{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}} {{Infobox choir | image = | caption = | origin = New York City | founding = 1941 | genre = | members = | artistic director = Ted Sperling | affiliation = | website = {{URL|http://www.mastervoices.org}} }} '''MasterVoices''' (formerly the '''Collegiate Chorale''') is a symphonic choir based in New York City, USA. It was founded in 1941 by Robert Shaw, who was later to found the professional Robert Shaw Chorale. MasterVoices continues to give several performances annually in Carnegie Hall, New York City Center, Lincoln Center and other venues. The group performed at the opening of the United Nations and has sung and recorded with such conductors as Serge Koussevitzky, Arturo Toscanini and Leonard Bernstein.<ref name=BWWIolanth/> The organization's artistic director is Ted Sperling.
The group was originally named for its first home, Manhattan's Marble Collegiate Church, and was notable for Robert Shaw's insistence, from its inception, that the group be racially integrated. The choir and the church soon parted ways due to the church's concerns about the choir's ethnic and religious makeup.<ref>Robert Shaw, unpublished video interview, March 22, 1991.</ref> The chorale was led by Abraham Kaplan in the 1960s, and by conductor Richard Westenburg from 1973 to 1979, and by music director and conductor Robert Bass from 1979 until his death in 2008.<ref name=VS>Vivien Schweitzer, ''The New York Times'', August 28, 2008.</ref> Among the chorale's achievements during the Bass years were such performances at Carnegie Hall as the New York premiere of Richard Strauss's ''Friedenstag'' with the Orchestra of St. Luke's in 1997, the United States premiere of Dvořák's ''Dimitrij'', the American premiere of Handel's ''Giove in Argo'', Respighi's ''La fiamma'' and Puccini's ''Turandot'' with the new ending by Luciano Berio. Bass and the chorale also recorded and performed two of Beethoven's cantatas, ''Der Glorreiche Augenblick'' and ''Auf die Erhebung Leopold des Zwieten zur Kaiserwürde'' with sopranos Deborah Voigt and Elizabeth Futral. Notable singers who performed with the choir during these years, included Kathleen Battle, Stephanie Blythe, Vinson Cole, David Daniels, Lauren Flanigan, Maria Guleghina, Hei-Kyung Hong, Salvatore Licitra, Alessandra Marc and Bryn Terfel.<ref name="opera">{{cite news | url=http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/issue/article.aspx?id=5034&issueID=327&archive=true|title=Obituaries: Baritone Peter Glossop dies at eighty; director Nathaniel Merrill; conductor Robert Bass; tenor Mark Lundberg; Met stalwart Nina Lawson.| work=Opera News| date= November 2008 |volume=73 |issue=5| accessdate= May 22, 2009}}</ref>
Roger Rees was the chorale's artistic associate from 2003 to 2015,<ref name=BWWIolanth>Rabinowitz, Chloe. [https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Christine-Ebersole-Santino-Fontana-Jason-Danieley-More-to-Star-in-IOLANTHE-Concert-at-Carnegie-Hall-20230316 "Christine Ebersole, Santino Fontana, Jason Danieley & More to Star in ''Iolanthe'' Concert at Carnegie Hall", BroadwayWorld.com, March 16, 2023]</ref> and James Bagwell was music director from 2009 to 2015.<ref name=NameChange>Cooper, Michael. [https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/collegiate-chorale-under-a-new-name-teaming-up-with-city-center "Collegiate Chorale, Under a New Name, Is Teaming Up With City Center"], ''The New York Times'', August 3, 2015.</ref> In July 2007 the choir was invited to perform Brahms' ''Ein Deutsches Requiem'' at Switzerland's Verbier Festival.<ref name=VS/><ref name=NameChange/>
The group changed its name to MasterVoices on August 3, 2015,<ref name=NameChange/> the same year that Ted Sperling became its artistic director.<ref name=VS/> He has directed their staged concerts of musicals and operettas such as ''Song of Norway'', ''Knickerbocker Holiday'', ''The Pirates of Penzance'', ''My Fair Lady'', ''Anyone Can Whistle'', ''The Mikado'' and ''Iolanthe'', and operas such as ''The Grapes of Wrath''<ref name=BWWIolanth/> and ''Carmen''.<ref>Ruel, Chris. [https://operawire.com/mastervoices-2022-review-carmen "MasterVoices 2022 Review: ''Carmen''"], ''OperaWire'', November 2, 2022</ref> In 2021 MasterVoices received nominations for a Drama League Award and a New York Emmy Award for its digital concert production, ''Myths and Hymns''.<ref name=BWWIolanth/>
==Partial discography== * ''A Salute to American Music'' (Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala XVI, 1991)
==References== {{Reflist}}<!--added above External links/Sources by script-assisted edit-->
==External links== * [http://www.mastervoices.org Official website]
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Category:Choirs from New York City Category:Musical groups established in 1941 Category:1941 establishments in New York City