The Clarion Choir

New York's Clarion Choir is among the top vocal ensembles in the U.S., appearing in operatic productions as well as concerts. Performing both a cappella and with accompaniment from the Clarion Orchestra, the group specializes in virtuoso Slavonic church repertory and in Renaissance polyphony. An arm of the Clarion Music Society, which dates back to 1957, the Clarion Choir was founded in 2006. At that time, Steven Fox became music director; he continued to hold the position as of the early 2020s. With 28 members, the group is fully professional. The choir soon snagged prestige bookings in the New York area, making its debut at Lincoln Center in 2011, performing music by Bach with organist Paul Jacobs as part of the White Light Festival. Often performing with the Clarion Orchestra, the group began to perform music in the difficult Slavonic sacred music style associated with the Russian Orthodox Church. The choir gave the New York premiere of Maximilian Steinberg's Passion Week in 2014 and recorded the work for the Naxos label in 2016. That recording earned a Grammy award nomination as well as one for the BBC Choral Award. The Clarion Choir also gave premiere performances of the work that year in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and London. The choir has appeared in prestigious venues and series in the U.S. and abroad, including Carnegie Hall in New York (twice), Cal Performances in Berkeley, California, and the Auditoroi Nacional de Música in Madrid, Spain. The Clarion Choir has been associated with the MetLiveArts series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, performing Renaissance works by Victoria, Palestrina, and Guerrero in the museum's medieval galleries. The group has collaborated with a diverse set of artists that includes The English Concert, Eric Jacobsen and The Knights, Susan Graham, Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Madonna (at the 2018 Met Gala). The Clarion Choir's second album, a recording of Alexander Kastalsky's Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes, again earned a Grammy nomination. The group returned on the audiophile PentaTone Classics label in the Netherlands with its third release, Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil, marking that composer's 150th birthday.
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