What allows one chorus to thrive for more than a century while another is forced to close down after just a few years? Leaders of some of the longest-running choral organizations credit a combination of factors for their longevity.

How Minnesota's VocalEssence and composer Eric Whitacre helped high school students, choral directors, and community members of all ages discover the power of contemporary choral music through a festival and community sing event.

Arts education is a civic investment with a tangible return. Dana Gioia emphasizes the need for arts education in all schools and for all children, and cautions against trading off the challenging pleasures of art for the easy comforts of entertainment.

Many types of organizations are tackling issues of diversity. Patricia Moore Harbour, who has facilitated a number of these discussions in a process that she describes as the Transformative Learning Experience, believes arts organizations, especially choruses, may start out ahead of the game.

Inner-city choruses are serving diverse populations in large urban areas where kids often do not have access or the means to participate in quality musicmaking. These "urban youth choruses" are uniting neighborhoods across differences of race, religion, ethnicity, and economic status to inspire and energize communities with messages of hope and healing.

Clearly the concept of subscribing is not dead, just look at the sports world! To make headway against the challenges to build a robust subscription base, we must work smart, be students of our surroundings, and ask fundamental questions. 

Thanks to a residency program, one composer spends time with three high school choirs, creating new music, new singers, and audiences for the future.

A chorus by its very nature is a collaboration - singers, instrumentalists, music directors, front-office staff—all, according to Webster, performing work or labor together, especially literary (read artistic) pursuits." So it comes as no surprise that choruses would extend that collaborative spirit beyond their own organizations.