University Chorus

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Course Number: Music 144
Marika Kuzma, director(on sabbatical leave 2011-12)
Matthew Oltman, guest director 2011-12
Rehearsal schedule: Tuesdays/Thursdays 5-6:30, Hertz Hall stage
Sectional: one hour per week tba

Description and History

The University Chorus is a select ensemble of approximately ninety singers. It was founded in the 1930s by the renowned composer Randall Thompson, then teaching at UC Berkeley, and its subsequent directors have included Edward Lawton, Elizabeth Davidson, James Cunningham, Philip Brett, and guest directors Richard Bradshaw and Joseph Jennings.

Sponsored by the Music Department, the University Chorus performs literature from the standard choral-orchestral repertoire to contemporary music. Recent concerts have included: Handel, Messiah; Bach, St. Matthew Passion; Mozart Requiem; Mendelssohn, Elijah; Stravinsky, Svadebka [Les Noces]; Vaughan Williams, Dona nobis pacem; Orff, Carmina Burana. Along with concerts on campus under its director Marika Kuzma, the chorus has been invited to perform with the Midsummer Mozart Festival under George Cleve, the Oakland Symphony, and with the Berkeley Symphony under Kent Nagano. Its concerts have met with enthusiastic audiences and complimentary reviews from the local press. The Montclarion called its singing "resolute, pitch-perfect, clear in fugues, sweet in piano sections, and powerful at fortissimos." Robert Commanday of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the University Chorus is "very impressive in sonority, quality of tone and expressiveness."

Under the direction of its current conductor Marika Kuzma, the goal of the University Chorus "is to provide our singers and our audiences with a rich musical experience. In any four-year cycle, singers can expect to sing repertoire in a variety of languages: English, German, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Church Slavonic, Russian, Hebrew, etc., and in various musical styles: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Twentieth-Century, and premieres of music 'hot off the press.'" As a course in the Music Department curriculum, University Chorus aims to provide the singers with vocal and ensemble training that will stay with them their whole lives. Each rehearsal involves a combination of vocal instruction, ear-training, and language/diction instruction as well as learning repertoire and musical interpretation. Singers can expect to be challenged and enriched in many ways over the course of each year.

Participation

Membership in the Chorus is open to all musicians in the campus community: undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, staff, community members. Previous singing experience and/or musicianship training is required. Singers may receive University credit for their participation (Music 144, 2 credit hours per semester), but enrollment in the course is not mandatory. Everyone —whether participating for credit or not—must audition. Regular attendance at rehearsals and participation in public performances is required. The University Chorus performs several times per semester at Hertz Hall, including noon concert and evening concerts, as well as on Cal Day.

Audition Information

Auditions take place in the weekend before classes begin each semester and include a prepared song, sight singing and/or reading of selections from the forthcoming repertoire. Audition information for all performance opportunities in the Music Department.

Sound Clips

Upcoming Performances

  • Saturday, April 21, 8pm, Hertz Hall
    Invasions!
    Janequin: La guerre
    Jerusalem: Polychoral Mass in F
    Handel: Utrecht Jubilate and Zadok the Priest

For more information, see our events calendar

Recent Performances

Past performances