The State College Choral Society is a 100-member choral group that been performing regularly around Centre County since 1948.
Led by Martha Ramsey, the society began as a 35-member chorus organized by the State College Woman’s Club. Starting in 1949, men joined the choir and the group performed their first concert on December 4 at St. Paul’s Methodist Church.
In 1955, Raymond Brown, a singer and voice teacher, became director. The choir’s performance location changed from St. Paul’s to the Fairmount Avenue High School and later to the new State College Area High School.
Brown, who had been appointed director of choral music at Penn State in 1966, resigned in 1970. The following year, Douglas Miller, director of the Penn State Philharmonic and the Musica da Camera Chamber Orchestra, became the society’s director.
Under Miller’s direction, the choral society’s repertoire expanded to include masterworks by Brahms, Handel, Beethoven Mendelssohn, and Verdi, as well as works by more modern composers. The society also frequently collaborated with orchestras such as the Nittany Valley Symphony.
The society’s Madrigal Singers was launched in 1972. Madrigal singing is a genre of unaccompanied vocal music that became popular in Europe in the 16th century with small groups of singers performing in costume. The dinner was an immediate success and were held annually for more than twenty years. The Madrigal Singers also performed at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts from 1976 to 1996.
In 1999, Russell Shelley replaced Miller as director after his experience leading the Madrigal Dinners for several years. Shelly was a professor of music at Juniata College in Huntingdon where he taught music and directed the college’s choirs.
Shelley was responsible for the direction of one of the society’s best-known performances, Voices of the Holocaust. Longtime member Philip Klein proposed that the society commission a full-length composition remembering the holocaust. Through research, Klein found twenty-two songs from Jewish ghettos and concentration camps during World War II. Sheridan Seyfried, an award-winning young composer, composed and arranged the music.
On November 14, 2004, the society performed Voices of the Holocaust at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center at Penn State. Before the concert, a panel discussion was held with local holocaust survivors. There were also art and literature displays around State College.
Two years later, the society recorded Voices of the Holocaust at Eisenhower Auditorium. The choir has also performed the concert in other locations around Pennsylvania.
Shelley also began the tradition of performing Mozart’s Requiem in remembrance of the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It was initially part of a national movement called the “Rolling Requiem,” where participating choirs would sing the Requiem at 3 pm in their times zones. The first performance was in 2011 and has taken place about every five years since.
The COVID pandemic forced the society to stop in-person rehearsals and concerts in 2020 and the first half of 2021. Members rehearsed via Zoom and held a virtual Christmas concert in 2021.
Shelley retired in 2024 and Erik Clayton began as director later in the year after serving as a guest conductor in 2022. Clayton is a music teacher and director of choirs at State College Area High School.
During the 2023-2024 season, the society celebrated its 75th diamond anniversary with the Voices of the Holocaust and Haydn’s Creation.
Ela Garza
Sources:
“Celebrating 75 Years of the State College Choral Society.” n.d. State College, PA.
State College Choral Society. https://www.scchoralsociety.org. (Accessed November 5, 2024).
First Published: November 25, 2024