The Westchester Chorale, an auditioned avocational chorus, was organized in 1965 by Harold Aks of the Music Department at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. Dedicated to creating outstanding performances of the great choral literature of the past five centuries, the Chorale has been a major contributor to the musical life of Westchester in its 43-year history. Daniel Paget, a musician of diverse accomplishments as conductor, composer-arranger, pianist, lecturer and educator, has served as Music Director since 1984.

During its 43-year history, the Westchester Chorale has distinguished itself for its dedication to the highest standards of musicianship in performance with soloists and instrumentalists of exceptional caliber. Concerts have featured outstanding soloists from the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera and elsewhere. In December 2004, the Westchester Chorale gave a memorable performance of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with guest artists Camellia Johnson of the Metropolitan Opera in her signature role as Bess and André Solomon-Glover in a memorable creation of the role of Porgy, roles for which they are known internationally.

Distinguished instrumentalists have included flutist Carol Wincenc, harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper, organist Walter Hilse and orchestral accompaniments by the Westchester Chamber Orchestra and the Collegium Westchester Orchestra.

Under Mr. Paget's leadership, the Chorale is also known and valued by its audiences for the imaginative distinctiveness of its programming. In December 2001, the Chorale brought to Westchester audiences the first full performance of Handel's Esther, a stunning oratorio based on a play by the great French dramatist Racine. Although this beautiful choral work had long slipped into undeserved obscurity, we recognize Esther today as the first in a series of oratorios culminating in Handel's great Messiah.

Other distinctive concerts have included our performance which paired Vivaldi's Gloria, a luminous exemplar of the Baroque period, with Benjamin Britten's Saint Nicolas, a work of the mid-20th century which illustrates Britten's fascination with Vivaldi's mastery of Baroque fugal counterpoint.

The Chorale has also performed such masterworks of the repertory as J. S. Bach's Mass in B minor, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem, and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, with Lauren Flanigan, soprano soloist.

Under the leadership of Music Director Daniel Paget, the Westchester Chorale sponsored the Memorial Reading of the Brahms Requiem at the Westchester Arts Council's Grand Banking Room on September 11, 2002. The reading of Brahms's great work of loss and consolation took place under Mr. Paget's direction, accompanied by an orchestra of 50 professional musicians. A packed hall of distinguished soloists and over 200 singers from the community raised their voices together in a shared sense of renewal and rededication and perhaps a greater measure of peace in looking to the future.

In May 2003, the Chorale presented a tour de force of Hungarian musical and cultural history: a concert entitled "The Hungarian Connection: Sacred and Profane." Our performance ranged from Liszt's great Missa Choralis to folk songs by Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly, sung in Slovak and Hungarian. The concert was enlivened by a rousing Hungarian cimbalom performance and the display of a historical photographic exhibit.

In November 2004, the Westchester Chorale was invited to perform the inaugural concert of the Paramount Center for the Arts’ rededication to classical music. We gave an encore performance of "The Mozart Requiem: the Evolution of a Masterwork," in a unique concert-with-commentary format presented by Mr. Paget. Joined by four superb soloists and the Westchester Chamber Orchestra, the Chorale performed Mozart’s Requiem and a recently-discovered fragment ("Amen") of Mozart's unfinished masterwork, with works by Bach and Handel that illustrated some of Mozart’s musical sources for the Requiem.

For many years, the Westchester Chorale performed at Concordia College and held  rehearsals in Dobbs Ferry, first at  Sacred Heart Church and later at the Rotunda at Mercy College, which we served as Chorus-in-Residence. Our dedication to bringing outstanding classical music to the College included the performance by the Chorale's auditioned small ensemble group, Capriol, of madrigals based on Shakespeare's poetry and songs of Shakespeare's time, at the College's celebration of Shakespeare's birthday.

When Mercy College discontinued the campus role of a chorus-in-residence, the Westchester Chorale was invited by Pastor Jack Elliott of Greenville Community Church in Scarsdale, New York to make our new choral home at the church.  We rehearse in Hessler Hall, a large and comfortable rehearsal space.

Under Mr. Paget’s direction, we hold our Tuesday evening weekly reheasals in Hessler Hall at the church. We invite prospective new members to contact us to arrange to sit in with us at one or our “open rehearsals.”

We are honored that our dedication to the highest standards of musicianship and our strong sense of community commitment have been given an opportunity to flourish at our new choral home. We are eager to meet our new neighbors, welcome old friends and invite music-lovers from throughout the region to come to our concerts and sings.  We invite experienced choral singers to consider membership with the Westchester Chorale. We look forward to welcoming all at our new choral home at Greenville Community Church in Scarsdale.

Judith Wartels