Chorus Angelicus

There is a strong emphasis placed on musical education, as well as performance, for all the age groups and ability levels. The youngest singers enter through the Training Choir and Advanced Training Choir (Karen Sovak, Director), and progress through the Junior Choir (Laurie Ellington, Director), with the ultimate goal of joining the Senior Choir. Each group maintains an increasingly demanding rehearsal and performance schedule, and each plays its part in the organization producing more than 25 concerts each year. Recent engagements for Chorus Angelicus have included concerts at Music Mountain (Lakeville, CT), Infinity Hall (Norfolk, CT), and a tour to Cape Cod.

In conjunction with the adult choir, Gaudeamus, programs featuring Brahms A German Requiem, Finzi's Lo, the full final sacrifice, David Briggs Requiem (CT Premiere) and the Magnificat, Missa Brevis and In Sure And Certain Hope by Nicholas White have been presented to enthusiastic audiences throughout Connecticut. The annual presentation of Christmas Angelicus continues to be an audience favorite, with concerts given in many local churches and chapels during the month of December. This internationally acclaimed children's choir has impressed audiences with the best of choral music, both sacred and secular, since its founding in 1991 by Paul Halley.

Performances have included collaborations with the Hartford Symphony, Waterbury Symphony and the Paul Winter Consort in venues such as Boston's Symphony Hall, the Music Shed in Norfolk, CT, the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford, the Warner Theater in Torrington, CT, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Chorus Angelicus has toured nationally in Florida and the Pacific Northwest, and internationally in Nova Scotia, Vancouver, B.C., and Ireland. The choir is frequently invited to sing at workshops, on concert series, and at music festivals, and Chorus Angelicus with Gaudeamus was invited to perform at the 1999 inauguration ceremony of Connecticut's Governor.

Connecticut Public Television crafted a feature program on Chorus Angelicus, focusing on the choir's accomplishments, in the recent Music For A Great Space series. Christmas in Connecticut, a book by Diane Smith of The Morning Show (WTIC-AM), highlights the choir's beloved Christmas Angelicus concert series, also televised in a news special with NBC in New York and Hartford, and broadcast on WFCR and WNPR. In 2006, the CD What Child Is This? featuring Chorus Angelicus and Gaudeamus was recorded and distributed on the Pelagos label.

Chorus Angelicus is featured in a millenium compilation of its most vibrant repertoire, from Serbia and Russia to South Africa and the Dominican Republic. Entitled Untraveled Worlds, this Pelagos release has garnered rave reviews and significant airplay from WNPR stations throughout the country. The choir was also featured on a Telarc release, Dance On A Moonbeam, with world class artists Frederica von Stade, Dawn Upshaw, Meryl Streep, and the London Symphony Orchestra.