Artistic Directors

Dr. Robert Berglund
1972-1976

Dwayne Jorgenson
1976-1977

Thomas Lancaster
1977-1983

Joel Revzen
1983-1994

Kathy Saltzman Romey
1994- present
 
Management
Paul Chummers
Business Manager
1975-1976
 
Gloria Sewell
Business Manager
1976-1979
 
Arlene Williams
Managing Director
1979-1988
 
Susan Sondral Jones
Executive Director
1988-1991
 
Rebecca Scheele
Executive Director
1992-1993
 
Camille Kolles
Executive Director
1993-2007
 
Robert Peskin
Executive Director
2007-present

1972 September
The Chorale holds its first rehearsal at Bethel College under the direction of founder and conductor Dr. Robert Berglund.

1972 November
The Chorale is incorporated as a Minnesota non-profit organization.

1972 December
Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors is the Chorale's first collaboration with the Minnesota Orchestra.

1974 December
The Chorale's first recording, a collection of Christmas music, is released.

1974 December
The Chorale participates in its first project with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, a performance of Bach's Cantata #91, Gelobet seist du.
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1976 September
The Board of Directors names Dwayne Jorgenson, a conductor and teacher at the University of Minnesota, as the Chorale's second artistic director.

1977 September
The Board names Thomas Lancaster, an associate professor of music at the University of Minnesota, as the Chorale's third artistic director.

1977 December
The Chorale receives its first payment for a performance with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

1978 June
Chorale representatives Gloria Sewell and Thomas Lancaster attend the first annual conference of the Association of Professional Vocal Ensembles (APVE).

1978 July
The Chorale becomes a member of APVE.

1979 October
The Chorale establishes an administrative office in the newly renovated Hennepin Center for the Arts.

1982 February
The Chorale performs outside the Twin Cities metro area for the first time when it joins the Rochester (MN) Symphony Orchestra for a performance of the Berlioz Requiem.

1982 May
The Chorale celebrates its 10th birthday with a dinner party in the Regent's Ballroom of the Minnesota Alumni Club on the top floor of the IDS Tower in downtown Minneapolis.

1982 October
The Chorale participates in "Scandinavia Today" at the newly opened Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis.

1983 April
The Board of Directors names Joel Revzen, Dean of the St. Louis Conservatory and Director of the Orchestra and Chorus of St. Louis, as the Chorale's fourth artistic director.

1983 September
The Chorale is named the Official Chorus of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and is contracted for four projects in the 1983-84 season.

1985 January
The Chorale performs the Fauré Requiem and Pavane, and the Messiaen Trois Petite Liturgies with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for the grand opening of the Ordway Music Theatre in St. Paul, the new performance home of the SPCO.

1985 June
The Chorale travels to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to perform the Berlioz Damnation of Faust with the Detroit Symphony at the Festival Casals.

1987 March
The Chorale performs on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor at the World Theatre in St. Paul; the live broadcast is recorded and later televised on the Disney Channel.

1989 July
The Chorale travels to the Aspen Music Festival to perform Haydn's Die Schöpfung.

1991 February
The Chorale travels to Mexico City to perform Mahler's Symphony no. 8 with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico.

1991 December
The Chorale celebrates its 20th season at a Messiah sing-along at the Ordway Music Theatre in St. Paul. A Governor's Proclamation is read before the performance, and birthday cake is served in the lobby for audience and performers.

1994 September
Kathy Saltzman Romey, the Chorale's associate director, is named interim artistic director. An assistant professor of music at the University of Minnesota and former faculty member at Macalester College, she had served as assistant conductor of the Dale Warland Singers.

1994 November
The Chorale's Bridges series debuts with A Russian Night, featuring a performance of the Rachmaninoff Vespers. The series is designed "to overcome barriers of today's world – cultural, geographic, economic – through the building of musical and social bridges in our community."

1995 May
The Board conducts a national search for its new artistic director and selects Kathy Saltzman Romey as the Chorale's sixth artistic director.

2000 April
The Chorale is the only American adult choir invited to perform in the international choral festival America Cantat III in Caracas, Venezuela.

2001 May
The Chorale premieres Janika Vandervelde's Adventures of the Black Dot, as part of her term as Chorale composer-in-residence. The residency and commission are supported by Meet The Composer.

2001 October
In response to the September 11th attacks, the Chorale donates its services to perform in Elegy, a concert at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis, with the Minnesota Orchestra, SPCO, Dale Warland Singers, Plymouth Music Series, Minnesota Opera, Guthrie Theater, and Walker Art Center. Proceeds from the concert are directed to the American Red Cross 9-11 Fund.

2002 April
The Chorale performs its Bridges program North Meets South: A Festival of the Americas with guest conductors Maria Guinand and Cristian Grases, and artists from the Schola Cantorum de Caracas (Venezuela).

2002 November
The Chorale launches InChoir, a program designed to enable participants to experience a piece of music as an "insider" during Chorale rehearsals.

2003 April
The Chorale establishes the Emerging Conductor program, which gives promising conductors from throughout Minnesota an opportunity to rehearse symphonic choral repertoire with the Chorale.

2004 September
The Chorale is named Principal Chorus of the Minnesota Orchestra, formalizing the interdependent artistic relationship that had existed between the two organizations for nearly 30 years. Chorale Artistic Director Kathy Saltzman Romey is named Choral Advisor to the Orchestra, assisting in program planning for choral works.

2007 May
The Chorale creates the Minneapolis Youth Chorus, an auditioned ensemble underwritten by the Chorale and open to Minneapolis Public School students in grades 4-8. The youth chorus, free to participants, is intended to provide a high-quality choral experience in "an environment dedicated to the celebration of diversity and the pursuit of artistic excellence." More than 200 students participate in the first set of auditions.

2007 September
In response to the suggestion of area high school choir conductors, the Chorale initiates Men in Music, a program that encourages young men to sing via side-by-side rehearsals and performances with men of the Chorale.

2008 August
In partnership with the American Composers Forum, the Chorale presents "Minnesota Voices," a choral celebration of the 150th anniversary of Minnesota's statehood, with a culminating performance at the State Fair.

2008 October
The Chorale's Bridges program presents the world premiere of Ah Nagasaki: Ashes Into Light by composer Robert Kyr and writer Kazuaki Tanahashi. A collaboration with six Twin Cities arts organizations and two choruses from Japan, it is the most ambitious Bridges program to date.

2010 September
The Chorale launches Voices of Experience, a choir for senior adults, in partnership with MacPhail Center for Music.

2010 November
Minnesota Chorale is inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame

2012 May
The Chorale creates Prelude, a choir for Minneapolis Public School students in grades
3-5, intended as an introductory choral music experience.

2012 October
To replace lost work as a result of the Minnesota Orchestra lockout, the Chorale initiates a series of independently-produced programs. Full programming with the orchestra resumed in February, 2014.

2019 March
With the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Chorale commissions and premieres Jocelyn Hagen’s “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci,” for choir, orchestra, and synchronized video.