Transitioning to a Professional Core Chorus

Adding paid professional singers to a volunteer chorus raises issues of fairness, finances, artistic prowess, and culture. We offer advice for managing the process from those who've been through it.

Anyone who loves to sing will understand why change can be especially hard for choruses. “By the nature of what they do, choral singers are very passionate,” says Allison McMillan, executive director of the Providence Singers.

“It’s a total involvement. And it’s an art. In art, people get very passionate.” When change threatens a singer’s place in the group, the feelings become even more intense. “Bringing in another person and saying this person is better because their instrument is better feels more personal to a singer than to a cellist,” suggests Alison Combes, “because you are the instrument.”

Both McMillan and Combes have been involved with recent unsuccessful attempts to integrate professional singers into all-volunteer choruses. In McMillan’s case, the transition foundered after its piloting spirit, artistic director Andrew Clark, left Providence to direct choral activities at Harvard. (After just one season in Providence, his successor Betsy Burleigh says it’s too early to decide whether she will revive the plan to add a paid young artists quartet.)

The issue at Washington’s Cathedral Choral Society, where Combes had been executive director for six years before her March departure, was money. Not long after she arrived, the group started hiring professional tenors and basses to sing in some concerts, hoping to build toward a professional core. Because fundraising efforts have fallen short, that hasn’t happened; professionals appeared in only one concert this past season. “They feel more like ringers than a professional core,” says Combes.

“Your pro core is there not just because of their voices, but also their musicianship.” -Betsy Burleigh

In a recent online Chorus America member survey, respondents cited financial concerns as the number one reason they do not to plan to add professionals to their ranks. Second was a response that fits the Providence Singers’ situation: “This is not a good time.” In all, 55 of the 101 adult choruses responding intend to remain all-volunteer. Of the remaining 46, half already have professional members and the other half say they are considering a transition.

“Plenty of folks would love a set-up that would enable them to hire full-time paid singers. But is it feasible?” asks Bob Peskin, executive director of the Minnesota Chorale. “In the US,” he points out, “the only full-time professional choirs are very small ensembles, like Chanticleer and Cantus.” To Peskin, the pro-core model presents a worthy alternative, “a kind of hybrid that takes the professionalism you see in orchestras and grafts it on to the community model.” For some choruses that hybrid involves as few as two or three professional section leaders; for others it means a core of 20 or 30.

Craft a Clear Case for Change

Before looking for the money to pay professionals, argues conductor Donald McCullough, you have to be clear about why you’re asking for it. Twenty years ago he began the 24-member Virginia Chorale’s gradual transition from all volunteer to pro core to fully professional, making his case with this pitch to potential funders: “It’s like I’m an artist holding a palette. The professionals bring me a lot more red and orange in color choices. That little bit of color can dramatically change what’s sitting there on the canvas.”

In other words, he says, professionals have notes and overtones that few volunteers possess, bringing “a brilliance and sizzle to the sound that the audience can hear.” On top of that, says Burleigh, whose Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh includes a professional core, the blessing of professional members is “having that level of vocal prowess to sing with a modern symphony orchestra, especially if you don’t have space for a chorus of 200.” And in rehearsal, she says, “you can get where you want to go faster—not always, but often. Your pro core is there not just because of their voices, but also their musicianship.”

Burleigh quickly adds that she knows many volunteers who sing at a professional level, acknowledging the “superb musicality” of all-volunteer ensembles such as the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, where she spent 11 years as an assistant conductor. This suggests that if artistic excellence is the goal, professionals may not always be the answer. They’re not a panacea, cautions McCullough. He believes conductors first need to attempt “the hard work of bringing a volunteer chorus up to be as great as it can be, to a level that is possible in the community.”

During his first two seasons as artistic director of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, Tom Hall struggled to find qualified tenors and basses in his community—a familiar issue for many choruses. In order to attract experienced men, he realized he would have to pay them—which he did, starting in 1984. In the years since then he’s added women to his professional core. “It’s always about finding the best people,” he says. “Market forces sometimes dictate that you need to pay those people.”

"Is there going to be tension? Yes. You just have to be prepared for it and stay on message." -Don McCullough

The initiative to add a professional core doesn’t always come from the conductor. About 12 years ago at the 100-member Seattle Choral Company, the board took the idea to the chorus, who at the time were “interested in getting better musically, raising the bar,” recalls Joyce Kling, then as now a volunteer chorus member. “We had some skilled people who were joining, and others wanted to catch up and keep up,” she says. The professionals who were hired—as many as eight at one point—constitute a “faculty of resident coaches,” singing with the ensemble, advising artistic director Fred Coleman, and teaching other chorus members.

Feelings about a pro core can just as easily cut the other way among longtime volunteer choruses. In addition to the Mendelssohn Choir, Burleigh leads Chorus Pro Musica in Boston which “has for 60 years had a volunteer culture and history,” she recognizes. “I don’t think [a pro core] would be part of the group’s understanding of itself.” McCullough, who left Norfolk to lead the Master Chorale of Washington for more than a decade, goes along with that thinking.

“The organization really has to be honest about what its priority is,” he believes. “Does art come out above community in the order of things? In truth, the needs of individuals are often given priority [in the chorus environment]. If you’re not honest about that, you’ll run into serious problems. Is there going to be tension? Yes. You just have to be prepared for it and stay on message.”

Build Consensus and Manage the Transition

How can a chorus preparing for transition effectively shape that message? “It needs to be a fully fleshed out and thought-through proposal,” says McMillan. That means giving the board enough time to deliberate, eliciting the music director’s best thinking and steady guidance, communicating clearly and openly, and allowing chorus members a chance to weigh in. In Baltimore, Hall invited board and chorus members to his apartment for small group discussions about their goals. “Everyone rallied around the mission that the music is the most important thing,” he recalls. After that, “we could move together on what it takes to get there.”

Even with consensus, choruses will experience that tension McCullough talks about. “A volunteer chorus is a very close-knit body that is truly a community,” he explains. “This thing is so important to them—they’re so connected to the other people—they can be wearing blinders when it comes to the overall artistic product.” Adding professionals can also be a threat to a singer’s self-esteem, observes McCullough. “It says to them, ‘We’re not good enough.’”

The Cathedral Choral Society tried to assure its volunteers that they were “good enough,” says Combes, while arguing in the next breath that adding professionals “would raise the level of the product.” It was, she says, “a bit of an oxymoron, which made it difficult for the volunteers to embrace.”

Karen Thomas, artistic director of Seattle Pro Musica, tried to underscore that the change was a very small one. The group added two paid men’s section leaders about 12 years ago, and has since hired two more for the sopranos and altos. Thomas has one more bit of advice for anyone preparing to add a pro core: “Think very carefully about the benefits for individual choir members. What excited my group the most was coming to rehearsal and getting a mini-group voice lesson so they can continue to develop their skills.”

"We are careful to celebrate the contributions of all our singers, paid or not." -Bob Peskin

Kling felt a similar excitement as a singer in the Seattle Choral Company. “There were some people who dropped” after professionals joined, she acknowledges, “but that was because of a shift in the kind of music being chosen and a more disciplined rehearsal style.”

At the Cathedral Choral Society, Combes says “We lost a couple of fine singers” who resented the way professionals were brought in. What a music director hopes for, on the other hand, is the experience McCullough remembers when the first six professionals joined a Virginia Chorale rehearsal: “There was an incredible amount of apprehension among the amateurs, a gnashing of teeth. But in the first 10 minutes you could see the nervousness melt away when they realized that they could perform at that level. Nobody ever looked back.”

Soon enough, though, the thrill of those first pinpoint eight-part harmonies gives way to the ostinato of ongoing life in a chorus that mixes paid and unpaid singers. The potential for tension does not disappear. It’s almost inevitable if the mix includes professionals who don’t play well with others—as Combes observed firsthand: “We had a couple [who] were great, but some weren’t. They were too loud, slouching, chewing gum…as if to say, ‘I could do this in my sleep; you guys are the ones who need to pay attention.’ You could feel the effect on the general morale. It takes only one or two bad examples to ruin the whole thing.”

Select the Right Singers

So, on the list of best operating practices for pro-core choruses, a careful selection process is near the top. It was foremost in Londoner Richard Harding’s mind in 2010 when he approached Peskin and managers of two other American symphonic choruses for some advice. As chairman of the Philharmonia Chorus, he intended to apply “the American model” for including professional singers.

From its founding in 1957, his chorus had been a volunteer ensemble. Like other U.K. choruses, they occasionally hired ringers—a practice the British call "stiffening," Harding says—which created what he describes as a "cultural problem." He says it was "dispiriting" for Philharmonia volunteers, who felt proud of their accomplishments as an ensemble, and "the professionals didn't in any way identify with the chorus." By incorporating the professionals, Harding and other members of the group's Council of Management believed they could raise the ensemble's performance standard.

"Now it's not just a group that gets together and loves to sing; we get together to work and achieve something artistically." -Joyce Kling

When he consulted his American colleagues about the way to make the pro-core model work, Harding asked them all the same question: “What criteria do you apply in selecting professional singers for the chorus?” He says they all gave him the same answer: “Fine vocal technique, a high level of musicianship, and an ability and willingness to fit in. I took that advice to heart.” So, in practice, Philharmonia Chorus master Stefan Bevier applies the first two criteria in the audition. After that, candidates have a short talk with Harding. “I tell them if they are going to think of it as a stiffening job, it isn’t going to work. It has to work culturally within the Chorus.” On the theory that aspiring singers tend to be more open to a community experience, and may have more to gain from it, the Philharmonia advertises for professionals who are in the first 10 years of their careers.

In considering the lasting effects of the transition to a professional core, the chorus members themselves arguably have the most to gain or lose. During John Cain’s first stint in the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, ending in 1983, it was an all-volunteer ensemble. When he returned as a professional 13 years later, he heard “a big difference, but it had nothing to do with the addition of paid singers.” It had everything to do with the singers’ response to Tom Hall’s artistic vision and leadership style, he says.

Had current standards been in place when she joined the Seattle Choral Company as a volunteer in 1989, Kling doubts she would have passed the audition. “It’s getting harder,” she says. “Now it’s not just a group that gets together and loves to sing; we get together to work and achieve something artistically.” She’s got a re-audition coming up this summer, but thanks to her coaching she claims she’s not nervous. “I’m a better singer now than when I joined. Otherwise I’d be terrified.”


This article is adapted from The Voice, Summer 2012.