites they used to get from the NSO. So the Choruses are having to come up with their own seasons and season subscription series (unspoken: in order to have something to do).”

Well, that was starting to happen in my final season there. The season I sang with the University of Maryland Chorus we only performed one work with them the entire season, as compared to Maryland’s history of performing many works a season with the NSO. I was wondering what was going on, what was happening?

Under Antal Doráti, it was almost as if the University of Maryland Chorus was the Official Chorus of the NSO because he preferred them, as I said above. They were his favourite Chorus. Then Rostropovich came in and I sensed he preferred the Choral Arts Society of Washington, because they were the first Chorus he worked with? For Baltimore’s 2025-26 season, The Washington Chorus (formerly known as the Oratorio Society of Washington) was given the “major” work (Rigoletto by Verdi). Which leads me to ask: Why is an Orchestra Chorus — which The Washington Chorus is — doing opera? Opera is best left for an Opera Chorus with its annoying, wobbling vibrato and screaming/cackling operatic sopranos (and tenors). Symphonic choral and opera are two different genres. Unfortunately, I’ve never heard an Opera Chorus that sang with perfect intonation, as if they’d never heard the term. Because of this, I think many concertgoers get confused. They think that symphonic choral works are really opera because of the wobblers and screamers brought in from the opera genre to scream out the solo passages. I’ve suggested that for symphonic choral repertoire that the soloists should come from the Chorus and those choristers best trained as soloists. Someone online said the same about the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and that their “sound” has changed (not as good as it used to be) from doing too much opera under Donald Runnicles. I don’t know since I haven’t heard the ASOC in some time. Are they no longer singing with perfect intonation in all voice sections (SATB) as they did under Robert Shaw? Wobbling, noticeable vibrato will ruin a Chorus, and it only takes one wobbling voice to ruin an entire section’s perfect intonation. For December 2025, the Baltimore Choral Arts Society will be the Chorus for a holiday performance with the BSO, and The Händel Choir has works for the holidays, including parts of Messiah. We can’t be without Messiah! One would get the impression that the man only wrote one oratorio and that’s Messiah. He wrote 29 oratorios. “We” used to hear live performances of just two of them (Messiah and Israel in Egypt) but these days we don’t even hear Israel in Egypt. It’s all about the ridiculous Messiah tradition. It seems that the public never burn out on that.

So the bottom line: The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra gave each choral ensemble something to do for the season, which is what the NSO does usually. As with other symphony orchestras in the US these days and the dumbing-down, Baltimore SO is doing a lot of “fluff” stuff to attract an audience, probably thinking that classical music alone won’t help them survive, so they’re going for the lowest common denominator. It would be good to see the University of Maryland Concert Choir perform major symphonic choral works with the University Symphony Orchestra on a regular basis in The Clarice, and have their state-of-the-art production facilities record the performances and upload them to YT, Tiktok or someplace. Like I said earlier, New England Conservatory does that and Boston University’s School of Music was doing some of that as well, along with other schools.

It should be pointed out that outstanding performances can really inspire music students to want to apply to the University of Maryland School of Music and become part of what they’ve seen on YT (or elsewhere) from superb performances. It’s also a way of “marketing” the School of Music and two of their ensembles, and it would also show the level of excellence.

I do have a question, but I think I already know the answer:  Does the University of Maryland Concert Choir ever performed the version of Messiah that Dr Traver had The Maryland Chorus perform?  There should be some Novello scores with that in the Chorus Office or in the Music Library.  I’m talking about the version where the Chorus ornaments the choral writing with Baroque ornamentation.  I’m not positive, but didn’t Dr Traver get that version from Erich Leinsdorf?  I think that’s what I heard.  Traver conducted it that way, but I don’t think he was able to get any other conductor to conduct that version.  He said, “I can’t imagine it being done any other way.”  I agreed.  The added choral Baroque ornamentation made the oratorio so much more interesting.  I suspect most conductors would be or are afraid to conduct it that way.  Doráti conducted Messiah once with The Maryland Chorus and all that Dr Traver could get him to do was the slow trill in the alto section at the end of, “Surely, he hath borne our griefs.”