© Steve J. Sherman Join Our Mailing List! This website and all content copyright 2005 The Collegiate Chorale Site Design: Canfield Design Studios, Inc.

© Steve J. Sherman Robert Bass has been Music Director of the world renowned Collegiate Chorale since 1980 and celebrated his 25th anniversary in the 2004-05 season. Mr. Bass is the sixth Music Director in The Chorale's 63-year history, and his tenure follows the distinguished leadership of his predecessors which include Richard Westenburg and legendary founder Robert Shaw. The 2004-05 season also marked the 25th anniversary of Mr. Bass' conducting debut in Carnegie Hall, where he has since conducted a wide range of repertoire including choral works and commissions. He has introduced annual opera-in-concert performances which have become a highlight of each Carnegie Hall and New York concert season. Two of his performances at Carnegie Hall with The Chorale have since become critically acclaimed recordings: the New York premiere of Strauss' Friedenstag (KOCH, 1991) which reached the top 25 on classical Billboard charts; and Beethoven's cantatas Der glorreiche Augenblick and Auf die Erhebung Leopold des Zwieten zur Kaiserwürde with sopranos Deborah Voigt and Elizabeth Futral, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's (KOCH, 1994). Singers who made their Carnegie Hall debuts under Mr. Bass' baton include David Daniels, Lauren Flanigan, Maria Guleghina and Salvatore Licitra. In recent years Mr. Bass has led The Collegiate Chorale to unprecedented growth both institutionally and artistically. He has solidified The Chorale's relationship with The Orchestra of St. Luke's, which now appears in all Carnegie Hall concerts. Mr. Bass founded The Collegiate Chorale Singers, a chamber group of professional choral singers which performs an annual concert dedicated to American music. In addition, he combines the professional choral singers with the non-professional choral singers in the 150-voice Collegiate Chorale. He instituted The Chorale's successful Side-by-Side education program, which allows talented high school singers to join The Chorale in a Carnegie Hall concert. In the summer of 2001, The Chorale made its first European tour with Mr. Bass, performing in Prague and Vienna. That same summer NPR's World of Opera broadcast The Chorale's Carnegie Hall performance of Verdi's Macbeth, and followed up the next year with their performance of Weber's Oberon. In 2005, The Collegiate Chorale and Robert Bass were invited by James Levine to perform the Verdi Requiem at the prestigious Verbier Festival in Switzerland. Mr. Bass skillfully effected the transition from a volunteer membership board to a professional board under whose leadership The Chorale's budget now exceeds that of any choral group of its kind in New York and is in fact one of the largest of any chorus in the nation. Mr. Bass was one of the conductors of the Richard Tucker Foundation's Fifteenth Gala Concert at Avery Fisher Hall (televised nationally on PBS) conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Renée Fleming. He has appeared as a guest conductor with the New York City Opera Company, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Nebraska Chamber Orchestra, and the Concert Association of Greater Miami. At Carnegie Hall, Mr. Bass led performances of Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, the Verdi Requiem, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Berlioz Requiem, Rossini's Stabat Mater, the Mozart Requiem, the Fauré Requiem, Bach's Mass in B Minor, and Handel's Messiah, among others. Mr. Bass was privileged to appear with Marian Anderson in a series of benefit performances for the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Mr. Bass is a frequent judge of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and is the Artistic Director of the Olga Forrai Foundation which supports the careers of young singers and young conductors.