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[choir](from Gk. chorosFr. choeurGer. ChorIt., Sp. coro)

A group of singers who perform together either in unison or, much more usually, in parts; also, by extension, a work, or movement in a work, written for performance by such an ensemble (e.g. the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus in Handel's Messiah). In the performance of part-music a distinction is generally observed between a group of soloists (one singer to each part) and a chorus or choir (more than one singer, usually several or many, for each part); this distinction is not, however, without its exceptions (e.g. the solo petit choeur of the 17th-century French grand motet). The designations ‘chorus’ and ‘choir’ are often used in conjunction with qualifying terms indicative of constitution or function (e.g. mixed choir, male voice choir, festival chorus, opera chorus). Moreover at various times and places certain types of chorus and choir have been generically designated by terms lacking the words ‘chorus’ and ‘choir’ (e.g. ...

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During the last years of his life Handel’s oratorios were increasingly performed in the English provinces, generally in conformity with practices familiar in London. His death turned what had already become a cult almost into a religion. In 1759 there were many commemorative Handel performances, not only in London but also in Oxford, Cambridge and other large towns and in the small village of Church Langton, near Leicester, where there was a two-day festival. In the same year, at the Three Choirs Festival at Hereford, Messiah, which like the other oratorios had been previously performed only in secular buildings, was for the first time sung in a cathedral. Almost from the beginning of Handel’s career as an oratorio composer, the profits on performances of his works had helped sustain charities, and as the need for investment in hospitals became more urgent, so the cult of Handel, assisted by the editions of Randall and Arnold, grew even stronger during the remainder of the 18th century....

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Organized choruses are known to have existed in several cultures of the ancient world. Two pre-Christian cultures, those of Greece and Palestine, fostered choral singing that was destined to have an influence on later developments in Western music.

In ancient Greece the chorus was a dancing as well as a singing ensemble. It consisted of one of four groupings – men, women, men and women together, or men and boys – and performed only monophonic music. It played a particularly important role in the drama of the Periclean Age – indeed, Greek drama evolved from religious and ceremonial performances of a chorus of masked dancers. Of the many types of choral dances performed by such choruses, the paean, first mentioned in the Iliad (c850 bce), was an invocation to Apollo in his capacity as god of healing; the partheneia, introduced about 650 bce, was for a women’s chorus composed of Spartan virgins; and the dithyramb, raised to the level of choral art music about ...

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Two major trends – sometimes mutually contradictory, but nonetheless co-existent as the century drew to a close – marked the progess of choral development in the 20th century. On the one hand, there was the pursuit of a monolithic ideal in terms of choral organization and sonority. This tendency, which predominated during the first 60 or so years of the century, was challenged, mildly at first and more strongly from the 1960s, by a growing tendency towards differentiation: organizational, structural, functional, timbral and stylistic.

From very early in the century, the SATB chorus of mixed voices became the favoured medium. Female sopranos and altos were firmly entrenched in choruses large and small, sacred and secular. Choirs of men and boys continued to exist only in a few tradition-laden ecclesiastical and academic insitutions, primarily those of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. These all-male church choirs, as the century progressed, became exceptional even within the Anglican and Roman churches, and they were no longer in the forefront of choral development. Secular choruses, like those founded during the 19th century for oratorio singing, became increasingly important. Under the leadership of choral specialists such as the Englishman Henry Coward, these organizations pursued the ideal of ‘artistic choralism’, as it was called in Coward’s ...

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The general enlargement of church and chapel choirs that had taken place during the Renaissance was not carried forward to any great extent during the period from 1600 to 1750. As in the previous period, unusually large choirs occasionally flourished as a result of favourable patronage: the French royal chapel in the second half of the 17th century, for example, consisted of about 60 singers, Louis XIV having doubled its former size in order to make it a sufficiently splendid representative of his opulent court. For the celebration of particularly important occasions, untypically large choral bodies were sometimes created either by combining two or more choirs or by enlarging a single choir through the temporary employment of additional singers. The choirs of the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey were customarily combined at English coronations, and on at least one occasion, the funeral of Handel in 1759...

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With only a few exceptions, secular music continued throughout the Renaissance to be sung by soloists. At the courts and in the homes of aristocrats and prosperous merchants, madrigals, chansons and all other types of Renaissance secular music were performed for pleasure by amateurs, sometimes with the assistance, or perhaps under the leadership, of court or household professional musicians. Men and women were on an equal footing in performing these convivial pieces, and instruments were freely combined and interchanged with the voices; the social nature of the musical activity made it essential for all those present on any given occasion to contribute whatever vocal or instrumental talents they possessed. Although secular music of this period was generally sung and played by solo performers, there were some important occasions, such as festivities associated with court weddings, at which it was publicly performed by choruses consisting for the most part of professional musicians. In ...

(b Boskovice, 19 Jan 1984).Czech composer and performer (voice, accordion, and tap dance). She studied the accordion (2004–10) and composition (2007–8) at the Brno Conservatory, and composition at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts (with martin smolka and Peter Graham[1]). She also studied as an exchange student at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, the California Institute of the Arts (with michael pisaro), the Universität der Künste Berlin (with Marc Sabat), and Columbia University (with george e. lewis).

While she often works with elements outside of music, there is almost always an intense engagement with direct listening, often arrived at through intense focus on very limited material. Sources for her work include Morse code, maps of garments which she turns into scores (Shirt for Harp, Oboe, and Accordion; Jacket for Ensemble), field recordings which she notates descriptively and then asks musicians to interpret the notation (...