The Robert Shaw Chorale was a professional chorus founded in New York City in 1948 by Robert Shaw, a Californian who had been drafted out of college a decade earlier by Fred Waring to conduct his Glee Club in radio broadcasts. The Chorale enjoyed an intermittent existence, being formed and re-formed on an ad hoc basis for national and international tours and RCA recordings, its personnel count ranging from around thirty to around sixty voices depending on repertoire requirements. The Chorale ceased operations permanently in 1965, shortly before Shaw assumed the post of Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. During its existence the Robert Shaw Chorale became arguably the best-known and most widely-respected professional choral organization in the United States, with repertoire ranging from J.S. Bach to folk music and Broadway theatre tunes. The group's album recording "Christmas Hymns And Carols" released in November 1957 was certified gold in August 1964 by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). This recording peaked at #5 on Billboard's Top Pop Album Chart. The group made several tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department as part of a cultural exchange program, including 21 European and Mid-eastern countries in 1956; South America; and in 1962, a seven-week tour of Russia.
The Robert Shaw Chorale was notable for its homogeneity of tone, finely-wrought balances between vocal sections, elegance of phrasing, and rhythmic vitality. Many of its members were recruited from Juilliard and other NYC-area conservatories, sometimes to the consternation of those singers’ voice teachers: Shaw was fond in later years of relating that when he was preparing to take the Chorale on a grueling U.S. tour of 36 one-nights stands performing Bach’s lengthy Mass in B Minor, several teachers protested that he would ruin their students’ voices. At the end of the tour, when teachers remarked with astonishment that the voices had actually improved, Shaw replied to the effect that “Bach has been teaching singing.” Alumni of the Chorale include a number of singers who had significant careers as solo artists, including sopranos Yvonne Ciannella and Shirlee Emmons, alto Florence Kopleff, tenors Seth McCoy and Jon Humphrey, and baritone Thomas Pyle; and several others who have worked with distinction as directors of their own choruses, such as Clayton Krehbiel, Donald Craig, and Maurice Casey.
