Member’s Handbook                                                                                                                                                              Page  4

Brief History

 

In its first ten years, Schola Cantorum – Virginia’s premier volunteer a cappella choral ensemble – has studied and performed nearly ten centuries of the Western vocal music tradition, from carols and plainchant of the Middle Ages to Renaissance polyphony and Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and modern choral works.  Artistic partners over this decade have included the Tidewater Guitar Orchestra, the Virginia Children’s Chorus Chamber Singers, the Christopher Newport University Chamber Singers, and the Virginia Wesleyan College Choir.

 

Schola Cantorum’s repertoire includes standards of the Renaissance (by Gesualdo, Palestrina, and Lasso), Italian and English madrigals, music of the Baroque (Purcell, Bach and Handel), Romantic works (by Brahms, Schubert and Wolf), music by American composers (Billings, Copeland, Thompson, Bernstein, Pinkham, Barber, Shaw), and folk music from Spain, Russia, North America, and Latin America.

 

Taking its name from the early medieval choir schools (literally a “school for song”), Schola Cantorum trains its members in vocal techniques and musicianship using a broad spectrum of Western music and educates its audiences in that musical history. With its first concerts in Fall 1995 conducted by founding musical director, David Clayton, the ensemble established a reputation for eclectic programming including sacred and secular, traditional and contemporary, a cappella and accompanied, and standard repertoire as well as rarely-performed works.

 

The chorus’ two-fold mission – to teach and to perform – was refined under the leadership of Dr. Lee Teply, a member of the music faculty at Old Dominion University, a musicologist, conductor, and music critic who assumed directorship in 2000.  Under Dr. Teply, Schola began hosting an annual Summer Sing, an educational “read through” performance of one or two master works by choristers drawn from across the Hampton Roads region.  Featured works have included the Rutter Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, the Mozart Requiem, the Fauré Requiem and Schubert’s Mass in G.  Summer Sing programs include workshops for singers in rhythm, pronunciation, sight-singing, and breath control.  Training is followed by a rehearsal and accompanied performance of the featured works, including guest soloists and instrumentalists such as Lisa Relaford Coston, Michael Regan, James Kosnik, Charles Hillen, Agnes Mobley-Wynne, Billye Brown Youmans, Sam Dorsey, Charles Woodward, Barbara Chapman, and Rob Cross.

 

In 2006, Schola Cantorum welcomed Gayle Johnson as new Artistic Director. Gayle brings impressive scholarly credentials, having studied at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, the University of Washington, and New England Conservatory. She has studied performance and conducting with such luminaries as Gustav Leonhardt, Henry Leck, and Julia Sutton. Gayle was the founder and artistic director of Capriole, artistic director of the Colonial Williamsburg Baroque Music Festival, and founding director of the Williamsburg Boychoir. A former fellow of the Newberry Library for the Humanities in Chicago (one of the nation’s most important archival and reference collections in medieval and early-modern studies), Gayle is also a scholarly musicologist specializing in the relation of music to graphic arts, poetry and dance.

 

See Attachment A for a summary of other significant events and milestones in Schola Cantorum’s rich and creative history.